The Inner Cartographer:

Orientation, Guides, and Clinical Wisdom in Uncertain Terrain

Dates: June 10, 2026

Times: Central US time-presenter based in Austin, Texas, USA

• 9 am - 4 pm

Hours: Marshall Lyles is seeking approval to offer continuing education credit to counselors. Please check our website for updates.

Presenter: Marshall Lyles, MA, LPC-S, LMFT-S, RPT-S, EMDRIA Approved Consultant & Abby Esquivel, LCSW ACS

Description: Clinicians are trained in maps: theories, modalities, diagnostic systems, institutional structures.

Yet there are seasons in professional life when the available maps feel incomplete, outdated, or

misaligned with lived reality. During such times, therapists may experience disorientation—not

only about practice, but about direction, identity, and authority.

This experiential 6-hour training invites clinicians to become inner cartographers: to notice, map,

and tend their own internal landscapes as a source of orientation and wisdom. Participants will

explore how definitions of “direction,” “lost,” and “destination” are often inherited rather than

consciously chosen, and how reclaiming authorship over these definitions strengthens agency

and professional integrity.

Using metaphors of terrain, weather, guides, and navigation, clinicians will:

• Differentiate internal landscape from external conditions

• Identify guides and lineages that shape their work

• Rework personal definitions of direction and destination

• Strengthen discernment and embodied knowing

• Develop a personalized orientation statement for clinical practice

This training centers person-of-the-therapist as foundational to grounded, ethical, and resilient

clinical presence.

Learning objectives:

1. Compare between inherited professional “maps” and internally developed clinical

orientation.

2. Identify at least three elements of their internal landscape that influence clinical decision-

making.

3. Describe the role of guides, mentors, and lineage in shaping professional identity.

4. Apply a framework for distinguishing between external conditions (“weather”) and

internal agency.

5. Create personal definitions of “lost,” “direction,” and “destination” within professional

development.

6. Design an orientation statement or personal model that integrates values, guides, and

embodied discernment.

Registration information: The registration fee is $180.

Cancellation policy: Registration is non-refundable, but registrants can secure their own replacement.

Please contact marshall.lyles.assistant@gmail.com for any questions related to this event.

Full agenda:

9-10a:

When the map is not enough, understanding disorientation

Objective 1 addressed

- maps vs orientation, the limits of theory as sole guide, disorientation as developmental signal, and inherited professional expectations

- experiential activity

- mapping the inner landscape: becoming the cartographer

Objective 2 addressed

- inner landscape as terrain, values and identity, internalized institutional structures

- small group discussion

10-11a:

weather and terrain, differentiating what is mine

Objective 4 addressed

-lecture on external conditions (cultural, systemic, organizational), internal responses and

narrative, look at agency and choice and limitations

-experiential activity

11-12p: guides, mentors, lineage

Objective 3 addressed

-professional lineage, supervisory and theoretical influence, implicit/explicit teachers,

explore relationship between being mentored and becoming mentor

-experiential activity

-small group discussion

Lunch 12-1

1-2p: redefining direction, lost, and destination

Objective 5 addressed

-lecture on inherited directions vs reclaimed direction, reframing lost as remapping,

direction as alignment vs achievement, destination and time explored

-experiential activity

2-3p: agency and the construction of our inner world

Objective 4 addressed

-lecture: explore internal sense of ethics, agency vs control

-steadiness during instability

-experiential activity

3-4p : articulating orientation

Objective 6 addressed

-embodied coherence, pattern recognition and wisdom, alignment between values and

action, relationship to orientation during changing conditions

-experiential activity

-small group discussion