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

 

As president of the Inland Empire Chapter, I am thankful I was a part of a transforming year for CAMFT. I believe I was able to contribute to its original vision of promoting MFT’s and the needs of the profession. I chose to be a part of the “Save CAMFT,” now CAMFT United.com, effort to keep CAMFT an organization that remains focused on the needs and interests of MFT’s. Save CAMFT was instrumental in keeping CAMFT from becoming a generic mental health organization, which had been the CAMFT Board’s plan. I spent hours talking to people and handing out flyers to inform members of the CAMFT Board’s intentions.

Because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the CAMFT Board to defend that agenda, many of us have continued to seek transparency regarding this and other issues. I attended the CAMFT Board meeting in Berkeley to challenge the Board on their intentions and continued direction of vision. I took the opportunity to speak to the CAMFT Board and believe I was a voice for all of us, who are just trying to make a living and be heard. I went to the Leadership Conference in San Jose, and challenged them on the same issues, and also went to a CAMFT Connect event, where the medium for speaking was reduced to written questions to which the Board chose to respond.

I am handing over my role as chapter president to two strong leaders, Sherry Shockey-Pope and Judy McGehee. As you know, we are all volunteers and to maintain our voice and accountability, it takes all of us to do what we can. We need to continue to let the CAMFT Board know how their efforts can best serve us. You know that with any relationship, it takes communication and clarification. I hope you will find that place where you can be involved. We are CAMFT. We are what we make it.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve and represent you.

Janine Murray, MFT

As the editor of the newsletter and a therapist who has worked with both victims and youthful sexual offenders, I have another perspective I would like to add to the discussion of AB 1775. I too am very concerned, as others have expressed, about the impact of reporting requirements which put therapists in the position of being informants and require reporting behavior that does not directly involve an identifiable victim and which could deleteriously affect the therapeutic relationship.

The most dangerous aspect of this in my mind is equating the viewing of child pornography with direct sexual abuse of a child because it reverses a core therapeutic precept as well as muddies legal precedent that draws a distinction between desire and action. In addition, it subverts the therapeutic process itself by turning the therapist into a kind of thought police enforcer rather than the elicitor of thoughts, feelings, fantasies etc. in order to identify issues and behaviors that need to be addressed therapeutically. Though viewing child pornography is a criminal behavior (rather than a thought) that must be dealt with in therapy, it is not direct abuse of a known victim and conflating the two obfuscates what should be a clear separation.

What is of even more concern to me, however, is how this law may sweep up victims of sexual abuse in its zeal to identify and report those who view child pornography. A teen who may be being pressured by a boyfriend or peers to send explicit pictures of herself, teens sexting one another, or a trafficking victim being coerced into advertising on a website, could also be reported, criminalized, and stigmatized as offenders, an outrageously unjust and injurious possible outcome of a poorly-written law.

I want to also point out that though identifying the victims of child pornography is the role of law enforcement and would not be known to the casual viewer and certainly not to a therapist to whom a client might divulge such viewing, there are always children who are victimized when we are talking about the production and dissemination of child pornography (excluding sexting between peers), not only in the original production of the material but who are re-victimized in the viewing of it.

We must recognize the role of sexist culture which objectifies and commodifies girls and women and sexualizes ever younger children in its attempt to sell sex with its resultant psychological and emotional injury. The shameful tendency by law enforcement to re-victimize rape victims, victims of domestic violence, prosecute prostitutes rather than going after their johns, failing to see teen prostitutes as trafficking victims, etc. is something which could easily be replicated in the enforcement of this law, and I find this very worrisome indeed as it would reinforce this overarching cultural problem and core cause of child sexual abuse. In its poorly-conceived attempt to protect victims, it could do precisely the opposite, the worst possible outcome.

President's Message

AB1775 Controversy

Since this law became effective January 1, 2015, I wanted to provide some materials to generate discussion and to inform. The main concern over this new law is that it is not specific enough. For example, some say it doesn't make enough distinction between those with the pedophilic behavior of viewing child porn and who are at high risk of acting on those sexually abusive fantasies and teenagers who use social media to send sexually explicit images of themselves.  Others say viewing of porn does not necessarily lead to child molestation and that this law equates the two.

Below you will find a statement by CAMFT, a petition to CAMFT, an appeal which has been filed with the court to put a stay on the law, some links to articles about the law, some links to articles arguing that viewing child pornography is linked to molestation as well as others which dispute this, and some articles reviewing the claims, related diagnoses, and research results. I hope this helps to begin your own research and discussion on this important issue and controversial law.

CAMFT Legislative Update in October 2014 states:

AB 1775 (Melendez): CAMFT receives many member calls asking whether the downloading or Internet viewing of child pornography is considered child abuse and, as such, would require a therapist to file a mandated report. Penal Code § 11165.1 does not specifically include Internet usage of child pornography within the definition of “sexual exploitation.” Since the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act was written before the prolific use of the Internet, the terminology does not reflect modern technology. This bill would include knowingly “downloading, streaming or accessing through any electronic or digital media…” as a mandatory report in addition to duplicating and printing.

This bill, after receiving no “No” votes, was signed by the Governor. The bill was supported by the California Psychological Association, California Association of Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, Board of Behavioral Sciences, Child Abuse Prevention Center, California District Attorneys’ Association, and the California State Sheriffs’ Association.

For more information from CAMFT regarding reporting requirements, see: http://www.camft.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Advocacy1&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=18241

Stop AB 1775.com is gathering signatures for a petition to CAMFT to pursue revising the text of the law, among other demands. The following statements are from their analysis of the bill on their website at: http://stopab1775.org/read-text-ab1775/:

The language of AB1775 updates this law [existing child abuse reporting law] as follows: “sexual exploitation includes downloading, streaming, or accessing through any electronic or digital media in which a child is engaged in an act of obscene sexual conduct.”

Meanwhile, Penal code 11165, subsection 311.4 defines obscene sexual conduct as, among other things, “exhibition of the genitals for the purpose of sexual stimulation of the viewer,” as well as lewd and lascivious acts, which are further defined in subsection 288.2 as that which depicts touching intimate parts of the body, including “buttocks of a person and the breasts of a female.”

The law further removes the need to observe an “identifiable victim,” as is typically required by social service investigators. Thus, the idea is not to protect victims per se, but rather to capture those who view obscene material, and incorporate therapists as informants.

In an opinion in the Washington Post by Leslie C. Bell, she concludes the following re AB 1775:

On the face of it, the amendment may seem like a helpful addition to the reporting mandates for psychotherapists and psychiatrists. Child pornography is, after all, a damaging and illegal practice. As a society we surely want to decrease its production, distribution and consumption.

On closer inspection, however, the law falls short on three fronts: First, it will not protect children from either the production or distribution of child pornography, which is its intent. Second, it violates therapist-patient confidentiality and decreases the likelihood that people will get the psychological help they need to stop accessing child pornography; if the goal is to undercut production by reducing demand, the law will likely have the opposite effect. And, third, it conflates desire with action.

See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-california-law-about-reporting-child-porn-puts-psychotherapists-in-a-bind/2014/12/26/4ae09cdc-8aef-11e4-9e8d-0c687bc18da4_story.html

 

For other related articles on Stop AB 1775's website expressing concern about the expansion of reporting requirements and incursions on patient confidentiality represented by this law, see: 

http://stopab1775.org/articles/

 

A Petition for Writ of Prohibitory Mandate Request for Immediate Stay of A.B. 1775’s Amendment of Penal Code 11165.1 SubD (C) has been filed with the appellate court appealing the law on the grounds of unconstitutionality and violation of patients’ right to privacy. You can find the writ at:

http://stopab1775.org/wp-content/uploads/PetitionForWrit_AB1775.pdf

 

Links to articles and studies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_child_pornography_and_child_sexual_abuse

http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/nov/30/mike-dewine/mike-dewine-cites-link-between-viewing-child-porno/

http://phys.org/news/2010-11-legalizing-child-pornography-linked-sex.html

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/9/43

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/us/19sex.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/01/dsm-pedophilia-mental-disorder-paraphilia_n_4184878.html

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/12/child-abuse.aspx

 

 

Janine Murray, MFT

President, Inland-Empire CAMFT