We recently connected with Deborah A Forrest and have shared our conversation below.

Deborah A, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

Between 1966 and 1975, death became a common theme in my life. During that time, I lost my maternal grandfather, my father, an adult half-sister, and my mother. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross MD published her first of many books on Death & Dying. Grieving all of those losses for me was sandwiched in between working, attending undergraduate and graduate school. I limped along trying to cope with the stressors that came with those life altering events. In the early 1990s, as part of my PHD graduate studies, I took a weeklong grief resolution workshop offered by Dr. Kubler-Ross and her team in Arizona. Dr. Ross taught our group of 100 participants about the grieving process. It was an experiential training program that allowed each of us to experience the type of grieve processing treatment she advocated. By the end of that week, I recognized that I had undergone an internal transformation of my grieving process that was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was THE DEFINING MOMENT in my Life. I could acknowledge the losses I came to grieve without feeling the debilitating pain they brought me in the past. This experience was so profound, that I approached Dr. Kubler-Ross and asked her permission to conduct my PHD research on her grief groups externalization processes. She gave me permission to do it. My findings from this PHD research study definitively proved that the Externalization Process Dr. Kubler advocated was effective.

Ironically, while I was conducting the data analysis for this research study, I underwent some rather unusual coping experiences that would introduce me to a realm of quantum energy I would not understand for another 20 years. Those experiences are cited in my latest book “The Cosmic River: How Living in the Flow Can Transform Your Life Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings”.

Deborah A, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My background has been in nursing, psychology, professional publications, biomedical research, professional speaking and the publications of 3 books – 2 on dementia and 1 on quantum energy. All 3 books address some aspects of what is now known as spirituality and quantum energy. My first two books addressed the spiritual aspects of dementia of the Alzheimer’s Type and other lesser-known degenerative diseases that cause dementia. [See my website]. My newest book addresses the quantum energy that is available to everyone. It’s focus in on uncovering simple ways for a person to access her/his own personal quantum energy. Once this level of awareness is reached the person will begin to understand the power that is found within him/her.

My products and services include books and workshops. The workshops are designed to help individuals to identify personal belief systems and blocks that may be preventing the person from achieving the successful outcomes (s)he is seeking. Additionally, the workshops include exercise for participants to experience so they can understand that vast forms of energy they already possess, e.g. heart energy, gut energy.

I am most proud of the books and workshops I have created over the past 25 years. In 1993 I survived a major automobile accident that resulted in the first of four traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and a near death experience. My husband was my support system for the first TBI. After his death from Bone Marrow Cancer in 2002, I was on my own. The subsequent TBIs altered my life in ways that only one who has experienced a TBI would understand. I learned many different ways to adapt to my environment and the demand of writing more books and creating new cutting-edge workshops.

Please feel free to ask me questions about the information presented in this section and those that follow.
Dr. Deborah Forrest

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In the mid-1980s I owned a biomedical laser consulting company. My team and I conducted some cutting-edge research on the health hazards of biomedical laser plume created by surgeons’ use of lasers in surgery. That research set the gold standard for the safe use of biomedical lasers in operating room theaters around the globe. For 5 years I was a speaker on many national and international speakers’ panels. In the late 1980s the healthcare industry underwent a major economic transition with the introduction of the DRG payment format. Many of the healthcare corporations underwent drastic transformations in an effort to maintain their businesses. My small consulting company was a casualty of that transformation of the healthcare industry.

Following these events, I decided to attend an APA approved PHD program in Clinical Psychology to add to my skills as a Master’s Prepared Mental Health Nurse. After 5 years, I obtained a MS and PHD in Clinical Psychology.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

During my youth, I was classified as an Appalachian Poverty-Stricken student by the US Government. My father had retired from his position at the Alcoa Aluminum Company when I was 16 years old. There were no funds for college. I was awarded a grant from the JFK Community Mental Health Fund to attend a 3-year hospital nursing program in Knoxville, TN. Following the completion of that program, I became a Registered Nurse. For the next 10 years, I worked a nurse and attended night school to obtain my BSN. After that, I went on to obtain a MSN in Community Mental Health Nursing and began moving up the nursing professional development ladder. I became the youngest operating room manager of a major teaching medical center’s operating room theater in the late 1970s. During that period of time, I met my first female surgeon! She was a pediatric general surgeon. Meeting her opened my eyes to an opportunity that I had never known was possible for me – I could have become a pediatric general surgeon too! That dream was never realized. During that same period, both of my parents died. I ended up looking after and supporting my 2 sisters and their children. Eventually, I did obtain an advanced degree in clinical psychology.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dr-deborah-forrest.com
• Instagram: deborah.forrest.73
• Facebook: deborah.forrest.73
• Linkedin: https://LinkedIn.com/in/deborah-a-forrest-ph-d-85a54810b

Image Credits

Photographer Credit: Kenneth Dolin Photography, Los Angeles, CA