Deane Brown, Ph.D., M.F.T
Deane Brown was the person who warmly welcomed me to Santa Cruz when I moved here in 1988. Deane later agreed to be my clinical supervisor for my MFT intern hours through most of the 1990s and made it possible for me to get through that challenging period having the support of someone who had similar values and an expanded therapeutic paradigm. She supervised me in private sessions and also in my work at the residential drug treatment facility, Sunflower House.
Deane described her own intense period of spiritual emergency leading to personal lasting transformation in an article in Quest magazine.
What did I learn from Deane Brown?
Deane taught me that listening and silence is vastly undervalued in traditional therapeutic training and that unconditional positive regard and presence is more important than technique but that both can coexist. I am ever grateful that her wisdom about and trust in life’s twists and turns is still being channeled to my current clients, most of whom are traveling through a spiritual emergence/y.
Excerpts from Deane’s Obituary
Flora Deane Russell Brown passed away peacefully in Santa Cruz on February 9, 2011. She was 89….
Deane was born on August 23, 1921, to Joseph and Louise Russell in San Jose, California. An avid life-long learner, Deane received a BS degree in Meteorology from UCLA in 1943, an MS degree in School Psychology from San Jose State University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology from American Commonwealth University in 1977. She was a pioneer in aviation for women and earned her private pilot’s license in 1939….
Deane’s spiritual awareness grew in the 1970s, and after a powerful transcendent experience, she joined and eventually directed the Spiritual Emergency Network [now the Spiritual Emergence Network] in Santa Cruz.
Many people will fondly remember Deane as a favorite relative or truly special friend. She believed in equal opportunity for all people and in serving others before herself, and she lived her life practicing these beliefs. She was a wonderful listener, and maintained her warm, gracious, kind, intuitive and intelligent presence until the end of her days. She will be remembered for her laughter, her positive spirit in the face of difficulties, the joy in her voice when she picked up the phone and heard who was calling, and for the many colorful scarves she loved to wear….
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