In 2005, I dropped my affiliation  with AAMFT and have not looked back. The organization was concerned with politics and whether or not to publish a statement in support of homosexual marriage or to remain silent on the topic. While I have personal opionions regarding this matter, I don't believe that a professional organization should find itself engaged in such right-winged/left-winged upheveal. There was no discussion relevant to clinical implications, only the politics.  Shortly after this the attention of AAMFT turned to to biology and medicine. The Family Therapy magazine cover titles during this time included "Genomics: Changing the Future of Families" and "MFT & Medications". I was done.

The organization that had been formed to further the ideas and profession of family therapy had completely headed in a direction contray to the foundational ideas of the field. What use is membership? The slight discount on conferences did not offset the cost of membership dues. The need for membership post licensure is marginal and only has benifet if you are in academics.

I have heard the arguement that the organization plays a vital role in helping to lobby legislators in order to secure the stablity of the field. But if you corrupt what you are supposed to sustain, I have no use for you.

Fast forward several years...

The non-profit that I work for provides interships for students at a local universities, including master's and doctoral internships in MFT. Recently the standards for onsite supervisors has changed, I find myself applying for approved supervisor status with AAMFT. I begrudingly do so simply to ease the trouble minds of the grad students employeed with our agency. I am not however going to pay for clinical membership. I will simiply pay for the Supervisor Status.

So, I hold two licenses that a pay to renew every other year. I pay for conferences to CEUs that are less relevant to my pratice than listening to pop radio. Now, I pay AAMFT to designate me as an approved supervisor, though I am a approved supervisor in my state already. I feel swindled.

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Online Education 08/23/2011
 
I am teaching as an adjunct professor for the University of Louisiana Monroe this semester. It will be my first experience teaching a course online. 22-24 students in a doctoral level class is a lot to handle, but I am very excited about the course. Its own couples therapy. I'm using some classic texts like Mirages of Marriage (a must read) and Pragmatics of Human Communication, as well as the more recently published Passionate Marriage.

I have also been interviewing students applying for a open intership position at the Family Systems Institute. One of my top choices is a student from Liberty University. She is studying in online program from that institution.

This gets me to thanking about how education, particularly college education, is moving more and more to the online format. I am surprisingly a huge fan of this trend. I think there are by utilzing practicing professionals as on-site supervisors students can recieve tremendous real work experience, while accessing top faculty for a knowledge base online.

I am curious about how licensing boards around the country are handling this shift. I know that currently in Louisiana, the LMFT advisory board will not license a MFT that graduated from an online program. The LPC board, however, will. I do hope the LMFT board will join the information age soon. I think it is a bitt
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MindForTherapy is now partnering with the Center for Children and Families to promote the work of the Family Systems Institute. I now have the opportunity to integrate my passion and work into the online presence that MindForTherapy has to offer.  New pages have been added that detail the approach, services, and philosophy of this systemically oriented treatment center.  The work primarily focuses on the treatment of children and youth that are at-risk because of abuse, neglect, or delinquent behavior. The treatment programs are highly successful and now the focus of researchers in the field of family therapy.

For the last 6 years I have worked at The Center for Children and Families in Monroe, LA to provide family therapy to impoverished families that are involved with the social system or justice system. We have just recently established the Family Systems Institute.  Our goal is family preservation and to promote safe enviroments for children. We work to disintangle families from the social systems that seem to rip them apart at the seams. Its a great place. Lots of like minded family therapists and an administrative team that is commited to a systemic mind set.

Please enjoy the new section of ww.MindForTherapy.com and make sur

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The vision that I have for this website is simple. MindForTherapy.com will be the website of choice to find information on Creative Psychotherapy and Systemic Family Therapy.

My desire is to open up access to materials to the public and to stimulate an exchange of ideas that advances creativity and systemic thinking in our field. Toward that end I have just created a Facebook page for MindForTherapy and am creating a membership to the site. The membership is free of charge and has no obligation associated with it. I am intereseted in promoting the exchange of ideas though allowing members to recieve updates and contribute content to the site. You can submit edits, additions, pictures, concepts, ideas, breif articles, etc. If you have orginal and historical documents that you want others to have access to such as letters, transcripts of discussions, research reports, etc. you can scan them in and we can link them as a pdf for the world to view. If you have access to video, you can upload it to youtube and send me the link. I can embed it right on the site.

The site is taking on more small step in right direction. Traffic continues to increase and the archive of information is growing. Please help.
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MindforTherapy is adding new content concerning the historical figures of systemic family therapy. I will be updating the profiles of the leading figures, adding new faces to the mix, and adding video to the site (as it becomes availible). By adding video, I hope to bring life to the significant contributions of those figures discussed. Keeping checking back as the site continues to grow. The goal is to eventually is to become the formost webiste for information on systemic family therapy, and to do so without losing our edge of irreverence.
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First volumes of SHIFT and Brief Journal will be posted soon. Thank you to all that have submitted. We are still accepting a few more submissions so there is still time to get an article to us.

The site will be updated more frequently, as more traffic and emials regarding our contect keep coming in.

Some of the contributers to "Mind" have helped to launch a new online platform for therapy. www.therapyroad.com. The platform innovative and the group is seeking to help advance the work and interest in online counseling.
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We are two days away from launching www.mindfortherapy.com. There is new content on the site. There are a couple of eBooks, discussion topic in the forum, the addition of the Brief Journal of Brief Therapy, links to more info about our mentors and some of the pioneers. A hidden Irreverent portal for "spoof" photos, and much more to come. So if you are not active on the site, start adding your content and new ideas.

I also want to announce a new blog from the Center for Children and Families (www.cfcfnela.org) called Therapeutic Rhythms (www.therapeuticrhythms.wordpress.com) very cool stuff so check it out.

The is still alot of work to be done on "mind". I am wanting to start publishing the first journal articles for SHIFT within the next couple of weeks and I know that there are a couple new eBooks in the works. So keep checking back with us.

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Insanity 06/14/2009
 

I am usually a great fan of commercials. While I am never compelled to go out and buy anything, I enjoy the creative and humorous nature of most of them. However, my least favorite commercial is one for a “supplemental” anti-depressant. It magnifies our cultures dependency on medication for everything. It starts out with a very interesting fact, “2 out of every 3 people taking an anti-depressant still experience depression symptoms.” This is enough information to make me stop and think for a moment, but it is the next phrase that really puts me in to a twist. “[Add-on medication] may be right for you.” Are you kidding me? You just gave me the stats that say, 2/3 of people taking anti-depressants are not helped by them, and you have the nerve to try and sell me more medication. Isn’t that one definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over expecting different results)? After I have my initial furious reaction, I typically slip into a mild state of depression myself. Is this what our society has come to? We are so blinded by the propaganda of huge drug companies that we are willing to swallow this. Even the commercials have negative side effects.

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My thoughts regarding this website are developing slowly. I think to give more life to the site I am going to have to let it go. As Bateson said, "iin order to save the world you have to be willing to let it go to hell." My thinking now  is to let "mind" become more of an interactive place. I have added a discussion forum and am working out details for an eJournal. I am going to bring 8 or 9 people into its development and managment. Some of those bright minds can do things I only dream about. I want each person to have control over the site. To be able to add and build in their own individual personality. I think it will be fun. I want to get everyone started with an absurd e-book. I am thinking of titles like "How to lose a therapist in ten sessions", "Dirty Secrets: A Scandalous Brief History of Family Therapy", "Top Ten All Time Worst Interventions"... Who knows, but I think it would be fun to let folks loose with a creative assignment to start with.

I am pleased with where my "mind" is headed. I don't want it to stop with my own skin. I think a major issue with making real advancments in our field has to do with how territorial everyone is with their "intellectual property". I am frustrated with a lot of what I see in the field, nothing more so than the idea of trademarking the names of schools of therapy and marketing them as "canned" approaches to effective treatment. Most of the research is halfcocked clinical trails that pit one program against basically no treatment, and the studies that do compare treatment usually ened up with no difference. If you want to find out more about this "baloney" check out the website www.talkingcure.com. It is a great site with strait talk about what research is really showing... that is without all the propaganda.

So I quess... that is the pitfall I want to avoid. Give up control... let the site take a life of its own...Let "mind" be as Bateson might define it... including all the pathways along which transforms of difference can be transmitted.

Well... lets be realistic. I know the people that I am bringing in to the work on this website and I know their theoretical orientations... so its not all up in the air.

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Mind For Therapy 05/19/2009
 

I'm interested in letting loose a bit with this website. I have thought for sometime about adding a little meaning to the noise about therapy, counseling, etc, etc, etc. I am hoping to have a fun while giving people something worthwhile to read. I am not interested building up some new establishement or the next new thing in therapy. I think we have plenty of people who think they have found the answers. I want to poke fun and be a little irreverant. So... this is my outlet. 

I would like to see a real movement towards an evovled understanding of therapy that sheds the old shackles of scared models and prideful men bickering back and forth about whose ideas have the most currancy or potency.

For the most part, the research on therapy shows that there is little to no difference between treatment models or schools. And in large part the fiield simply keeps on ignoring this fact.

I come from a family therapy tradition and I find it interesting. I apply systemic family therapy principles to how I approach every case. Does this mean that I am always systemic... No. Even Gregory Bateson said he only have brief moments of clarity inwhich he was able to hold a full appreciation for systemic thought.

I love the new work of Bradford Keeney. His new book Creative Therapy is coming out in July... A must read (partly becuase most of the cases he writes about in the book took place at the agency I work at). I think his greatest contribution will be his unwellingness to continue the creative, improvisational, and absurd work of the family therapy forefathers. Brad has described is birth into the field of family therapy to me in detail. "Bateson was my father in the filed and Whitaker my mother." I love it.

For now... I consider myself more or less an orphan.

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