Many of you already may know that every year the board of directors chooses to honor one of our volun- teers as the Outstanding Chapter Volunteer.

One question plagues me as I march toward licensure: What makes a good therapist? Is it insight? Outcome? Empathy? Diagnostic accuracy? Minimum counter transference? Maximum income? I think the answer lies in perspective. I think about perspective a lot.

Eddie Subega, MFT, granted us the heartfelt wisdom of the richness of his 30 years of experience working with assessment and suicide prevention.

Change. Some say it's the only constant. As inevitable as death and taxes. I believe becoming a therapist is all about change, and change is all about choices; the ones you make and the ones you don't. Choice is the difference between changing and evolving. The most important question to answer is this: "What do I want to do?"

Dr. Myrtle Heery's talk was about staying present with one's self and with the patient as a psychotherapeutic style. Her work is from the model of Existential Humanistic Psychology. From the start, she taught about the importance of self-disclosure as a way of being real, in the moment, and modeling for a patient.

Stories are important in our lives. We gain a sense of ourselves through narratives the telling of stories to self and others about what happened to us. Identities form through integrating family histories with cultural legends and myths. However, when our stories become sad, rigid, and repetitive, they may become the subject matter of therapy. An understanding of the dynamics represented in the journey of the fairy tale heroine or hero that leads them from misery to their highest realization, may reveal means for helping psychotherapy clients.

I would have to figure out how to provide my clients with quality care while navigating through my own nightmare. How?

Several months ago the Marriage Equality/Diversity Committee asked our Board of Directors to review and consider endorsing a statement regarding the ethical treatment of sexual minorities. At our last board meeting, our Board voted