President's Message

Recent Additions to the Programming Library

We've already had some great speakers in 2022!

Audio recordings are now available in the Members-Only Library for these newest trainings:

🎧Lust, Rage, Chaos, and Love: Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy
with Felicia Matto-Shepard

🎧The Gifts of a Life Review of Your Lived and Unlived Life for Clients 50+
with Connie Zweig

We have recordings from over two years of our programming on topics including Documentation for Couples' Therapy; Internal Family Systems; Highly Sensitive People in the Pandemic; Professional Wills; and EFT Tapping, among many more. See the full list of available programs.

Access to audio recordings of select events is a benefit of membership in Marin CAMFT.
Not a member? Learn more here!

From Our Director of Programs

The CE Committee of Marin CAMFT has been busy gathering presenters for our membership, and it’s been a real team effort!

In April we have a free Friday Continuing Education Event: April 8th from noon to 2pm, Affirmative Therapy with Trans and/or Non-Binary Clients with Sand Chang, PhD (2 hours/2 CEs).

Then on Monday, April 11th, join CAMFT's staff attorneys on Zoom for up to 6 Law & Ethic CEs! In the morning, learn about No-Hassle Records Requests (3 CEs). The afternoon session is on Writing Professional Opinion Letters (3 CEs). Can't make it to the real-time presentations that day? You can sign up for the recorded version, which is the full 6 CEs, and will be available from April 12 to May 2.

On Saturday April 16th, we are offering Therapy for Planet Earth: Climate Psychology in Practice by Barbara Easterlin, PhD (4 CEs).

During the month of May, we have a free Friday Continuing Education on May 13th - Expressive Arts Therapy with Danielle Saporta, LMFT (2 CEs). That same day, we're also offering pre-licensed members to attend the CAMFT Road to Licensure event, which is also free. And finally, we have a Saturday Workshop on May 21st on Disaster Mental Health, Trauma Treatment and Critical Incident Stress Management by Katie Amatruda, PhD, LMFT (4 CEs). Registration for these events will be opening soon. Check out the Upcoming Events Calendar for the latest listings.

We hope to see you all there! 

Norman

From Our Membership Director

by Meri Hayos, LMFT
2022 Director of Membership

Get the most from your membership!

Last month MCAMFT polled our membership to get some feedback about how well we are serving you, our members.  Thanks to all who replied -- We got a terrific response!  

In that feedback, we learned that the two most valuable benefits we provide to our members are the high quality continuing education, and the on-line membership directory.  Are you using these benefits to their fullest extent? 

Remember, members get free CE for programs presented nearly every month, usually on Fridays. Our members also get a discount for registration for additional, usually more lengthy, CE programs presented periodically during the year. 

Additionally, in the past, we have had arrangements with other Bay Area Chapters that allowed certain reciprocal privileges to our members. For example, members of Marin CAMFT would be offered discounts for CE hosted by the other Bay Area Chapters (and vice versa). We are currently investigating the other chapters’ willingness to offer these privileges to our members, and we will let you know as soon as we can confirm this extended benefit.

We've gotten some inquiries recently from members who are retiring, who want to stay involved with the chapter, and we wanted to let everyone know that Marin CAMFT has an Emeritus membership. This is a complimentary non-voting membership available to long-term members of Marin CAMFT over the age of 65 who are no longer practicing. It entitles you to all the benefits of membership including attendance at our CE events at the member registration level. Please contact me if you would like to take advantage of this.

As for the on-line Marin Therapist Directory, we have recently made some improvements that allow for you to add more information to your profile to make this resource even more helpful.  This includes whether you offer teletherapy and/or in-person sessions, and more refinements about your specialties. Plus, we invite all therapists to self-disclose how they identify (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion). You can do this on your profile, available when you log onto the website. These fields are searchable by members of the public who are looking for the right fit in their next therapist. Feel free to contact me if you need assistance editing your profile. 

Lastly, we have added a Suggestion Box to the website.  If you have other ideas or thoughts about how we can better serve you, please let us know.

Meri

From Our Pre-Licensed Director

Hello to all student, trainee, and associate members of Marin CAMFT!

I am excited to be on the Board, representing the pre-licensed members of our chapter. We are gathering ideas for how we can do more to support the new generation of therapists in our community.

I will be hosting a 3000-Hour Club on April 23 to get to know you and start the conversation around what we can do together.

We're also offering a State CAMFT event on May 13 called Navigating the Road to Licensure, which is free and available to all students and associates.

Do you know any students or associates living, working or studying in Marin? Please spread the word to them about Marin CAMFT and invite them to join! Membership is free for Registered Associates and for Students. All that's required is a membership in State CAMFT. More information is available in the Membership section of the Marin CAMFT website.

I look forward to serving you as part of the chapter this year.

Katharine

Marin CAMFT Diversity Committee

Would you like to get involved in organizing Marin CAMFT initiatives to promote diversity and equity in our community of therapists?

From Our Director of Marketing

For a job in which every hour is spent talking to people, being a therapist can be quite solitary work.  Many of us in private practice do not have coworkers in the true sense of the word, and therapists are mostly unavailable during the day because they are in session and cannot be interrupted. 

While many therapists have their own personal therapists to work on the personal issues in their lives, a lot of us have no easily accessible coworkers to go to with the issues that come up at work.  This is where peer consultation groups come in. 

The peer consult group embodies a safe home base of coworkers that is used to process issues of ethics, clinical technique, and blind spot defense.  It helps therapists protect themselves from being the thing that is holding a client back from growing and changing.  Awareness of our own fallibility and our blindspots is crucial for ethical practice.  Our professional organization cannot mandate peer consultation for a variety of reasons but in a lot of ways, it is as important as the continuing education which a great deal of effort goes into ensuring.

I have been a member of a weekly peer consultation group that has been an invaluable resource over the past 6 years.  It is a place to rejoice at success, receive sympathy for difficult cases, and continue to learn new techniques and knowledge.

We want to help facilitate introductions and opportunities for peer to peer consultation groups. Marin CAMFT is offering this as a service to our member community. Our role is in connecting members only. The groups will not be managed or run by Marin CAMFT. They will be autonomous, self-managed, and independent. Groups will make their own arrangement and meet in the way they choose. Our involvement will be in making connections based on criteria such as years of experience and availability.

In my experience there are some criteria that make the group most beneficial. They include:

• A regular and consistent weekly or bi-weekly meeting time
• 60-90 minutes
• A group of three to four members
• Similar years of experience
• Same milieu  (private practice, community mental health, etc)

If you're interested, please submit your information here by April 15. We will create the groups and distribute contact information by May 1. The groups will then self-organize with those members.

• Using the Power of Clinical Consultation as Therapists
• Peer Consultation: A Best Practice for Career Development Professionals
  

Let us know if you have questions by emailing us at marincountycamftchapter@gmail.com! We are excited for this chance to serve the membership of Marin CAMFT by helping to facilitate peer-to-peer connections.

MARIN CAMFT 2022 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Adam Cohen

President-Elect Peter Sadler

Secretary Bonnie Kaufman

Treasurer Laurie Buntain

Director-At-Large for Membership Meri Hayos

Director-At-Large for Programs Norman Hering

Director-At-Large for Marketing Rachel Barr

Director-At-Large for Community Service Jenna Marsala

Director-At-Large for Pre-Licensed Katharine Spencer