Los Angeles Chapter — California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists
Voices — July 2023
Christina “Tina” Cacho Sakai, LMFTPresident, LA-CAMFT
Innovation, Courage and Passion
Join me in welcoming Secretary and TOC Mentorship Program Committee Member, Mayra Diaz, LMFT and Communications & Marketing Chair, Laura Sgro, LCSW to the 2023 LA-CAMFT Board of Directors! We are thrilled to have them join us this year as they bring forth their leadership skills of innovation, courage and passion to better the organization and therapeutic community at large.
Mayra Diaz, LMFT, is known in the professional community for her specialty working with anxiety, OCD and people of color, and hosting monthly LA Therapist Mixers. Mayra enjoys working with people who are new to therapy or who haven’t had the best experiences in therapy within the realms of anxiety and OCD. “The appropriate treatment can be really effective and I love being able to give people that different view.” Last year, Mayra published “The Panic Attack Relief Workbook: A 7-Week Plan for Overcoming Fear, Managing Panic, and Finding Calm.” This year and as a self-proclaimed “training junky,” Mayra enrolled in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy for OCD Certificate Program. As a therapist of color, Mayra is passionate about helping other therapists of color and has a firm belief in the power of mentorship, finding support somewhere and being honest about your limits.
Mayra’s “why” to being a LA-CAMFT Leader:
Mayra’s “hopes and dreams” for LA-CAMFT is to keep pushing forward to become more:
Mayra’s recommendations to those interested in getting more involved with LA-CAMFT:
Laura Sgro, LCSW is very excited to be on the LA-CAMFT Board of Directors. As a LCSW, Laura shares how she has felt so welcomed into the organization and has not felt that she has been othered or doesn’t belong. Laura feels that LA-CAMFT is a Therapist Organization with spaces for everyone regardless of the letters behind our name. Laura expresses how LCSWs and LMFTs have shared goals, similarities and shouldn’t have so much division. As the Communications and Marketing Chair, Laura enjoys creating and designing the social media graphics and finds fun in representing the organization through her graphics. Laura is clearly talented in graphics and design and we invite you to check out her creations and follow LA-CAMFT on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/losangelescamft/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lachaptercamft.
Laura’s “why” to being a LA-CAMFT Leader:
Laura’s “hopes and dreams” for LA-CAMFT:
Laura’s “highlights” of being a LA-CAMFT Leader:
Special thank you to Mayra and Laura for allowing me to interview you and share your awesomeness with the broader LA-CAMFT Community! If you would like to get in contact with either of them, you could find them here: https://lacamft.org/Board-of-Directors-2023. If you are interested in leadership opportunities, please email me directly at President@lacamft.org
Hope to connect soon!
Christina “Tina” Cacho Sakai, LMFT
Friday, July 21, 2023 9:00 am-11:00 am
2 CE Credits
Online Via Zoom
Connect, Protect, & Nourish: A 3-Step Method to Treat Empaths & Highly Sensitive Clients
Event Details: Friday, July 21, 2023, 9:00 am-11:00 am (PT)
Where: Online Via Zoom More information and register today by clicking the Register Here button below.
Register Here
Lynne Azpeitia, LMFTVoices Editor
Getting Paid: To Succeed & Prosper in Your Career and Practice, Join & Actively Participate in Your Professional Association
Therapists are always wanting to know what they can easily do to succeed in their career, find the best jobs in the field, and to keep their practice full, their clients happy, their income high, their expenses low, their license safe, and their services competitive.
Whenever I tell therapists that belonging to and getting involved with their local, state, or national professional associations by attending events and volunteering is the number one thing that will find them jobs, save them money, get them known in their community, keep their practices full, their referral sources plentiful, and their clinical work up-to-date legally, ethically, and clinically—and more, they are very surprised.
Invariably a very lively, interesting, and informative discussion about how professional associations help meet the needs of therapists in practice follows—a very eye-opening one for those who haven’t been aware of how the benefits of membership, participation, and volunteering sustain therapists, their practices, and their careers.
Most therapists look at joining a professional association, or local chapter of one,as a necessary evil that takes money out of their pocket for dues so they can get discounted member pricing for continuing education hours—and access to general legal advice if they have a question or problem—or want a discount on malpractice insurance.
Professional associations are so much more than that.
To thrive in our field, it's essential to not only focus on honing your therapeutic skills but also to actively engage with your professional community. Joining, actively participating, and volunteering in your professional association can play a crucial role in your success and prosperity as a psychotherapist no matter what setting you practice in.
Professional associations are vital hubs for networking, learning, and collaboration among practitioners in our field. These organizations bring together like-minded professionals who share a passion for psychotherapy and provide a platform for ongoing professional development. By joining your professional organization, you gain access to a wealth of resources, support, and opportunities to enhance your practice and your career.
Engaging with peers, mentors, and leaders on a regular basis can open doors to valuable collaborations, referrals, and partnerships. By volunteering as well as attending events—meetings, workshops, and seminars—therapists can expand their professional circle, exchange knowledge, and stay updated with the latest clinical and profession information. Such networking opportunities can lead to a steady stream of referrals, ultimately filling your practice with your ideal clients.
Getting involved in your professional community through active membership and volunteering also provides opportunities for mentorship and support, particularly for early-career psychotherapists. By connecting with experienced practitioners, new therapists can gain valuable guidance, insights, and advice to navigate the challenges and complexities of our profession. This support system can be instrumental in fostering professional growth and confidence as well as clinical excellence.
One of the primary benefits of being an active member of a professional association is certainly the access to continuing education and skill development opportunities. Attending these events allows you to stay updated with the latest research, techniques, and advancements in the field—and enables you to continuously enhance your therapeutic skills and broaden your knowledge base which improves the quality of care you provide to your clients.
Your professional organization also serves as a hub for connecting with other LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Students, and Associates, as well as supervisors, mentors, and researchers. Engaging with your professional network opens doors to collaborative opportunities, referrals, and mentorship relationships. By participating actively, you get to exchange ideas, share experiences, and learn from the collective wisdom of your peers as well as find jobs, employees, office space, and other professional services you need to run your practice or advance in your career. These connections not only enrich your professional life but can also lead to personal growth and career advancement.
Joining and actively participating in a professional association is often a game-changer for therapists, offering many benefits that contribute to career growth and success. By volunteering for committees, organizing events, or taking leadership roles, you can gain visibility, make new connections, and build your resume, while you shape the direction of your professional community and have a positive impact on its future. This active involvement not only enhances your professional reputation but also fosters a sense of pride and accomplishment as you give back to the community that has nurtured you and your career.
Membership in your professional organization also provides free or low-cost opportunities to increase your visibility in the professional community. Websites, newsletters, blogs, therapist directories, eblasts, and social media platforms are all cost-effective marketing and advertising opportunities for members and volunteers since these are distributed throughout the profession as well as to those in related fields.
Professional associations also offer a sense of community and support. The field of psychotherapy is emotionally demanding and can be isolating. Being part of a community where you can connect with colleagues, share experiences, and seek guidance and support when needed is reassuring and helps you know that you are not alone in facing the challenges and rewards of being a psychotherapist.
Lastly, joining a professional association provides you with a sense of community and belonging. Connecting with like-minded professionals who share your passion for psychotherapy is invaluable. It allows you to network with those who understand the unique challenges and triumphs you face every day in your practice. Through these connections, you can find support, exchange ideas, and gain valuable insights that can enhance your experience as a therapist.
As you can see, joining and actively participating in your professional association is essential for success and prosperity in your career as a psychotherapist. By immersing yourself in your professional community, you position yourself for success, growth, and prosperity in your practice and career. Embrace the benefits that membership and volunteering in your association offers and contributes to your career as a psychotherapist.
Discover for yourself why joining, actively participating, and volunteering for your local, state, or national professional organization is a really good use of your time, energy, and money—and how it will keep your practice profitable and bring you continued success in your career. I guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT, AAMFT Approved Supervisor, is in private practice in Santa Monica where she works with Couples and Gifted, Talented, and Creative Adults across the lifespan. Lynne’s been doing business and clinical coaching with mental health professionals for more than 15 years, helping professionals develop even more successful careers and practices. To learn more about her in-person and online services, workshops or monthly no-cost Online Networking & Practice Development Lunch visit www.Gifted-Adults.com or www.LAPracticeDevelopment.com.
Thursday, August 24, 2023 6:30 pm-7:30 pm
FREE Registration
Via Zoom
Starting as Adjunct Faculty
Jasmeet Bhullar, LMFT
Working as Adjunct Faculty requires you to be patient but also ready to plan an entire class from scratch at a moment’s notice. This presentation will cover the pros and cons of this career to help you see if a career as adjunct faculty is right for you, job search strategies, and tips so you can master the interview.
After you register you will be emailed a Zoom link the Thursday before the presentation.
More information and register today by clicking the Register Here button below.
Joanna Poppink, LMFT
Dreams Penetrate Eating Disorder Defenses and Speed Recovery
Dreams, in eating disorder recovery, reflect your authentic self and true current experience.
Dreams move through blocks. An eating disorder blocks or distorts complex or subtle emotions. With an eating disorder, a person feels fear, anxiety, strong needs for someone else often misinterpreted as love, reassurance near a sense of safety when praised or given gifts that contribute to her belief in herself as a person of high status, if only for a moment or a few days.
The power of the eating disorder is not total. Feelings of dread, the need to isolate because she is apprehensive about being with others penetrate the emotional blocks created by the eating disorder. She can be inconsistent in her relationships with others and inconsistent, even erratic, in her ability to concentrate or maintain interest in her activities.
Dreams, which often seem chaotic and irrelevant, can be a helpful guide toward the genuine feelings hidden by the eating disorder.
Feelings give us information. Fear can show us we are near or in danger. Anger can show us we are being threatened in some way. Tenderness can show us we are in the presence of something or someone we care about. When we are blocked from our genuine feelings we are also blocked from the unfiltered world we live in. We have an opportunity to know more about where we are, who we are and what we are dealing with.
Eating disorders are often a defense against knowing the reality of our environment if that environment is dangerous or crazy making and punishment is swift for truth saying or truth seeing. Dreams plough through defenses.
The main theme of recovery work that lasts is a gradual letting go of the disorder behaviors. Without that defense hidden feelings emerge. Those feelings often make little sense to the person because she’s protected herself from them. Now that she feels it takes some time to see what information they provide.
The specific information varies among people. The trend is that, purposeful or done out of ignorance or naivete, a person or persons or a business or cultural environment, struck at the core identity of the individual. This assault was constant and inescapable. One route to refuge was the eating disorder.
It doesn’t hurt if you can’t feel it. It’s not frightening if you don’t see it. It won’t harm you if you don’t believe in it. It’s not as bad as it could be if you are numb to it. You are not powerless in the situation if it’s your fault, and you bring it on yourself. You don’t have to be anxious if your memory doesn’t hold the experience. You don’t have to live in dread if you split your experience into all good and all bad. The good is out there and the bad is inside you. You have a way to understand.
This tangle of illusion, twisted mental compromise, numbness, magical thinking mixed with glimpses of reality and experiences of physical and emotional pain is just the right combination of elements to stimulate the development of an eating disorder. The eating disorder allows the person to remain sane in this destructive environment.
Black Therapist Support Group
First Saturday of this Month
Next Meeting: Saturday, July 1, 2023 12:00 pm-1:30 pm (PT)
A safe place for healing, connection, support and building community. In this group, licensed clinicians, associates and students can come together and process experiences of racism (systemic, social, and internalized), discrimination, implicit bias, and micro-aggressions, along with additional experiences that therapists of African descent encounter in the field of mental health. As the late great Maya Angelou once said, “As soon as healing takes place, go out and heal someone else.” May this space be the support needed to facilitate that journey.
Open to LA-CAMFT Members and Non-Members
First Saturday of Each Month
Location: Zoom Meeting
For more information contact Akiah Robinson Selwa, LMFT at aselwa@sunrisetherapycenter.org.
Event Details:
For:Licensed Therapists, Associates, and Students
Event Details: Saturday, July 1, 2023, 12:00 pm-1:30 pm (PT)Time of Check-In: 11:50 am
Where: Online Via Zoom
Once you have registered for the presentation, we will email you a link to Zoom a few days before the presentation.
Cost:
No Charge
Online Registration CLOSES on the date of the event.
(Registration is open and available until the group ends.)
Questions about Registration? Contact Diversity Committee, diversitycommittee@lacamft.org.
Chellie Campbell,Financial StressReduction Expert
Winning
“If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.”
— Unknown
I told the class to remember a time when they were winning: they won the race at the track meet, won the football game, got the part they wanted in the play, got the job or promotion, won the award, got the acknowledgment. When I asked them to tell their stories, they beamed and their faces glowed. On the white board, I started to list the emotions and feelings they remembered experiencing while winning:
Excited Special Lucky Enthusiastic Energized Fun Ecstatic Happy Confident Powerful
They were thoughtful, tentative and reflective as they mentioned these feelings. Then I asked them to think about the challenges they faced, the breakdowns and roadblocks they were experiencing on their road to success.
They fired out the following in rapid succession, sometimes two or three speaking at once:
Depression Fear Why try Worry Helpless Insecurity Doubt Trouble Panic Illness
It was amazing how quickly they came up with the second list. Those words and feelings just flowed out. I had to drag the other adjectives out of the group, we had to work really hard to come up with them—it was like pulling teeth! Unfortunately, most people are more comfortable with the negative voice. Their thoughts go there really easily. It’s more familiar. It’s like a rut in a road.
Use your affirmations to create a new rut—a rut of positive thinking! With practice, your thoughts will move to the positive automatically instead of to the negative. The negative voice will get quieter and quieter. You’ll find you go whole days without one thought of lack, limitation, or scarcity. Instead, abundance, prosperity, happiness and wealth will pervade your consciousness. You control your thoughts. Which rut in the road do you want to go down?
I’ve been practicing positive thinking for many years now. At first it was just a belief in the idea that positive thinking works. I didn’t monitor my thoughts to see what I was really thinking and I didn’t school myself to avoid negative input and actively seek positive input.
Later on, when I figured out that I was thinking all the time and that my thoughts directed my actions and my actions determined my results, I started actively practicing affirmations. But it was hit or miss for a long time; when some problem arose, I’d be controlled by that outer circumstance and go down the negative track again. As time went on, I became more consistent in my practice, got better results in my life, which encouraged me to even better consistency.
Now it is such an ingrained habit that I can’t NOT do my affirmations. I do them in the shower and while driving. When I snap my seat belt, the affirmations start running in my head and I start speaking them and feeling the good feelings associated with them.
But there is always more to learn. I listen to my clients and they come up with great affirmations all the time. Here are some by Janet Cargill of www.jcargillimage.com:
“My newsletters are ships I send out that will bring me the perfect number of client appointments to reach my financial goals. My readers are eager to open them when they arrive and eager to sign up for my fabulous offerings.”
and
“My appointment book is filled with the perfect number of qualified clients who are happy to pay me my perfect fee for my exceptional services.”
Love those! Thanks, Janet!
You control your thoughts. Which rut in the road do you want to go down?
Today’s Affirmation: Winning is my natural habit. I win everywhere I go.
Chellie Campbell, Financial Stress Reduction Expert, is the author of bestselling books The Wealthy Spirit, Zero to Zillionaire, and From Worry to Wealthy: A Woman’s Guide to Financial Success Without the Stress. She has been treating Money Disorders like Spending Bulimia and Income Anorexia in her Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops for over 25 years and is still speaking, writing, and teaching workshops—now as Zoom classes and The Wealthy Spirit Group on Facebook—with participants from all over the world. Website: www.chellie.com.
LA-CAMFT Diversity Committee Presents:
Asian American Pacific Islander+ Therapists Circle
Third Friday of Every Month
A safe and empowering place for therapists of the Asian diaspora to experience healing, renewal, and belonging. We will collectively process experiences of racism and internalized oppression. We will also explore the coexistence of privilege and marginalization along with invisibility and hypervigilance. This space will help us appreciate and reclaim what we have in common while honoring our differences. Grace Lee Boggs notes, “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” May this circle embody her words.
Third Friday of this Month Location: Zoom Meeting
For more information contact Rachell Alger, rachellalgermft@gmail.com.
For: Licensed Therapists, Associates, and Students
Event Details: Friday, July 21, 2023, 1:30 pm-3:00 pm (PT) Time of Check-In: 1:20 pm
Where: Online Via Zoom Once you have registered for the presentation, we will email you a link to Zoom a few days before the presentation.
Cost: No Charge
Online Registration CLOSES on the date of the event. (Registration closes 1.5 hours prior to the meeting.)
Questions about Registration? Contact Akiah Robinson Selwa at diversitycommitee@lacamft.org.
David Silverman, LMFT
The Seven Archetypal Stories
The British columnist Christopher Booker is known for writing about the history of storytelling, and specifically for his 700-page book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (2004).
Booker’s ideas were strongly influenced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s theories about archetypal storytelling. According to Jung archetypal stories revealed universal symbolic scenarios that were passed from one generation to the next through the collective unconscious.
As such, these stories were thought to be buried beneath the conscious level where they resonated with people all over the world and across time. These stories hold deep meaning for all of us in that they reflect journeys everyone can relate to.
Jung felt universal symbols were all around us in the form of archetypal characters (The Seeker, The Magician, The Warrior, etc.), and that these characters could be seen again and again throughout storytelling history.
The Seeker generally looked to improve his lot in life and gained personal insights in the process.
The Warrior confronted any obstacle that stood in his way, and in the process generally brought meaning to their struggle.
The Magician’s drive was to transform or change someone or something in a significant way. This character’s ultimate goal was to transform himself, thereby achieving a higher plane of existence.
Booker discovered in his exhaustive 34 years of research that there were archetypal stories as well as characters.
The seven stories he found to be universal involved different types of heroes. One was an "everyman” type, another was downtrodden and poor, and yet another was tragically flawed.
What he proposed was that we all relate to these seven stories on a deeper level because they have always rested in our collective unconscious. So when we read or watch these story lines unfold they involve us at a primal level.
According to Booker, these are the classic seven story lines that appear throughout the history of storytelling.
Booker is not the only researcher to come up with a list of the (fill in the number here) basic plot lines. Arthur-Quiller Couch came up with another list of seven stories that’s completely different.
His list includes Human vs. Human, Human vs. Nature, Human Against God, Human vs. Society, Human in the Middle, Woman and Man and Human vs. Himself.
Wiliam Foster-Harris decided in his book, The Basic Patterns of Plot, that there were only three plots.
Ronald Tobias theorized there were twenty stories in his book, Twenty Master Plots.
Georges Polti came up with thirty-six plots in his book, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.
Will any of this information help screenwriters write great scripts? Anything’s possible. Maybe reading this post will give some writers a new idea for a movie or spark a new approach to a story they’re currently writing.
David Silverman, LMFT, treats creative and highly sensitive individuals in private practice in LA. Having experienced the rejection, stress, creative blocks, and career reversals over a long career as a writer in Film and TV, he’s uniquely suited to work with gifted, creative and sensitive clients experiencing anxiety, addiction or depression. For more information, visit www.DavidSilvermanMFT.com.
Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Therapists Community Group
Next Meeting:
Monday, July 7, 2023 9:30 am-10:30 am (PT)
Free Registration
The MENA Therapists Community Group is a safe place across the Middle Eastern and North African therapist diaspora to build community and a sense of belonging. We hold an inclusive space to process the impact of cultural biases experienced by people of MENA descent and the effect it may have on our work as mental health professionals. Within the process, we will strive to create healing, support, and empowerment. We will collaboratively exchange ideas, experiences and resources while acknowledging cultural differences and shared similarities. As the poet Khalil Gibran states — “The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you.” — our community will create a place to be seen, heard, and understood.
For more information contact the Diversity Committee, diversitycommittee@lacamft.org.
Event Details: Monday, July 7, 2023, 9:30 am-10:30 am (PT)Time of Check-In: 6:30 pm
Where: Online Via Zoom Upon registration for the presentation, you will receive a confirmation email that includes a link to our Zoom meeting.
Registration is open and available until the group begins.
Questions about Registration? Contact Tyana Tavakol, Perla Hollow, & Tania Osipof at DiversityCommittee@lacamft.org.
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