Our hearts go out to everyone in San Bernardino, the US, and the world following the horrific events on December 2, 2015 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.  As therapists we know the emotional and psychological devastation that follows such violent incidents and we would like to offer some words of comfort and support in the wake of this tragedy. 

We need to recognize that the aftermath of such events often brings a multiplicity of feelings not only of sorrow, grief, loss, self-recrimination, and regret, but anger, rage, vengeful thoughts, and helplessness which can be both overwhelming and disorienting. These feelings are normal in this context, and it is vital at times like this that we acknowledge our understandable rage at the injustice of such acts of violence and that we express it by communicating openly and honestly with one another without judgment or condemnation, rather than acting it out in destructive behavior.  We must respond with gentle understanding, both to ourselves as well is to others, by acknowledging the deep sorrow such loss evokes and by allowing ourselves and others to express the grief and confusion we feel in order to process it. This allows us to reach out to one another with love and compassion, feel connected to the web of humanity beyond our individual, cultural, and ethnic differences, know that we are not alone, and receive and give the emotional support that allows us to begin the process of healing.

 

We, the inland Empire Chapter of CAMFT, want to offer our services free of charge to any of the people who have directly suffered loss of a loved one or coworker from the incident at the Inland Regional Center.  We will be providing both individual and group therapy to people affected by this tragedy. Please contact us at:  951-770-2030 to arrange an appointment.  We are scheduling now for December 12^th.

Peace and comfort to all at this time of sorrow and loss,

 

 

Inland Empire Chapter of CAMFT

Happy Holidays to all,

I hope you all were able to spend time with your family and friends over this past Thanksgiving weekend.  For myself and my family we enjoyed good food, time with friends, lots of laughter; reflection time and we even watched a little football. In my family we have a tradition not to start any Christmas decorating until after Thanksgiving. We feel that Thanksgiving gets shortchanged otherwise, so we wait until the Friday or Saturday after. This year I was able to convince my daughter to help me decorate my office for the holiday as well as go shopping together. I do love the festive lights and pretty displays this time of year. The weather even seemed to cooperate by still being a beautiful sunny day but with cool temperature by Southern California standards.

After all the outside lights were done, we sat down and watched the movie “Inside Out” by Pixar Animation Studios. I just maybe the only therapist in America that hasn’t seen the movie. I found it to be a wonderful movie full of fun and laughter. The premise is about a young girl named Riley that lives in Minnesota (talk about a cold place) with her family and all was wonderful. Within her mind we are introduced to the five personifications of her basic emotions:  Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger, as they come to life. The emotions live in “Headquarters”, which is Riley's conscious mind, where they influence Riley's actions and memories. Her new memories are housed in colored orbs, which are sent into long-term memory at the end of every waking period. (This orb thing is a great metaphor in illustrating what our brains do when we sleep.)  The most important memories, known as "core" memories, are housed in a hub in Headquarters and power five "islands", each of which reflects a different aspect of Riley's personality. Joy does everything in her power to keep Riley in a happy state, but since she and the other emotions do not understand Sadness's purpose, they try to keep her from controlling the console. The story continues with the five emotions working together to keep Riley safe. I won’t spoil the movie, but if you haven’t seen it, I think it has some wonderful images and insights into our brains aka “Headquarters” and how we therapist type people help our clients to learn to regulate those emotions better. I can see many uses this film could have within the therapeutic setting. I may even show clips to my students and interns.

A couple of reminders.  First, our chapter’s holiday party is on December 11, 2015 at 6:00 PM. Please register to receive the address. This party will replace our regularly-scheduled meeting. Secondly, we are starting a 3000 club and our first meeting will be held on January 30^th at Dr. Catherine Wheeler’s office on Saturday 11:00-12:30 at 1411 Rimpau Ave. Ste. 213 Corona, 92879. The purpose will be to help support our interns and students as they go through the licensing process. This meeting is open to all healers regardless of your professional designation. It is my hope that this group will provide support, specialized training, and new networking opportunities for pre-licensed and licensed members and will provide a safe place to exchange ideas and learn from each other.

I will leave you now with a quote from D.M. Dellinger:

“This is my wish for you: peace of mind, prosperity through the year, happiness that multiplies, health for you and yours, fun around every corner, energy to chase your dreams, joy to fill your holidays!”   

Until next time

Sherry

Thanks Giving Season

 

As I sit down to write this it’s still 91 degrees outside and my daughter and I just finished removing our Halloween decorations at our home and so we have officially entered into the “holiday season.” Soon it will be Veteran’s day followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa and then New Year’s. Wow! I’m tired just thinking about it. Have you thought about some self-care or some time off just for you?

As my daughter and I packed up our decorations on that warm day we started talking about being grateful for the lives we have and the ability we have to live as we want. We are grateful to all our veterans for their many sacrifices and their overall service.

As a business owner, I am grateful to be able to help others through their difficult times and have the freedom to set my own schedule, plus I get to work with a wonderful group of people every day. I am also very thankful for all of you, CAMFT members for your friendship, sharing of your ideas and knowledge so freely with me. Lastly, I am very grateful for the chapter’s board and all the hard work and energy that each of them put in each and every month. Plus they also seem to have new ideas brewing that continue to improve our chapter.

I hope you and your family and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Until next time,

 

Sherry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self Care

Did you see the moon, the blood moon, and the eclipse other night? Wasn’t that such a grand sight?  It was absolutely beautiful!  Part of my self-care includes taking time to enjoy the nature around us.  I hope nature is in your self-care plan too.  Do you have a self-care plan? As we are in the last quarter of this year, are you starting to plan next year? Have you thought about scheduling some time off? I sure hope so; getting that precious time in your calendar now for next year will assure that you are fresh for your clients and your family. 

Fall is now here, despite being 95 degrees outside. I want to remind you of a few upcoming things from CAMFT. First of all CAMFT Connects are back: the next one is set for November 7, 2015 from 10am-3pm in Los Angeles and San Rafael. This is a great opportunity to share your feelings about CAMFT and help guide its direction as an association. The second item I wanted to make sure you knew about is the Fall Symposium scheduled to take place November 14-15 2015 @ the Hilton in Costa Mesa/Orange County.  This is another great opportunity to increase your knowledge.  Some of the topics include: “Marketing Your Practice” by my friend Ernesto Segismundo, Jr.  Ernesto helps therapists include video in their practices among other great marketing ideas. Other topics are “Legal and Ethical Issues in Supervision,” “Integration of Poetry in the Treatment of Trauma,” and lastly the topic of “Becoming Better at What We Do.”  Both days sound wonderful and it will be hard to pick which sessions to attend.

As always, please let me know if you have questions about your Chapter or ideas you would like to see implemented.  I would love to hear from you. My email is Sherry@CentralCounselingServices.net.    

Until next time,

 

Sherry

Help get AB 858 signed by the Governor! AB 858 will grant reimbursement rights to LMFTs for services rendered at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs). This bill will create new job opportunities for LMFTs in community mental health while increasing vital access to services for Californians. This monumental piece of legislation is on the Governor’s desk and we need our members to write a letter to Governor Brown asking him to support and sign AB 858 by Wednesday, September 16th! CAMFT has created a letter with sample language voicing support for AB 858. Please feel free to edit the template to add your personal message. Thank you for your assistance to get LMFTs in Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics! Send your letter to Governor Brown with a few simple clicks!

I love summer time, longer days, new books to read, fresh fruits and swimming. I do hope your summer is in full swing and you are enjoying yourself. I know many therapists say their practices slow down for summer but for me that has not been the case at least this year. 

There is some good news from the Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) first, the new online BreEZe system is up and running. This one website will allow consumers, licensees, and applicants to verify a professional license, file a consumer complaint, submit licensing applications, renew a license, change addresses, and should save us all time. You can take a look at this new site @ http://bit.ly/1IljHbn. The second positive item to come from the BBS is they are issuing a newsletter once again; attempting to be more open about their activities and to keep us informed of new legislative changes.  The newsletter can be accessed @ http://bit.ly/1ga2DeA

We have a Facebook page!  https://www.facebook.com/iecamft?fref=ts Thank you to Omar for setting it up. We invite you to like our page and check it periodically for new articles of interest and last minute updates.

Last month your board met to begin the planning for the next year. One of the ideas that came up was starting a 3000 Club to help support our pre-licensed members. A survey has been created to see if there is any interest in this type of programing. I would ask that all our pre-licensed member take this survey to provide input. I promise it is a very short survey only 7 questions. The link is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YQVSJJM. Thank you in advance for your help.

We continue to need to fill a few positions on our board. We need help with the creation of a CEU committee. This would require a few meetings to help complete the CEU application for our chapter.  We also need a few board members-at-large to lend a hand for certain functions; we would like at least 3- 4 people. Yes, I know this does take a bit more time, but honestly it really is only a few hours a month.   Another need is hospitality where for only a couple of meetings you agree to bring one item to share with the group, plus help set up the table and clean up after—not a difficult job and one that does not take a great deal of time. 

Lastly, I wanted to say thank you and good luck to Doreen Van Leeuwen. Doreen, as many of you know, was Past, Past, President of our Inland Chapter and she graciously hosted our board retreat in July. Doreen will soon be leaving us as she heads up north to Santa Rosa to begin a new chapter in her life and be closer with her new grandbaby.  Doreen is a couples counseling expert and she has been passionate about building a practice that can earn a good living. She has agreed to continue to extend her help to our chapter by helping with the 3000 club when she is in town over the next year. Thank you Doreen for your generous heart and caring spirit.  Please take a moment at our next meeting to wish her well.

I wanted to remind each of you, that this Inland Empire Chapter is your chapter, please let me know if we are not meeting your needs or if you have any suggestions. I would love to hear from you. Contact me through the Member Directory.

Until next time

 

Sherry

CAMFT—a Trade Organization for LMFT’s

 

CAMFT chapters were formed so that therapists and interns could come together in a geographical area to learn from each other, receive CEU's, network together, and support each other in a work that often is lonely and isolating. The expectation is that our CAMFT leadership in San Diego would support and encourage this group of people to hone their skills, interact with home groups, and be a force for change in how insurance would understand what Marriage and Family Therapists learn in grad school, as well as how we practice our art and skill.

 

With the bylaws vote last year, we voted to keep our organization a trade organization specific to LMFT’s.  While we love to have other licensed mental health therapists join with us in the learning process and to network, we did want a place for MFT's to voice our needs in mental health arenas, like Veterans Administration work, Department of Mental Health, and as Medicare Providers. There is clearly enough folks who can benefit from LCSW's, MFT's, and the like.

 

But just as other organizations come together to form a "voice" to meet the needs of their members and meet the mental health needs of the public, we chose to have our "voice" remain clearly as Licensed Marriage, Family Therapists. I believe we have now formed a strong voice stating our needs, and will go on to meet the needs of the public by being a Membership of Marriage and Family Therapists for LMFT's. LCSW's have long had their voices heard through their National Social Workers Forum. Thank you to those who were alert to changes that would have changed CAMFT into an organization that would not have been specific to our profession and may not have had our best interests at heart.

 

We look forward with confidence to the coming year in which our newly-elected President, Laura Strom, and newly-elected board will lead us in becoming a more transparent, democratically-run organization that will be for the benefit of all of its members as well as the community at large.

 

Judy McGehee

IE-Chapter Co-President

Hello.  As your new chapter co-president, I'd like to first of all thank our Past President, Janine Murray, LMFT, for her years at IE- CAMFT, and for fighting for our Chapter and State CAMFT to utilize their efforts on behalf of LMFT's. I know she went 'over and above' to have our CAMFT really represent LMFT's and MFT-I's.  I fully respect that many interns and licensed MFT's have chosen other degrees and licenses that allow them to have the flexibility of portability to practice in other states.  And, I really also want CAMFT, to be the "California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists" as their Initials indicate - perhaps even one day to see our licenses  have portability, as well.

I also have a vision for IE-CAMFT as a stellar chapter to offer the best in speakers, information, and clinical practitioners to share their experience with all of us, including students and interns. It's because of what I've taken advantage of here in this chapter that I'm willing to work and drive about one hour each month to attend our meetings. This vision also includes supporting interns to have wages in their internships that allow them to live. While many of us were of the "tradition" to work for BBS hours without pay, or stipend pay only, we usually have had to have two other part-time jobs to pay our way through the 3000 hours. That doesn't mean the "tradition" has to live on.  A graduate degree is worthy of a wage.    

Another vision would be that we are willing to take on a student/intern who needs therapy, not just for hours, but to gain insight into their own process in being an intern/student. I'm suggesting each licensed therapist be willing to offer one pro-bono time or a very low sliding scale time, and be willing to advertise that to a school.  If we value what we do and how we do it, we should value that student and intern the privilege of "working their own stuff out in the room" that's affordable to them.

I am passionate about many things.  This occupation/ministry I've chosen is clearly what I love to do in the world. I look forward to Sherry and I sharing this responsibility to further our chapter, start a 3000 club, widen our catchment area to offer programs to more of our colleagues.

Best to you all in every way you work,

Judy McGehee, LMFT

Master Level Intern Labor for Free

As I leave my position as President this month and a new State CAMFT Board is voted in, I think it’s important to ask, “What do you want?” and “Where are we going?”

It seems this profession has often been shaped more by therapists, who have made administrative or legal mistakes, as opposed to the heart of what we provide. CAMFT has 31,000 members and the Board is comprised of 12 members who make the decisions for the greater majority. We, who do daily do the “good work”, should be who defines us. Now is our chance to identify who we are and how we are viewed by other mental health professions and the public.

A lingering concern of mine is the lack of pay or low wages for MFT Interns. Whoever let that be a standard was not honoring the time, education, and amount of money it takes to get a Master’s degree. When I was an undergrad and being an MFT/MFCC was a male-dominated profession, there seemed to be more of an acknowledgement of the education required for the job. At that time, the hours required to take the test for licensing was 1,500 hours. When the time was doubled to 3,000 hours, it also doubled the length of time we were not being fairly paid for a master’s level education. What does that say about our profession and what it takes to get a license? I’m sure the thought behind the increased hours was a better “qualified” therapist. What other profession expects this amount of “training” with little or no pay or benefits or stipends. And when we do get our license, we are trained to do pro bono work, as part of the job.

I see graduate students, who are working on their 24 hours of counseling. Most speak of the hardship of trying to pay their bills, including me, while they work for free in their Internships.

We teach our clients, “If we don’t respect ourselves, how could we expect others to respect us?” This is a clear sign of a problem not just related to Interns, but to a lack of valuing the significance of our contribution. Whoever originally approved of this standard for not paying interns sold us all out. MFT Interns have the right to be compensated for their work because it is a reflection of who we all are and where we came from.

I hope you will speak up for what is a concern of yours because we all need each other.

Thank you,

Janine Murray, MFT