Kim Mack – Profile by Mike Greenly
As a successful professional in New York, Kimberly Mack (“Kim”) helps people gain awareness and insights into their lives. A talented and insightful employee of Hawthornhealth.org, this social worker works with Harmony Road, a company that allows her to create valuable awareness in the minds of a wide variety of individuals and groups.
While living in an apartment complex for older people in the borough of the Bronx, New York City, I personally experienced her life-enhancing talent in action. With a track record of achievement now in her late 50s, does such impressive work that I felt compelled to increase awareness of her and her organization. Once a week, Mack runs a group called “Cognitive Wellness.” Every Friday morning, her one-hour exercise produces insights into ourselves and valuable perspectives on current situations and future aspirations.
My friend and neighbor, Dennis Kendrick, has commented on what a good listener she is, with her ability to ask questions that make us think. Another friend, Alan LaRue, also attends the Cognitive Wellness sessions for the way “It encourages us to share our truths with each other.”
If Kittay House management hadn’t hired her to bring us an interesting and helpful activity, we would never have known of it. Mack has the creds to back up her skillset. She completed an Associate in Marketing from Westchester Business College, a nursing degree from Westchester Community College later specializing in acute psychiatric care, a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Psychology from Mercy College and another Master’s in social work from NYU.
In addition, Mack has always had an inquisitive mind. As she puts it, “One of my favorite proverbs is ‘A question is a door and curiosity is the key.’ Questioning our thinking is essential to learning about ourselves and about one another as well as the world as a whole.”
She also relates to another proverb about awareness: “May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know when you’ve gone too far.” Mack tries to encourage this kind of self-awareness in the workshop sponsored by her company, Harmony Road.
Q: I had never heard about Harmony Road before.
Kimberly Mack: Harmony Road was founded by a group of passionate individuals who decided to dedicate their lives to helping individuals. Today we handle many different situations. Our founders recognized the need for a small, focused company that could provide personalized treatment to every patient, taking a holistic approach to relevant issues.
As you know yourself from our weekly group, our work reflects the positive value of mental health in general. The goal in our weekly Cognitive Wellness sessions is to help you and your participating neighbors gain insights that will help each of you to achieve greater happiness and success as defined by yourselves.
Q: It’s certainly been working for me. I had decades of psychoanalysis which helped me overcome past problems and become a successful executive. But your sessions give me and my neighbors new ways to view our identities and opportunities. Do you do more than work with organizations like ours?
Kimberly Mack: Yes. In New York, for example, we make in-home visits with mental health services. We’ve expanded our offerings to offer a psychiatric nurse practitioner, with medication management in home or via video. We can also send an aide directly to someone’s home and do safe phlebotomy services, conveniently drawing blood for testing.
There are many ways that an in-home visit can be helpful. We also go to assisted living facilities –– not into nursing homes or rehabs. The bulk of my clients are in-home visits, but I also do telephone visits.
I’m glad to be of service to a wide variety of people. I have several Vietnam vets. People with mental stressors, anxiety and decades-old conflict in some cases. I have noticed that all my clients share varying kinds of grief.
Q: Can you share a bit about the organization.
Kimberly Mack: Harmony Road is under the umbrella of Hawthornehealth.org. We work to help our clients find and use wisdom from the comfort of their own homes. Here in New York City, I’m glad to be working with Daniel Kohen, a wonderful supervisor and mentor. When I seek advice, he’s where I turn.
But as you’ll see when you explore our website, we have about 20 social workers upstate in New York’s Westchester County alone. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of future expansions. I’m proud to work in a company that does so much good.
Q: You have many more functions than the group I experience in my building’s auditorium every Friday afternoon. What do you like about running the Cognitive Awareness group?
Kimberly Mack: I love and appreciate stimulating others. While also being stimulated by seeing people become more aware of thoughts and ideas they hadn’t realized were in their minds. To question things they hadn’t asked themselves about before. And to appreciate each other more. To gain a higher sense of gratitude and awareness about themselves and their own lives.
Our discussions and sharings as a group bring up topics one might not have thought of. They’re stimulating. The groups attract people who want these kinds of insights … but not always people who might need and benefit from our discussions. There are a lot of people who could benefit from our “cognitive awareness” conversations.
Q: You run other types of groups as well?
Kimberly Mack: Yes, and I love doing it. When I went to NYU for social work, my favorite course was group work. Out of everybody I met there, our group teacher, Adrienne Resnick LCSW was the most dynamic, well-versed, and well-traveled. She had the most compassion, empathy, and understanding of others. She and I got along well and I am honored to follow in her footsteps.
I’ve done a couple groups for a classroom at Mercy College. I also led groups at a secure state-operated hospital for individuals with mental illness who require forensic treatment, often following court-ordered commitment.
Any chance to broaden people’s perspectives and ideas –– getting them to think about themselves and others –– is a good thing. Whoever I meet, I’d like to improve the quality of their life. Engaging them in a way that is stimulating and makes them think.
Q: How did your career take this direction?
Kimberly Mack: This has become my life path, my destiny. I started working washing cars as an eight-year-old and as soon as I had a bit of money, I bought a subscription to “Psychology Today.”
I was planning to get a PhD in psychology. But the people who knew me best and whom I respected the most said that, actually, I was already doing social work in my life. They asked me, “So why don’t you focus on social work?”
I’m so glad they encouraged me in that direction. NYU Social Work gave me a broader perspective than psychology alone. You could say that my work is “bio-psycho-social,” seeking to help the people I work with in multiple ways of understanding, not just one.
At Mercy College, I worked through many courses with the Sociology Department on conflict resolution with the amazing Dr. Dorothy Balancio. This deeply involves learning to understand relationships while building trust & intimacy and finding comfort in them.
I had focused on psychology for many years, starting with myself. That’s the place to start: “to thine own self be true.” I’ve always been a seeker, in an ongoing quest to learn and grow. Real growth starts with gaining insights into one’s self, which I work to help others gain as well. Every relationship is compromised when we don’t understand ourselves.
Q: Working with a group of older people, that’s just part of what you do?
Kimberly Mack: Yes. For example, I go to New Rochelle on Tuesdays. There are regular clients I see – both in assisted living and in their homes.
Not necessarily just single elderly. I also help multiple family members at times. I’ve gone into an Alzheimer’s unit as part of my assisted living focus, with memory care and a spectrum of dementia. I’ve started couples counseling, too. But my favorite thing is the concept of Wellness, because everybody can benefit from that.
I find my clients very interesting. Each of them has a story and when you truly process it, you find wisdom. When we learn to see our lives from a broader perspective, we gain peace from understanding our truths in a way that connects them more to themselves and others.
Working with elders is really great, too. Many professionals want to work with children, so kids already have enough help. But I think our elder population is sometimes misunderstood –– especially now in society.
Ageism is a factor. Older people are underserved in some regards. With a lot of isolation in some cases. So to have someone truly listen is valuable, and I’m glad to do it.
I’m now using my listening skills, for example, with one particular client’s life story. He was a musician for 50 years but these days his hands aren’t working. We’re capturing his life story so he can share it with his family. I’m helping him leave his legacy in written form.
Having read “Psychology Today” when I was eight years old, a half-century later, I’m still fascinated by learning why people do what they do. Being of help in every way I can. That’s giving me real satisfaction.
For more information go to: hawthornhealth.org which brings you to Harmony Road.
