Christina Castorena
President, LA-CAMFT

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As we head into Fall and start getting out our therapy sweaters and drinking our pumpkin lattes. I just want to take a moment to share LA-CAMFT’s successes for the month of September. We had a wonderful networking event with over 80 attendees! We invited Dr. Barbara Nosal from Newport Academy to present on healing trauma through authenticity and authentic connections. Her presentation focused on attachment and how it impacts our relationships. The feedback was incredible! Thank you to our sponsor Angela L. H. Sayers, CPA, MBA. Her financial tips were very helpful and were just a fraction of the accounting information she has to offer. 

If you missed out on our September networking event, you still have a chance to register for our October networking event. Dr. Myriam D. Savage, Ph.D., RDT-BCT and Danielle Levanas, MA, LCAT, RDT will be exploring the concepts of power and oppression through drama therapy. The event will be sponsored by Brighton Recovery Center. 

Another success I’d like to share is the Diversity Committee’s first workshop! We held it on the same weekend as our networking event (what a weekend!). The goal of the workshop was to explore the influence of LGBTQ intersectionality in therapy. Our four panelists, Harpreet Malla, PhD, Stara Shatki, MA, AMFT, Andrew Sage Mendez-McLeish, MEd and Joe Garza, MA, AMFT offered professional guidance, interventions, vignettes and personal experiences to help inform treatment for people who are experiencing overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. It was such an honor to hear their stories and get to know a little about them. I know I walked away from that workshop with a greater understanding of intersectionality and the impact it has on many of my clients and also on my own life.

This workshop was not only the first workshop developed and carried out by the Diversity Committee it was also the first workshop that LA-CAMFT provided on the East side of Los Angeles. I want to thank the committee, Janaki Neptune, Christina Cacho Sakai, Marvin Whistler, Ava Shokoufi, Chasity Branner and Randi Gottlieb for all their hard work in creating this very important workshop for our community. In addition, special thanks go to Marvin, Ava and Chasity for recruiting our panelists and organizing the event. Thank you to the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) for allowing us to have the event at their state-of-the-art facility. The space was beautiful and the services that VIP offer are critical to the community. 

I am very proud of all the volunteers who comprise LA-CAMFT and all the resources that they develop and offer to our community of healing professionals. If you’d like to be a part of this compassionate community please visit our website at www.lacamft.org and reach out to one of our board members to see how you can get involved. 

Best Regards,
Christina Castorena, LMFT

Christina Castorena, MS, LMFT, worked in community mental health before starting her private practice, Castorena Therapeutic Services, in 2016. She passionately serves adults, couples, and members of the LGBTQ+ community who are dealing with life transitions, parenting, relational conflicts, and anxiety. She employs family systems and mindfulness-based CBT. As president of LA-CAMFT, Christina strongly advocates for her professional community and celebrates the hard-working clinicians that facilitate healing. Her website is castorenatherapeutic.com. Christina may be contacted at president@lacamft.org.