-
My Approach
-
My Teachers
-
Why Salamander?
“Amateurs borrow, professionals steal.” – Andy Warhol
First things first, my name is Cory Coppersmith and I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
What am I like?
I genuinely admire people and rejoice in the good qualities I see in my clients. I have a broad perspective, and the ability to help people rise above the claustrophobia of their day-to-day hopes and fears. Finally, maybe most importantly, I’m supposedly very funny. I try to use humor to bash open that casket of stress you’re buried alive in, so we can get you out into daylight again.
Where did I learn?
Everything worthwhile about my approach, I have stolen (or been given) by extraordinary mentors and role models: from psychodynamic therapists and professors of Rhetoric to Buddhist nuns and monks and at least one Gay Marxist country singer.
My bachelor’s degree is from Penn State in Speech & Rhetoric (rare for a therapist), and my Masters of Social Work is from the University of Pittsburgh. I have studied a variety of spiritual, artistic, and martial disciplines in traditional settings in China and the U.S (see my teachers).
How does it work?
I have a lot of influences but that doesn’t mean I’m “eclectic” in my approach. My counseling is grounded in three modes of treatment:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: helps you get “out of your head and into your life.”
Motivational Interviewing: helps people resolve uncertainty and find clear direction.
Internal Family Systems: helps us talk to and heal all those complex, wounded parts of yourself that you’ve picked up along the road since childhood.
I am indebted to mentors and literal Gurus who have taught me far more than mere objects of knowledge. From these people, I have learned how to be in the world, how to live a meaningful life.
I have learned from and wish to acknowledge several of these people, especially:
Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche, a nun and lineage holder of the Mindroling lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
Jetsun Dechen Paldron, her sister and another lineage holder of Mindroling.
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, another prominent teacher of the Nyingma and Sakya schools.
Chen Shiyu, a Sanfeng Pai Tai Chimaster from Mount Wudang, in China.
Heather Martin LCSW, a psychodynamic therapist, former professor of mine, and mentor for the last ten years.
Ken Thompson, MD; psychiatrist and head of behavioral health at the Squirrel Hill Health Center, a clinic for refugees in Pittsburgh, PA.
Dr. Rosa Eberly, a professor of Rhetoric and activist mentor at Penn State.
Dr. Aaronette White, a former African American studies professor and activist mentor at Penn State.
The nickname Coriander was given to me a long time ago, but the Salamander part eventually just got attached by somebody’s predictable rhyming. I love salamanders, and I latched on to the epithet Coriander Salamander for my brand.
The ancients considered Salamanders (or newts) magical because of a paradoxical relationship to the four elements: they breathe air, but live on earth and in water. The ancient Greeks thought Salamanders had a magical ability to create or suppress fire. If you threw one into a house fire, the Salamander would extinguish it. Likewise, like mice drawn to grain, Salamanders would seek out the heat and light of great fires that burn continuously–so, Salamanders might infest the coals of a forge and put a blacksmith out of business. Their bodies were thought to produce both medicine and poison, and they were, overall, little powerhouses of energy. For all these reasons, I consider them to be one of my familiar creatures.
