We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Molly King a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Molly, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
My parents are both huge fans of literature and the visual arts. They always encouraged me to create. I remember being 7 or 8 and gluing tissue paper to plastic cups, an attempt to make a tower. There were always crafts and creating in my childhood and I still remember how limitless and powerful it felt to make something on my own. My parents also nurtured my love of stories. It took me a long time to learn how to read and they read to me and included me in all the stories they knew one day I would be able to read independently. When I finally got it, they invited the whole family over to hear me read a book out-loud. My parents talked about books and good stories more than anything else in my childhood and even to this day. They fully supported my decision to major in Creative Writing at Murray State, even though I imagine they worried about my career options. They knew the power of stories and the unique ability stories have to inspire us and lead us toward healing. I went back to school to get a masters in counseling and art therapy. It seemed from the outside that this was a total change in direction but it didn’t feel that way for me or for them. I could learn all I wanted about grief in a stale classroom but nothing then or since has taught me more about grief than poetry. In particular, the earth shattering poems my dad would recite from memory. When I first told my parents that I wrote a play about what I witnessed in my industry, they worried that this could be a distraction. This fear faded fast, and what replaced it was their unwavering belief in the importance of expression. I know I have worked every day since I wrote “Asking Toddlers to do Algebra” to get it to stage, but I’m deeply aware that none of it would be possible without the purity of their love and support.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a business owner of a private practice with experience mainly in Autistic, trauma, and Use Disorder populations. I opened my business Molly Fitz King Therapy LLC in November of 2023 and have been a licensed therapist since 2017. I think what sets me apart from other therapists is the way I use alternative means of communication when the words are failing us. The power of sounds, artistic expressions, movements, and general co-regulation practices tends to pave the way for how I show up as a therapist. The primary modality I use is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy but it’s important to me to make the application of the skills realistic for how fast paced every day life can be. Another thing that sets me apart, is my personal experience with an acute mental health crisis. Early in my career, I watched hundreds of young people overdose and die in an incredibly short period of time. The gravity of human carnage led to my own hospitalization. I bring an additional awareness of what the system and process feel like from the perspective of the client. I ended up writing a play that will show at the Mex in the Kentucky Center for the Arts July 25-27. The play is called Asking Toddlers to do Algebra. It was originally a project of personal healing to express my own rage at the corruption in the system, but it evolved over time into an opportunity to educate and empower vulnerable populations and providers. This project eventually turned into political advocacy because the proposal I discussed in the play became a real proposal after I connected with my representative Josie Raymond who got it drafted in February of 2022. The bill is called Braxton’s Bill and mandates long term coverage for substance use disorders. If this became a law, all private insurance providers would have to cover 6 months of upper level evidenced based use disorder treatment.
The play has been such a wild journey and really required me to lean into the many parts of this I cannot control. A new level of vulnerability has shown up for me as we grow closer to the production date. I’m honoured that my private creation can be made public and I’m also scared. Even though this play is fully fictional, it is still informed by very real feelings and very real failed systems. I have even come to find that there’s a little bit of my soul tied up in this project. The level of fear growing larger the closer the date draws has confused the people I love. They have seen me create out loud for decades in poetry, visual arts, and sculpture. To them, this doesn’t seem different. To me, it couldn’t be more different. In high school, I became fascinated by ephemeral art, which is art that is created in order to be temporary. Much of what I have made since that fascination has been for the love of creating. It has been my private connection to process, expression, and regulation. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I have created something I don’t want to be temporary. I have created something with the intended purpose of change, community building, and healing. I’m not worried about the play being judged, this is inevitable, and what artist isn’t accustomed to criticism? I feel a heightened level of pressure to make each character and the storyline memorable. I’ve also been gifted by Laura Graven to use the name of her son, who died of fentanyl poisoning on Wednesday May 13, 2020, for the name of the bill. She and her family have been huge parts of play and bill from the beginning and I want to be able know that I lived up to that honour.
I always feel conflicted when people ask me what I am most proud of because, on the surface, my answer is easy to judge. I am most proud of my marriage. I’ve learned so much about myself, the world, and healthy communication through this intimate connection. When we met, I operated fully on spontaneity and fly by the seat of my pants mentality. I learned quickly how problematic that was for him, and, in times when I was able to be really honest, how much it didn’t work for any of my other relationships including my relationship with myself. He had his own ways he grew and changed but, of course, that’s not my story to tell. I still have a curious, playful and spontaneous demeanour but I no longer let any of those qualities be an excuse to not show up to what I committed to. My commitment to him keeps me so grounded when the world doesn’t make sense and when I’m disappointed with others, I find myself remembering the peace I’m grateful to go home to. Part of why I’m so proud of this relationship, is that when there’s a lack of peace between the two of us, I’ve done the work that allows me to remain patient through the hard parts. I connect my relationship to him back to my career because I have been able to help my clients advocate for healthy relationships with their partners and with themselves using what I have learned professionally and the insight gained from putting it all to practice. I have found that all the greatest relationship wisdom is useless if it isn’t realistic. I think the longer I have done this work the easier it is for me to read what’s realistic for different clients at different times.
A great example of this is gratitude. If someone is deeply depressed, gratitude comes around almost like a weapon. It is impossible and harmful for some people in crisis to use a skill like gratitude. It makes them feel shame that gratitude isn’t available. On the other hand, when the crisis is over it can become that same person’s greatest asset.
In responding to what I want people to know about my brand, I care most about honesty, curiosity, and integrity. My relationship to those values is constantly evolving. My relationship to having any kind of brand is conflicted. I have a history of allowing myself to be defined by my creativity but I even found that limiting. As an advocate, I stand up for the rights of vulnerable populations and that is critical to me but I also stand up for my own right to work life balance and saying no to new projects. We don’t have enough conversations about how important both sides are to make work in this field sustainable. Ultimately, the process of helping clients define themselves and their relationships with full freedom has always been my biggest focus. When it is tempting to impose specific structures into gaining regulation skills that I know have worked for myself or others, I come back to the unwavering fact of their freedom. When it is tempting get stuck in the biases associated with learning new modalities or theories, I come home again to the unwavering fact of their freedom. I repeatedly remind myself that providers blinded by the obsession of what they are doing, stop being able to see the human being sitting across from them. It can be challenging to do all this still rooted in honesty, but when the whole thing translates effectively, and the client, in question, is also an appropriate fit, we both get to witness a powerful positive change. My brand, in light of all this, is balanced freedom.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The mission driving my creative journey as it relates to the play, is advocacy and the process of using art to heal. Each fundraiser we have done, we have brought with us a string to tie names of those lost to this disease. The flags of names will come with us to the play as well. The opportunity to heal together as a group with art has been such an important piece of the play.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative has always been the tie it has to healing. I get the opportunity to heal from a wide variety of life stressors and trauma via creation. For me, this is bigger than what I put on paper or on a stage. It’s really about how creativity shows up in every day life to bring us together and to help us find meaning and acceptance. As far as advocacy goes, I know I am unable to fully accept any of the things I witnessed my first few years in the field until I’ve tried my hardest to change it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fitzkingtherapy.com
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/molly-fitzgerald-king-louisville-ky/767152
my website may not be fully finished by the time of the article but is listed in first box
Image Credits
Robby King (legal name Eugene Robert King jr.