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Therapists
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Special Events
6 CEUs for LCSWs, MFTs, and RNs TO REGISTER, please mail checks for $90 ($80 early bird, before Jan. 12th) made out to TSR (Therapists for Social Responsibility) to: Elisabeth Bower, 3431 Clemens Way, Sacramento, 95864. Please include your license # for CE credits, phone # and email address. Register soon as space is limited. For information contact Elisabeth Bower 916/481-0674 or Marius Koga 916/307-2502. Peace and warmth, POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND SPIRITUALITY:A Transpersonal Therapeutic Approach by Marius Koga, MD, MPHIt is common for PTSD clients to seek religion and spirituality as part of their healing process. However, most psychotherapies are focused on the ego and personality constructs, while religious or spiritual considerations have been traditionally ignored. It is only in recent years that a therapeutic modality known as “transpersonal psychology “ has emerged which reintegrates psychology and the personality with the soul. The client is encouraged to actively maintain his/her individual self-concept in order to participate actively in his/her recovery. Concurrently, the client is guided to incorporate his/her individuality into the larger plane of the collective identity (including family, community, and religious and spiritual helping resources) to undergo personal transformation and growth. Our military especially, coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq, are seeking answers to painful questions about the gruesome realities of warfare, the value of personal faith, and the worth of human life itself. Many find that their faith in a God that is always available to respond to one’s personal tragedy can be utterly shattered. Soldiers and others who are unable to resolve such challenges find themselves lost in a spiritual flatland, which can take many nightmarish forms. They may feel abandoned by God, they reject or curse God, and they feel that God was powerless to help or even non-existent. They may even rationalize that their body mutilation, PTSD, or Traumatic Brain Injury was deserved punishment from God, or, in extreme, believe that their eternal damnation is God’s ultimate punishment. All too often, they feel they have no recourse but to numb their pain with drugs and alcohol. Their families suffer with them. By providing the opportunity for introspection about the meaning of trauma for the client’s life, transpersonal psychology helps soldiers, their families and friends, and others who have experienced PTSD and other traumatic events, to renegotiate the passive and silent state of the sick role and regain a sense of journeying, integrating, and healing. Dr. Koga will present “POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND SPIRITUALITY: A Transpersonal Therapeutic Approach” on Saturday, January 19, 2008, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, at St. Marks United Methodist Church, 2391 Saint Marks Way, Sacramento, CA. 6 CEUs for LCSWs, MFTs, and RNs. This lecture and interactive workshop will include integrating spirituality in the overall PTSD treatment; differentiating between psychotherapeutic and pharmacological versus transpersonal approaches; the neuro-network of fear and survival and how it fits into the clinical picture and practice; spiritual resilience and toxic faith; cultural and religious modulators of PTSD and PTSD treatments; and tools for spiritual assessment: SAI; FICA, and HOPE instruments. TO REGISTER, please mail checks for $90 ($80 early bird, before Jan. 12th) made out to TSR (Therapists for Social Responsibility) to: Elisabeth Bower, 3431 Clemens Way, Sacramento, 95864. Please include your license # for CE credits, phone # and email address. Register soon as space is limited. For information contact Elisabeth Bower 916/481-0674 or Marius Koga 916/307-2502. This workshop is offered by Therapists for Social Responsibility Marius Koga, MD, MPH, is a Diplomate of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and an Associate Clinical Professor of Public Health at UC Davis School of Medicine. He is also a Professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto where he is directing a pilot center for trauma studies. Dr. Koga has developed courses in mental health and spirituality for Chapman University and has been the Course Director for Transcultural Mental Health and Spirituality at Tulane Medical School. A former political prisoner, torture survivor, and refugee from communist Romania, Dr. Koga’s interest is on PTSD in refugee populations and US military who are Afghan and Iraq war veterans. He has given numerous presentations, and workshops on spiritual dimensions of trauma in US and Europe. Workshop Schedule: “POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND SPIRITUALITY: A Transpersonal Therapeutic Approach”
CLIMATE CHANGE, DESPAIR, AND EMPOWERMENT ROADSHOWWe hope you will attend this empowering multimedia event that Therapists for Social Responsibility is bringing to Sacramento from New Zealand! It will take all of us working together to "cool down" the earth. Date: Thursday, September 6th Climate Change, Despair, and Empowerment Roadshow with Kelly Tudhope, is coming to the west coast from New Zealand! Multimedia presentations to help us understand our role in a climate changed world and empower us with a renewed sense of commitment to the actions required to address global warming. $5 donation. Drinks/snacks provided. Cosponsors include Therapists for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sac., Grandmothers for Peace, International, Sac. for Democracy and others. Information: www.climate.net.au View Flyer Front for this Event This event will also be shown in Grass Valley, CA. Cosponsors include APPLE of NC, Social Forum Film Series, NCTV, Sierra Nevada Deep Ecology Institute and Peak Moment TV. For more information, contact Ken Hale: An all day follow-up workshop on Climate Change Despair and Empowerment will be held in Grass Valley on Saturday, September 8th from 1-8 pm at the same location. Dinner is included. For full details and cost, contact Nory Fussell: nory4u@sbcglobal.net 530/274-7765 IF NOT NOW, WHEN?Helping Our Soldiers, Ourselves, And Our WorldTherapists for Social Responsibility www.therapistsforsocialresponsibility.org is presenting a topical forum dealing with the personal experience of three Veterans who have returned from war, and the practical steps that therapists can take to help soldiers and their families. Since the V.A. is not prepared to deal with the huge numbers of returning soldiers with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and the personal and family devastation that it can bring, therapists are asking, “What can we do?” Collaborating with Give An Hour www.giveanhour.org and Veterans Village www.veteransvillage.org, we will find out how these two innovative organizations are helping to the remediate the problems. The forum will be held SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2007 from 2:00 – 5:00p.m. at Trinity Cathedral Church, 2620 Capitol Ave., Sacramento, 2nd Floor. Charlie Brown, candidate for Congress in 2006, George Main, president of Veterans for Peace, and Ray Bacigalupi, MFT will share their personal experiences of coming home from war, dealing with current world events, and transforming their struggles into positive action. Following Q & A and a break with snacks and drinks, the second half of the program will identify actions that we as therapists can take, including working with Give An Hour and Veterans Village. Cost: $30 with 3 CEUs; $10 donation without CEUs. (A percentage goes directly to services for Veterans.) Space is limited. RSVP to Shauna L. Smith, MFT gushauna@yahoo.com or 916/447-5706. Rabbi Michael Lerner will speak on: Rabbi Michael Lerner is an internationally renowned social theorist, theologian, psychotherapist, and the editor of Tikkun magazine. Utne Reader named Lerner one of its 100 American Visionaries. "Michael Lerner is the most prophetic intellectual and spiritual leader of our generation. We ignore his wisdom at our peril!" -- Cornell West Rabbi Lerner has written a spiritual manifesto for a new kind of social movement that challenges the globalization of selfishness, and speaks to our highest human need – a life of higher purpose than the materialism of the competitive marketplace. He will also be signing his book: The Left Hand of GOD, Taking Our Country Back from the Religious Right (HarperCollins, 2006). Admission: $10 / Students $5. Come early ~ seating is limited! The Intersection of The Psychological And Political
presented by Therapists for Social Responsibility "I had planned on leaving early but I couldn’t do it…I was spellbound!” was one of many positive comments about the recent Symposium, The Intersection of The Psychological And Political: In And Out of The Clinical Hour presented by Sacramento based Therapists for Social Responsibility (www.TherapistsForSocialResponsibility.org). The afternoon of presentations was also called "riveting," and "inspiring." Shauna Smith, MFT, in her Welcome and Introduction began the Symposium by explaining that Therapists for Social Responsibility began because a few therapists came together in the belief that in these critical times "when it sometimes seems as if the whole world needs healing" psychotherapists must find their voices for peace and justice. She set the tone of the Symposium by sharing a Native American parable in which a grandfather tells his grandson that each of us has two wolves inside: the wolf of greed, hate and violence and the wolf of generosity, love and peace. When the boy asks his grandfather which one will win, his grandfather replies, "Whichever one we feed." Professor Derrill Bodley, the keynote speaker, talked about Positive Nonviolent Response. He is a member of the 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, (www.peacefultomorrows.org) an organization of family members who have united to turn their grief into action for peace. He described his journey to come to terms with the loss of his 18 year old daughter, Deora, who was on flight 93 on 911. He shared footage of one of his trips to Afghanistan to meet with a family who had lost their son from U.S. bombing in the war. A music professor, Derrill also wrote a song Steps to Peace in memory of his daughter, based on a poem she had written entitled "I Ask Peace." He sang (cried) the song at the close of the symposium. Ray Bacigalupi, MFT, opened the first panel, Political Context, with his presentation In And Out of The War Zone, sharing his experiences in Vietnam. He vividly described battlefield sociopathy and government cover-ups, memories and nightmares that have reemerged since the war in Iraq began. His ironic poem, Thank You George Bush, describes his transformation from someone who tried to put his war experiences behind him and live as if they hadn’t happened, to an activist and psychotherapist who is keenly aware of the social injustice and violence here and around the world. He ended by asking compelling questions for psychotherapists to answer regarding whether it is ethical or even possible to remain neutral, both in and out of the clinical hour, "knowing what we know." Laurie Heller, MA, founder of Mothers United To Stop The Draft, mothersunited@blogspot.com spoke about the real possibility, despite the denials of the administration, that a military draft is imminent. Currently draft boards are mobilizing throughout the country and procedures are being put in place that could activate the draft by June 2005. College deferments will no longer be honored, and borders with Canada and other countries will be closed. Her son, Nate Heller, seventeen, discussed his efforts toward Becoming A Conscientious Objector. In this complicated process the CO must document a personal record that demonstrates a long-term consistently held religious or moral opposition to war. Psychiatrist Harry Wang spoke about Confidentiality And Section 215 of The PATRIOT Act which allows confidential medical and mental health records to be obtained by FBI agents without probable cause. A gag order prohibits medical/mental health care providers from telling anyone, including their patient/client, about the transfer of records. Dr. Wang summarized a letter to the Board of Behavioral Sciences written and signed by CSCSW, NASW, CA, Therapists for Peace and Justice and Therapists for Social Responsibility addressing the conflict between confidentiality statements, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the USA PATRIOT Act. Among other requests, this letter asks the Board, as the Consumer Protection Agency, to address this conflict and to require that Section 215 and the conflict of confidentiality be addressed in law and ethics courses. The second panel, Clinical Context, began with a presentation entitled Guidelines for The Socially Responsible Therapist by George Rosenfeld, Ph.D., Jean Rosenfeld, LCSW. They spoke about the importance of the clinician maintaining cognizance of their countertransference and personal political beliefs regarding issues of social responsibility within the context of the therapy session. Three questions were discussed that therapists can ask themselves in order to safeguard focus on the client’s treatment goals. Two case examples were given that demonstrated both the difficulty and the importance of maintaining appropriate boundaries during therapy sessions. Elisabeth Bower, RN, MFT, discussed the critical need to be aware of the shadow parts of ourselves so that they are not suppressed and projected onto others. Her narrative was blended with several quotes such as the following by C. G. Jung: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious" and "We have in all naivete forgotten that beneath our world of reason another lies buried. I do not know what humanity will still have to undergo before it dares to admit this." In her talk entitled, The Reconciliation of Opposing Forces In The Psyche, she spoke from her personal reference of being a child in Germany under Nazi occupation. Catherine Lieb, LCSW, in her presentation, Exploring The Impact of Politics, Economics And Culture, proposed that psychotherapists have an ethical obligation to be active in the political process because the larger political, social and economic environment has a powerful impact on the mental health of individuals and communities. She also argued that there is no such thing as complete neutrality for a therapist and that in these times of war and terrorism it is important for therapy to be a safe place where clients can discuss their political views As the afternoon ended with thoughts spinning and emotions heightened, Carolyn Altrock, LCSW, in her Closing Meditation helped to center us with the poem "Please Call Me By My True Names" by Thich Nhat Hanh and a meditative process taken from Joanna Macy reminding us of our interconnectedness with all parts of the universe. You can experience and even share the entire 4 hour symposium with family and friends by purchasing a professionally videotaped DVD or CD set, available now !
Professionally videotaped DVDs or CDs directly from our videographer Steve Kolb. Please send checks to:
Steve's email is Mackolb@Mac.com. To get your 4 CEUs just complete the enclosed brief post-test and mail it with a check for $20 to
and she will send you your certificate. Elisabeth's email is ElisabethHB@cs.com |
Flyer |
Registration Form |
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Therapist Activism and Clinical Practice
in a Time of |
War and Repression |
Time: |
Saturday, April 17, 2004 |
1:00-5:00 p.m. |
Location: |
College Avenue Presbyterian Church |
5951 College Avenue, Oakland |
Fee: |
$40/$25 students (with I.D.) |
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CEUnits: |
4 |
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Contact: |
Kathy Anolick, MFT 925-685-2816 |
Barbara Petterson, MFT 925-363-5000 x 139 email: bpetterson@newconnections.org | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
