The resilience literature suggests that just one supportive person in our lives can be enough to help us overcome hardship. Dr. Katherine Allen, professor of Family Studies at Virginia Tech, has been a great source of support for me. She has been an academic mentor as well as a life mentor. I hope to convey all of the ways she has profoundly affected my life.

I completed my doctoral work in marriage and family therapy at Virginia Tech. The first year was an extremely stressful transition for me. I was overwhelmed by the academic and clinical rigors of the doctoral program. It was difficult to shift from the familiarity of my hometown in the Northeast to the South. I had been living on my own before I moved but always within reach of close family and friends. Suddenly, I was separated from the comforts of home by a long, lonely drive on Highway 81.

I met Katherine Allen during my first year. She was my teacher as well as supervisor for my teaching assistantship. As part of my assistantship, I was responsible for teaching a large introductory, undergraduate class. I will never forget the first meeting I had with her to discuss my teaching. I told her about my hesitation about teaching and she looked at me and said "nothing is easy, but you have to believe in yourself."  She challenged all of my doubts and instilled confidence in me. She taught me about the importance of building a coherent teaching philosophy and inserting myself into the middle of that framework. My philosophy would guide me in helping students understand complex ideas in family studies. Her passion for teaching and excellence was contagious. She spoke with conviction, and her humanity was refreshing. Her energy reignited my fire for the field.

During my second year, there were a lot of changes. My other mentor was in a terrible car accident which forced him to take some time off. This was very unsettling as he was a stabilizing force for me as I tried to make sense of the chaos of graduate school. During his absence, I felt that I was losing direction so I decided to take a leave from the program. I spent many hours debating whether to drop out of the Ph.D. program.

Katherine was a source of grounding. She had faith in me which she told me frequently. She shared her own struggles which normalized mine and made them seem manageable. She gave me mental exercises which helped me to overcome my blocks. She gave me the idea to place Post-It Note messages everywhere I turned, including my bathroom mirror. The messages were reinforcing of me as a unique and capable person who could do anything I set my mind to.

I made it to the final test-the dissertation. I felt I could only do it with her as mentor. She pushed me not to let a dissertation project defeat me. She instilled in me the belief that I could write a rich, meaningful dissertation. She gave me the idea to carry stones in my pocket that I would rub whenever I felt like giving up as a way to remind me of my grounding. The stones were a tangible reminder that I came from a family of resilient people who taught me how to be resilient. She taught me the necessary rigors of qualitative research. She helped me build the trustworthiness of my study by challenging my interpretation of the data. In May of 2003, I graduated with my Ph.D. and have never looked back since.

Katherine's mentoring did not stop there. Following the completion of my Ph.D., she challenged me even further to publish my findings. She helped me to think through my ideas and mentored me through the publication process. In 2004, I submitted my first manuscript to one of the top journals in my discipline, the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. Upon first submission, I was devastated to learn that I was being asked to revise and resubmit. I focused on every negative critique by reviewers. I could have given up, but she pointed to the positive in the reviews. She also shared her own experiences of never giving up when she received reviews.

I now have nine publications and am proud of my body of work. In addition, I received the Anselm Strauss award from NCFR. Katherine taught me that nothing is easy and that hard work is rewarding. She has a contagious passion for writing, research and ideas. One of the most powerful parts of her mentoring was her willingness to hold out her own experiences. She has a great ability for knowing when to be hands on and push a mentee and when to pull back and let a mentee struggle to succeed on his or her own. When I pick up the phone, and I hear the enthusiasm and energy in her voice, I absorb it and continue taking steps toward my goals. Katherine Allen has been my inspiration, and I write this with intense gratitude.