Graduate Spotlight
Carla Wills-Brandon, Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition
This native Californian remembers growing up with neighbors who planted herb gardens and shared their harvest, who cooked with herbs, and who made herbal salves or medicinal teas as home remedies.
Carla Wills-Brandon also grew up with an eating disorder that followed sexual abuse. Writing voluminously to journal through many years of fear, anger and bewilderment, she ultimately followed the mythological tradition of Chiron, the wounded healer, by becoming a psychologist.
Over the years, Carla has enjoyed making herbal concoctions to enhance her family’s health. Starting with herbal teas while breast-feeding, she soon progressed to soothing tinctures to combat sleep deprivation and post-partum depression.
Her family’s move to Texas allowed Carla’s further experimentation with indigenous herbal remedies for her children’s bumps and bruises. In 1989 she wrote her first book on a dare, after complaining of the media’s biases and misinformation in how it portrays eating disorders.
She has since written eight more books, on a diversity of topics: how to set healthy boundaries, sexual addictions, childhood trauma, and near death experiences. Her numerous book tours have included radio and print media interviews, plus many appearances on national television. Carla has been interviewed by Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, Sally Jesse Raphael, Geraldo Rivera and Howard Sterne, among others.
Amid interviews that sometimes scandalized or moralized these provocative topics, she is proud to have encouraged two talk show hosts to provide aftercare counseling for the abuse victims they interviewed. By keeping an open mind and maintaining control of her message even while the occasional combative interviewer tried to engage and enrage her emotions, Carla is also proud to have developed a rapport with some of her fellow TV guests. In one case, a year’s correspondence with Carla encouraged a drug-addicted stripper to enter a 12-step program, get off drugs, stop stripping and start college.
While continuing her psychology practice, in 1998 Carla decided to embark on a Clayton College Ph.D. program, which she completed in less than two years with a 3.9 GPA! CCNH also inspired Carla Wills-Brandon to end a seven-year hiatus from book publishing. In 2000 she authored a book on natural mental health.
“The Clayton coursework was thorough and challenging,” she says. “The courses were well-prepared and I’m amazed at what I learned. It was great, not having to commute to classes and not having to leave my family or my work. I loved being able to study at my own pace and really take time to enjoy my studies.”
Carla’s ninth book, A Glimpse of Heaven, is set for fall, 2003 release. But this time the author has set a new boundary. Focusing more on radio interviews and less on TV, she can avoid jet lag and enjoy interviews within the comfort of her own home.
This psychologist is pleased to offer clients holistic treatment approaches with healthy boundaries. “I will carry the message but not the person,” she concludes. “Healing is an ‘inside job’ and each of us is our own best healer. The clients I work with learn to take total responsibility for their physical, emotional and spiritual healing. I have many tools to offer, but each of us is responsible for healing our own past traumas. I assign homework, require abstinence from addictions, and I strongly recommend support groups.”
Carla was part of a support group that recently accompanied her 82-year-old aunt to Poland on a tour of Auschwitz, where 1.5 million innocent people were murdered. Through it all her aunt, an Auschwitz survivor, demonstrated deep inner strength, perseverance and resilience by creating a wonderful life in America and releasing all the emotions that did not serve her. “Her heroic struggle is a tangible reminder to all: Never give up!”
Carla believes that these stories will be helpful for her clients and for others who are suffering from grief or from a major setback. “We don’t have to go through everything personally,” Carla concludes, “but we do have to ‘do our own work’ in order to identify, work through, and release all that isn’t needed. Usually, that’s a lot.”
By her own modern-day example, Carla is teaching people how to take care of themselves nutritionally, emotionally and spiritually, in order to enjoy abundant life, to be of maximum service to family and friends, and to help make the world a better place.
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