About2

What's in a Name?

The Rose Center for Learning was so named for two deliberate reasons. Years ago, I, Dr. Berton, lived in a valley of Massachusetts that was particularly battered by challenging weather, especially in winter when the snow seemed to accumulate at a greater rate than the rest of New England. Ice was often an issue, and there were ice storms that took out some of the loveliest trees in the area. Japanese Beatles all but demolished the tree population during one bad year. Storms, tornadoes and floods had a solid history in the years before I lived there as well. But there was one bush that survived all of it, and that was a set of rose bushes that had been planted when my house had been built, in 1934. Those bushes saw it all, everything Mother Nature could throw their way, and yet they rose (see what I did there...) above it all. Despite a lot of house and neighborhood construction, many different owners, surely not all of them green thumbs, and some with children playing all around...yet the bushes survived and continued to produce the most beautiful roses. I thought then that if I ever opened my own business the rose would be at its heart, because I couldn't (and still can't) imagine a better symbol of the heartiness, strength, and dogged determination I see in people. We all struggle with different things at different times, and we often need help from others, but we are built to be survivors, just like that little rose bush. No matter what life throws at us, with the right tools we can rise.

The second deliberate word is "learning." This may seem strange at first, as most establishments of our type would be named a center of "wellness" or "health." We like health, and wellness is certainly part of what we are after, but learning is at the core of all we do here at the RCFL. Whether you are learning how to conquer some specific aspect of yourself that you wish to change, or how to be a better spouse, or how to manage some distressful symptoms of an illness, or how to become a stronger, more successful clinician, or how to create a better, more satisfied and agile team in your business, you are here because there is something you need or want to learn. In an attempt to reduce so much stigma that plagues mental health, we wanted to normalize what we do here by using a familiar, comfortable descriptor. You are here to learn to be better, we are here to guide you there

Although The Rose Center for Learning was a dream name decades ago, it took awhile to get here through a course of various other names. For years, I maintained two separate businesses: the counseling practice and the training company. The counseling practice was under my name, and the training company was initially Berton Trainings, and then became Clinical Trainings Institute when I invited other trainers to join. I then began developing and giving trainings on topics outside of what I would consider clinical areas, and the name CTI was not inclusive.