We have an upcoming day-long conference on psychotherapy outcome (click the link below for brochure details). This conference was inspired by the recent publication of Louis Breger's book in which he interviewed patients who had completed therapy and asked them to describe what was helpful and what wasn't. The conference also includes presentation of a process-outcome study that my colleagues and I recently completed. Please feel free to forward this to your colleagues, friends, and students who might be interested. Many thanks. We look forward to seeing you there! George Silberschatz

Click the link at the left "Register Now" to be sure you have a seat!!

Dear Colleagues,

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure to visit Hal and Fran Sampson in their home in Emeryville. I had spoken to Hal a couple of months earlier and he told me that he would be honored to accept the Weiss-Sampson Award for 2012. Jessica Broitman and Hal Sampson will be our honorees this year at the second annual SFPRG Honorary Fundraising Dinner.

Out of deference to Hal's health, I wasn't expecting him to attend and we were hoping to play a videotaped interview of Hal at the dinner that Suzanne Gassner had made several years ago for the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. However, during my recent visit, Hal told me that he thinks he will be able to attend with Fran. I was very gratified to hear that news and would like to share it with you. The dinner will be held on Saturday night, September 15, 2012 at King Yen Restaurant in Berkeley. We are looking forward to an opportunity to recognize Hal and Jessica, who have both made tremendous contributions to the research group, to teaching, research, supervising, training, and each in his or her own way, to being the backbone of SFPRG. Please mark your calendars for this special occasion.

Last week, the Board of Directors passed our budget for this coming year. In the last fiscal year (ending May 30, 2012), after budgeting for a $5000 deficit last year, we actually found ourselves in the black thanks to a spirited fundraising campaign and a very successful year at the Clinic. This year, we are budgeting for a surplus but we still need a healthy membership drive, another successful fundraising drive, and continued steady flow of referrals to our Clinic.

The Clinic trained 15 interns last year, four to five more than our usual number. Interns are seeing more patients and holding onto them longer, indicating an increased level of competence and therapeutic efficacy. Clinic supervisors and staff are doing a tremendous job. Students say they like what they are learning and many who have gotten their doctoral degrees here are coming back as post-doctoral interns. In this coming fall, six of the interns will be post-docs. This is an important endorsement for our training program. It says that despite working without salary or stipend, students value their education and want to come back for more training. Our internship program continues to get excellent applicants and will take more students locally as well as from Bergen, Norway. We are hoping to raise enough money in our fundraising campaign to start to offer stipends to interns. That will allow us to gain APA accreditation and make our training program even more prestigious.

The exciting conference with Louis Breger, George Silberschatz, and Suzanne Gassner coming up June 2 is filling up. Sign up before it sells out. The theme is Outcome in Psychotherapy. Louis will talk about how his patients described their treatment outcomes after years of psychoanalysis, the subject of his recent book, Psychotherapy: Lives Intersecting. George will describe his important research recently reported at the Society for Psychotherapy Research that shows a positive correlation between therapist pro-plan interventions and patient outcome. Suzanne will tie together these important contributions to our understanding of treatment outcome.

I hope to see you at the Conference, June 2. Have a wonderful month.

Steve Foreman

Additional Clinic thanks!

In the last newsletter we inadvertently left Ginger Rhodes and Jack Maslow off our list of current supervisors. They are both very active in the clinic and we want to express our appreciation. In fact Ginger is our representative to the board! So please accept my apologies! The clinic couldn't not function without the help of the members of SFPRG! We are in great need of a few additional supervisors for next year- please let me know if you can spare any hour at your offices or ours!!.

We are pleased to announce that Jamine Ergas has joined the Education Committee. Jamine is a former SFPRG intern who is now a Psych. Assistant working with Dr. Ginger Rhodes in San Francisco.

We have three exciting education opportunities coming up this year; Saturday June 2 we have the workshop on, Looking at Psychotherapy Outcome: 
The Therapeutic Relationship and Treatment Outcome with Louis Breger, PhD, Suzanne Gassner, PhD and George Silberschatz, PhD.

On October 27th we have a conference on Attachment Theory and CMTwith David Walin, PhD and Steve Foreman MD.

November 17th: 
Couple Therapy with Dennis J. Zeitlin, M.D.

Although March of 2013 may seem a long way off we are already in the planning stages for the next March Workshop. If you have a workshop you would like to give or topics you would like to see in the schedule please let us know.

Our Membership Renewal Drive begins June 1st and you will be receiving your letter in the mail soon. Please consider renewing right away and at the highest amount you can. (Click the link below to become a new member)

We value our members and understand the commitment you make when you renew. This is a vibrant organization because our members continue to keep the value of CMT at the forefront of research, training, education and services at our low fee clinic. Thank you!

We are looking for people to join the Membership Committee as volunteers. We meet the last Friday of the month at #10 Funston, Presidio. Your energy will help in brainstorming how to increase membership and reach out to other communities to share the value of CMT and SFPRG. Shoot me an email: kathiedunnmft@comcast.net

North Berkeley:

Beautiful, very large office in a converted Victorian house in North Berkeley (Hopkins Street area) available for a full time rental, beginning May l5, 20l2, or beginning June 1. The office has a bay window and a full wall of built in floor to ceiling wood bookcases. Two other psychotherapy offices share the suite. Street parking is easily accessible. Close to bus lines and walking distance from North Berkeley BART. Wireless Internet available. Please contact Suzanne Gassner at smgassner@aol.com, and tell me about your practice and any other information that I should know in order to determine whether what our building offers and your office needs are likely to make a good fit. I will be unable to reply to you until April 28th or thereafter, but I will respond to your inquiry as soon as I can.

San Francisco:

Beautiful bright, very quiet, lovely furnished office, in a psychotherapy building. Available full or part time and may be shared by several therapists. Excellent parking and public transportation. Three buses stop within one block. Convenient restaurants and shopping nearby.

The building has front door security lock and the office shares a waiting room and bathroom. The office has double doors and sound insulation. A signal light in the waiting room announces the arrival of an appointment.

Contact Irwin Gootnick, M.D. (415)221-5204 or igootnick@aol.com 4333 California st.