Peggy remembered as a therapist

Paul Aikin, one of our area's leading therapists, wanted to add a voice from the therapy community about Peggy. He didn't have prepared remarks at the memorial, but in an email today asked that I distribute his thoughts to family and friends.

A Memorial Tribute to Peggy Smith

I had the privilege and honor of being one of Peggy's teachers. We met every other week in a consult group for 12 years. Peggy was an unusual psychiatrist. She loved doing deep relational psychotherapy. She had a gift for it. Peggy was a quick study and eager learner. While many therapists shy away from processing directly the therapist’s impact on the patient and the patient's impact on the therapist, Peggy became very skilled in tracking these moves between her patients and herself.  She would wade right into the relational conflicts and help her patients connect with what wasn't working for them-- creating corrective relational experiences.

In recent years we have come to know from attachment theory and research that the therapists’ love of their patients is essential in healing insecure attachment wounds. Peggy was way ahead of her time. While many therapists still felt that it was inappropriate for a therapist to love her patients, Peggy grew to be comfortable with it. The loving, exuberant, mischievous and warm Peggy described by so many friends and family here at the Memorial today entered into her psychotherapy as well. She did not need to hide behind the role of being a psychotherapist. She was able to be the real, transparent, authentic warm person we all know and love in her position as psychotherapist while at the same time keeping the relationship therapeutic.

Peggy had a message on her answering machine saying that her practice was full many years before she stopped working. She was known as a therapist’s therapist. From time to time I would prevail upon Peggy to take on another therapist. (We all know that healers need healing.) She never turned me down. Many of those therapists have expressed how eternally grateful they were to have had the privilege of being touched and healed by her awesome level of attunement, presence, caring, courage, warmth, and authenticity.

Just as it is such a loss for friends and family, the therapeutic community of greater Sacramento has also lost an invaluable friend and colleague. She is irreplaceable. She leaves an incredible hole. We all miss her so much. And at the same time, she is already part of the lore of our relational therapeutic community. She leaves a shining light of what's possible.

Paul Aikin

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Paul A. Aikin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Licensed Marriage, Family Therapist
Certified EFT Couples Therapist
EFT Supervisor-In-Training