by Dominique Yarritu, PhD, LMFT
Back to Spring 2023 Newsletter

Greetings!

I start this message to you by making amends: throughout the past year, our board has welcomed a new members and it was brought to my attention that I did not welcome them officially in any of the 2022 newsletters. It is high time to change this and I want to apologize for such an oversight. Early in 2022, Moitreyee Chowdhury, LMFT, joined as the director of DEI and as you may see on our home page, she was instrumental in our chapter being recognized as a second best cultural awareness program. Liliana Ramos, LMFT, became our director-at-large; Liliana took on many volunteering opportunities, has been very active with our newsletter articles, and of great help at in-person events. Ursula Jorgensen, LMFT, mentor-at-heart, came aboard as our director of support groups in late spring 2022, and has also taken on various volunteering activities, one being the revamping of our mentoring program. You may remember that we had been looking for a treasurer for a while and we were grateful to have Mikella Polito, AMFT, accept to join us to fill this open position in the fall. Mikella brings to our chapter her past experience in real estate and her dealings with that business financial requirements. Finally, I am delighted to introduce our new president-elect: Janice Hoscan, AMFT, who joined early this year, has since been shadowing me and taking on various tasks as she is learning the intricacies of her position. We are now looking for someone to join us to fill the position of director of programs, which has opened up early this year. You can see everyone’s bios here. Last thing about volunteering: I want to personally thank all of you who have responded to our call for help. We are all grateful to have a growing list of members willing to participate in our events and be of service. However, we still continue to need help for various aspects of this business of running an association. You can reach out to any of us at the board if you are interested in volunteering in a particular area or you can reach Nancy Orr, our chapter coordinator, if you are open to helping where the urgent need is.

As you may see at the end of this newsletter, we have a busy schedule of events, starting with an outdoor workshop today, Nature as Co-Therapist: An introduction to ecotherapy, just two days before the Spring Equinox with Rev. Connie L. Habash, LMFT, at Hidden Villa in the beautiful hills of Los Altos. We have not offered outdoors events for quite some time and I am delighted that Connie accepted to lead this eco-psychotherapy event. In April, we have a new type of event coming to you: a mini day retreat! No CEs, no lecturing, just a few hours of self-care and reconnecting with self through Somatic IFS and authentic movement, with Jaclyn Long, LMFT and LaDonna Silva, LMFT. This particular event will be capped at 40 participants, so I recommend you register soon. Another aspect of somatics therapy will be touched upon by Jyoti Nadhani, LMFT, in April as she gives us an overview of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, in-person at Michael’s in Mountain View.

I want to bring your attention to the new BBS requirement that mental health providers servicing patients via telehealth complete a telehealth/law and ethics training. We are working on confirming a 3-CE webinar/workshop presentation on 20 May that will meet this requirement. It will soon be advertised and I hope that many of you will find it helpful to have it offered right here. Finally, we will have a host booth at the CAMFT conference on 5-6 May in Santa Clara. We are looking forward to seeing and connecting with you there.

I wish you all a beautiful and fulfilling spring!

Dominique