In order to thrive and grow into our potentials, we all have basic needs that must be met consistently. The most basic needs are for food, safety and shelter. Other important needs are for loving attention, a sense of belonging, stimulation through learning and play, structure and boundaries, age appropriate responsibilities, respect, freedom to express oneself, to be heard, and creative outlets.

As children if we do not have these needs met, or they are met erratically or inconsistently, we develop defenses and strategies to compensate. These strategies may help us cope and survive when we are young, but as we get older, these defenses, behaviors, perceptions and ways of being with ourselves and our world often become liabilities. Many common issues that clients want to work on in hypnotherapy are linked to these childhood patterns that limit.

 [ read more ]

Recent concerns have been raised regarding treatment in areas where the personal, cultural or religious beliefs of the clinician conflict with evidence-based practices and the standards of care accepted by our profession. Nowhere has this conflict been more profound than in matters concerning the treatment of sexual minorities (i.e., LGBT clients) and people with non-conforming gender identifications. In response to these concerns the East Bay Chapter of CAMFT Board of Directors has adopted the following statement on the treatment of sexual minorities. [ read more ]

This year's Chapter Leadership Conference brought together the leaders from CAMFT chapters across the state. The forum provided for the exchange of ideas that are currently being utilized and ones that can be implemented by other chapter to further enhance the benefits of membership to CAMFT and local chapters.  [ read more ]

It's been four months since I moved to Santa Cruz from Oakland, and five months since I closed my psychotherapy practice in January 2010. This writing of my experience is my attempt at both an honorarium to my practice and a learning tool for others.  [ read more ]

This article highlights the prodigious role that emotional neglect plays in childhood trauma, and how it alone can create Complex PTSD. It begins by extensively examining the processes of denial and minimization that blunt our awareness about childhood trauma. Denial is first explored in relationship to abuse, especially verbal and emotional abuse, which then sets the stage for a more complete explication of the trauma of emotional neglect.

Denial about the deleterious effects of childhood abandonment seriously delimits our ability to recover. Continuous emotional neglect turns the child's psyche into a quagmire of emptiness, fear and shame - a quagmire that she will, as an adult, frequently flashback into until she understands and works through the wretchedness of her childhood. Without such understanding, her crucial, unmet needs for safe and comforting, human connection will continue to cause her an enormous amount of unnecessary suffering.

 [ read more ]

The following are excerpts from the licensing law that was recently passed that detail the requirements for LMFTs and LCSWs to become dually licensed as LPCCs in California.  [ read more ]

In 2009, the Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor licensure law was passed and signed here in California. For already licensed MFTs, grandparenting is available from January 1, 2011 through June 30, 2011. For interns who expect to be licensed before June 30, 2011, they too will have the option to apply for LPCC grandparenting.  [ read more ]