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 CPPNJ Partner In Service: A Home Within
By Debi Roelke, PhD Nowhere is the importance of an inner secure base more apparent than in the lives of foster children. Their inner world so often mirrors the uncertainty and shifting ground of their external one. A Home Within is an award-winning, nonprofit, community based organization that is devoted to providing long-term, pro bono psychotherapy to current and former foster children. The goal is to provide, where possible, an ongoing therapy relationship that could carry a child through the vicissitudes of foster placement, helping to build that internal secure base with a reliable space where thoughts and feelings are valued above all else. The premise is simple: One child: One therapist. For as long as it takes. This year, Sandra Sinicropi and I have established a New Jersey chapter of A Home Within in conjunction with the CPPNJ community. We are inviting all interested clinicians to volunteer one weekly, pro bono case to see a current or former foster child in ongoing psychotherapy. Consultation groups are used to process and provide support for this work; course materials are available from A Home Within to earn APA and NASW-approved CEU's for the group time. When clinicians join A Home Within, they become part of both a local community and a national network of volunteer professionals: the organization has 50 chapters in 22 states across the country. A Home Within says, "On average, treatment lasts more than three years; many children stay in touch with their therapists through adolescence and into adulthood." A Home Within was started in 1994 in San Francisco by Dr. Toni Heineman, clinical psychologist and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at UCSF. Confronted with the increasingly pressing needs of foster children in the Bay Area, she took action and formed a network of psychotherapists in private practice to donate clinical time toward providing one stable, secure, long-term relationship in the lives of these children. Almost 20 years later, this network has extended across the country, organized into local chapters with chapter directors and consultation group leaders. The organization is gaining national prominence as it grows in scope across the country. This year alone, A Home Within is one of only thirteen organizations featured in the newly released volume Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Non-Profits; they are currently a semifinalist in the international competition for the 2012 Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award; and The Peery Foundation has not only extended their current funding for a fourth year, but has offered a $50,000 matching grant to the organization. Efforts to gauge the success of the program show that over 79% of A Home Within clients surveyed showed statistically significant reductions in anxiety, depression and dissociation - all critical factors in an individual's capacity to feel secure and form stable relationships. Despite the level of risk and environmental stress that is sometimes involved in this work, the staff at A Home Within report that once a therapy relationship takes hold, it often extends over a number of years. The focus on relationships - not only foster child to therapist, but amongst the clinicians themselves - has proven to be the secure base on which this enterprise is founded. In honor of May is National Foster Care Month, CPPNJ is highlighting its new partner in community service, the New Jersey chapter of A Home Within. National Foster Care Month is sponsored by the National Foster Parent Association to raise awareness and highlight the needs of more than 400,000 children across the nation in the foster care system. Since its inception in 1988, in a bill put forth by none other than Senator Strom Thurmond, this campaign has promoted its message that there are many ways to support children in foster care and "Change a Lifetime." For more information, to volunteer or contribute to A Home Within, please contact either Sandra or myself, and visit www.ahomewithin.org. |
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June 24, 2012 All Day Conference
An Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Approach to Sexual Problems and Crises
Presented by Sue Johnson, PhD
Lenfell Hall, The Mansion, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ
8:30am - 4:00pm
6 CEUs offered for social workers
Sue Johnson is Director of the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy and Distinguished Research Professor at Alliant University in San Diego, California as well as Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Dr Johnson's best known professional books include, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection (2004) and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy with Trauma Survivors (2002). She trains counselors in EFT worldwide and consults to Veterans Affairs, the US and Canadian military and New York City Fire Department.
This workshop will outline EFT, an empirically validated model of couple intervention that focuses on the creation of a secure attachment bond. The evidence is that secure attachment enhances the other two key aspects of love relationships, caregiving and sexuality. This workshop will outline EFT as an attachment intervention. It will then consider how sexuality fits into this perspective and how sexual issues are dealt with in EFT sessions. The day will consist of didactic presentation, discussion, exercises and the viewing of EFT training tapes. Attendees will learn: 1) To understand close relationships from an attachment perspective; 2) To understand EFT as a model of intervention; 3)To link sexuality and attachment, bonding and eroticism; and 4) To describe the way sexual issues are addressed in an experiential attachment oriented therapy.
Click HERE to register for this program
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Graduation and End of Year Celebration
Join us on June 9, 2012 for CPPNJ's Annual Graduation and End of Year Celebration to be held at The Rutgers Club in New Brunswick. Invitations have been sent to you in the mail. You can mail your payment to CPPNJ 235 Main Street #184 Madison NJ 07940 or you can pay online. We hope to see you there. |
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Upcoming Programs
September 30, 2012 - CPPNJ Welcome Back Brunch - Maplewood Community Center, Maplewood
October 14, 2012 - Dan Hill, PhD presents The Integration of Attachment Theory and Neurobiology Part I - Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park, Madison
November 11, 2012 - Nancy McWilliams, PhD presents Challenges in Psychoanalytic Supervision - Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park, Madison
March 16, 2013 - Dan Hill, PhD presents The Integration of Attachment Theory and Neurobiology Part II - Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park, Madison
May 19, 2013 - Phil Ringstrom, PhD presents A Relational Approach to Couples Therapy - Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park
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New Interest Group Forming at CPPNJ: Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
By Debi Roelke, PhD
CPPNJ is in the process of forming a new interest group in child and adolescent psychotherapy, open to all in the CPPNJ community. The initial goal is to bring together those clinicians who work with children and adolescents into an identified group. We will then explore the possibilities for programs and activities to promote psychodynamically oriented work with children, adolescents and their families.
For more information or to participate in the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Interest Group, please contact Debi Roelke at droelke@optonline.net or 973-644-0033.
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Capacity Crowd for IDfest 2012
 
By Bob Raymond, PhD
Expectations were high as a capacity crowd of over 140 people entered Lenfell Hall at Fairleigh Dickinson University for CPPNJ's 2nd Annual Comedy Night fund-raiser on May 5th, 2012. Never mind that IDfest was also Cinco de Mayo and the same night as the Kentucky Derby. It was IDfest all the way on Saturday night, as a highly enthusiastic crowd, consisting of CPPNJ candidates, faculty, significant others, friends, and families crowded into beautiful Lenfell Hall.
While comedy entertainment was the main attraction of the night, several other features of the evening brought excitement and enjoyment: wonderful desserts and drinks, great opportunities for networking, mingling, and catching up with friends while making new acquaintances, and, last but not least, the personal gratification (for the winners) and profitable experience (for our Institute) of the Silent Auction.
Let's start with the Silent Auction, inasmuch as this was the first thing everyone encountered on coming through the entranceway. Tables were set up with over 35 displays of items available for bidding. There were glorious choices, ranging from personal care items, such as beauty treatments, hairstyling, and spa appointments, to more intellectual and aesthetic items such as books, admission entries to major museums, art works, and handmade clothing. Beautiful jewelry items and restaurant meals could also be obtained, for the right price. Bidding was brisk and competitive. One woman was overheard pleading with a competitor for a gorgeous photographic landscape, the work of our own Daniel Goldberg, Director of the Couples Therapy Program. However no amount of imploring could persuade her rival to let the piece go. With an uncharacteristic lack of empathy, yours truly prevailed. This stunning work of art is now hanging in entranceway of my home. The auction was a success for high bidders, and a success for the Institute, which netted a profit of over $700 just on this portion of the evening.
In between running back and forth to bid on items in the Silent Auction, many people indulged in delicious desserts and thirst quenching drinks. The tables of available sweets seemed to go on and on with choices from elegant Italian pastries, richly covered balls of chocolate over red velvet cake, brownies, cookies, home made and delectable biscotti (abundantly prepared by our own Ronnie Bearison), and healthy platters of fruit. There was an assortment of available drinks, from wine and champagne, to soda, other soft drinks, as well as coffee and tea. All of this was available throughout the evening, and was included in the basic and reasonable admission fee.
Networking, mingling, friendly exchanges with new friends and old, occurred throughout the first hour and a half of the evening. Whether bidding on auction items, or enjoying refreshments, the atmosphere bubbled with joyful and relaxed conversation. What a pleasure to see so many smiling faces and to experience such upbeat feelings of pre-show enthusiasm. Then, when 9PM arrived, the real fun began.
Mike Keren, the host of the evening, our psychologist-turned-comedian-turned-psychologist, showed off his talent for organizing this complex and fun filled event. He utilized the skills acquired from previously hosting the 2011 IDfest to make this year's event so enjoyable. Mike opened up the entertainment portion of the program with some of his own routines and humorous material. Drawing on his own experiences of being in analysis and encountering numerous professional challenges, he good naturedly poked fun at some of his less than stellar experiences as a patient and a professional.
Kelley Lynn followed Mike, and gave a warm up performance to get the audience in gear for the main attraction of the evening. Kelley told jokes about herself, emphasizing the foibles in her life, and showing how personal tragedy could be turned around into humor as a way of dealing with grief. Most notable was her clarity in telling off a well intentioned but misdirected friend when the friend insisted that Kelley's deceased husband could be seen as a rainbow in the sky above. Perhaps one would have had to be in Kelley's presence (or to be fortunate enough to have seen her one-act play, "My Husband Is Not a Rainbow", featured on network television last March) to fully appreciate the humor in this story.
Following Kelley, the star of the evening, Jessica Kirson, gave a rousing and captivating performance. Jessica has been featured on television channels and shows including Comedy Central's "Premium Blend," and "Fresh Faces," and Showtime's "White Boyz in the Hood," Oxygen's "Can You Tell?," Bravo's "The Great Thing About Being," The Women's Television Network's "She's So Funny," NBC's "Last Comic Standing," "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," as well as shows on Nickelodeon, Noggin, and VH1. Jessica, like Mike and Kelley, draws on her own life experience in the development of her material. She too does not shy away from introspection and sharing her innermost psychic challenges in areas of relationships, family dynamics, sex, work, and personal insecurities. Her humor included stories about her mother, a psychotherapist, her father, whom she always sees in the face of the man in the audience who is not laughing, and her own ways of stabilizing herself by dissociating to gain distance and perspectives on self-doubts. Jessica's performance had the audience rollicking.
All and all, the evening was a smashing success. Over $7,000 was raised on entrance fees alone. Additional profits come from sale of the IDfest T-shirts and the Silent Auction. While the success of the evening was due to the talent of the performers and the enthusiasm of the audience, the event could not have occurred without the months of planning and generosity of many. Members of the Events Committee, including Susan Masluk, Sue Jurish, Judy Oshinsky, Madine DeSantis, Alexandra Granville, Dorothy O'Keefe-Diana, Sherree Pecci, and Tara McSorley deserve high praise. Thanks go to Sharon Goodman for co-chairing the Silent Auction. Thanks to Seth Warren and Bob Levine for the wine, Patty Malloy and Chef Neil for delectable treats and service, Shawn Sobkowski for her creative artwork in designing the IDfest T-shirts, Sam Warren for producing the T-shirts, Rose Oosting for publicity, and as always to Cathy Van Voorhees whose incredible organizational skills and attention to details make an event like this possible.
BTW, at the end of the evening we learned that next year's IDfest will occur in the fall of 2013. So for anyone who missed out on this year's event, stay alert and tuned in to your e-mails and Calendar of Events. It is an event not to be missed!
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Member Presentations and Publications
Ruth Lijtmaer, PhD
Paper:
"Dancing with politics in the consulting room". In the panel: "New Frontiers in Psychodynamic Psychiatry". AADC (American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry), 5-4-12 to 5-5-12. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Please note: If you have an announcement of either a paper you've recently published or a presentation you've given, let us know. Send Cathy Van Voorhees an email at cppnj@aol.com and we will be happy to get the word out.
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All Programs are Co-Sponsored with the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers
The New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers (NJSCSW) provides leadership and support to clinical social workers in all practice settings. NJSCSW has given voice to clinical social workers dealing with the health care industry. The organization provides outstanding education programs and opportunities for collegial contact. www.njscsw.org
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Our E-Newsletter Editorial Staff
Mary Lantz, LCSW, Editor-in-Chief
Rose Oosting, PhD, Consulting Editor
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Unsolicited articles are welcome. Something you'd like to write? Send it to us at cppnj@aol.com. We're happy to hear from you.
Thank you for joining us. Look for our next newsletter in June 2012 when the featured article will be "Part III: Dodo Redux: the next in the series on the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapy," by Nancie Senet, PhD.
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No need to print this email - for future reference, all issues are archived. |
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