Nov. 29, 2014

Hello Community:

Today as I sit in my living room watching the rainfall out over the Sierra Foothills I am filled with gratitude. I am grateful that in 1987 when I was looking for a volunteer internship to complete my MFT hours a young charismatic man took a chance on me and hired me to work with substance abusing youth at Thunder Road Adolescent Treatment Center in Oakland. It was there that I met Dr. Richard Levine, a young psychiatrist who was hired as the medical director. Dr. Levine did some training at Mount Zion where he met Joseph Weiss. Dr. Levine was so enthusiastic and excited by what he was learning about Control Mastery Theory that I began to attend Joe's case conference. In 1989, I began my private practice in Dr. Levine's office at Market Hall. I am in awe of the forces that have come together to help create the wonderful career I have today. I am so grateful to all the CMT clinicians that have referred to me over the years and for the collegiality and support I have received/needed to do the important work of helping people disconfirm their pathogenic beliefs and have more meaningful lives.

This month, on November 7th, marked the 10th anniversary of Joe's passing. I am grateful to all those who have and are contributing to the continuation of his life's work. It is not on easy task. There are some who feel the appropriate paths for continuing Joe's work were not taken. There are others who feel our recourses are not being utilized in a manor that can best continue the spreading of the theory. And there are those who feel all is as it should be, given what has lead up to today. Whatever your opinion, wherever you stand of the direction of the organization, we all have a common purpose as stated in our mission statement, To improve the practice of psychotherapy through the further development of Control Mastery Theory by educating mental health professionals, conducting research on psychotherapy, and providing mental health services to the community. Now is the time come together and work jointly to keep the organization Joe and Hal founded united and energized. For that to happen, we need you to stay, or get, involved.

We have a lot in store for the New Year. We plan to revive the paper directory of our membership. Please go online and update your profile so that when we print your information it will be accurate. We are also planning a Ladies Luncheon for the spring, to kick off a fundraising drive to continue the redecoration project for building 9. We could use some volunteers for both of these projects.

Last but not least, Amazon has a non-profit division called the Smile Program. This program contributes money to the non-profit of your choice when you shop with them. (See info below or ask Rob if you have any questions about this.)

In closing, I am so grateful to be a part of this organization and for the trust you have placed in me to keep the vision alive.

Warmly,
Susan Landes

Come out for SFPRG's Holiday Party Art Show & Auction!
At our offices in The Presidio, Saturday, Dec. 6, from 4pm to 7pm.

We have some wonderful artists among our members. We will have art for viewing and some for sale. We will have an auction fundraiser with gift certificates and more - you just may get a good deal on dinners or tickets! Also being auctioned: vacation stay, home cooked dinner, and a vocal performance.

We want to thank our donors: Piatti Mill Valley, Sociale, SFJazz, Paisan, Cafe Trieste, Jane Dulay, John Bogardus, Terry Meyers/Dulcet Four, Helga Fasching, and Susan Landes.

More info on our website: click here.

November 20, 2014

Dear Colleagues,

In the SFPRG Research Committee meeting this month, John Snyder reported that his application for the Emanuel Windholtz grant was approved for $7000. The WIndholtz grant is offered through the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and is meant to support research on psychodynamic or psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

The money will be used to buy a server to be housed at SFPRG to be used for medical records for the clinic and the collection of data for research. It will allow data to be collected directly onto SFPRG iPads rather than having to be collected by hand on paper and later inputted into the computer. This will be much more efficient in terms of time and effort. The server will save us money ($80 per month) that we currently pay another service to host our medical records. It will allow us to collect data on research forms more specific to our needs. It will also be easier for us to maintain confidential control over our data since we will own the server.

John pointed out that one of the advantages of the electronic research currently underway at the Clinic is that the patients' answers to questions about what is going on in the therapy are available immediately for the therapists to read. The analysis and interpretation of the data will come later but the patients' answers to questions will be available for the clinicians to read and discuss with their patients. Because the data will be immediately available, relevant, and potentially helpful clinically, it will improve motivation and compliance in the therapists collecting the data.

A second benefit of this research is that the process will also probably enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of the clinical work since there will be more attention paid by therapists and patients to the therapeutic interaction. This will likely enhance the therapeutic alliance and address potential therapeutic ruptures in the alliance. This is an unusual feature for a psychotherapy clinic to have a sophisticated electronic outcome research component. We are thinking that John can write this up as a model for psychotherapy clinics nationally.

Another feature of having our own server and our own easily accessible system for inputting process and outcome data is that other places besides the SFPRG Clinic can use the same research forms and we can collect a larger data set on our server. John is speaking with people at the Analytic Institute who may want to input data from their patients in training analyses with their candidates. There may be other clinics and patient groups from which we can gather data on process and outcome using the same forms and interface. Susan Landes is beginning to gather data from her patient pool in the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy clinic she developed. We are hoping to use the server and outcome protocol John developed with this patient population as well.

We have been talking for some time of doing process and outcome research on patients in the outpatient case loads of experienced clinicians in the SFPRG community. Having our own server and standardized outcome assessment will offer a convenient way for therapists in our group with their patients who want to participate to input data onto our server that will allow us to measure outcome of therapies with more experienced Control Mastery therapists. This would be the first time we can start looking at outcome data of Control Mastery Therapy as practiced by experienced therapists.

We discussed some other potential research ideas to help improve supervision and therapy. Marshall Bush suggested a study looking at the usefulness of formal plan formulations: comparing outcomes of patients whose therapists did formal plan formulations in supervision in the beginning of therapy versus outcomes of patients whose therapists did not. Other interesting ideas were to identify consistently successful therapists or supervisors based on whose clients had consistently better outcomes and try to assess what variables in the therapists or supervisors made the difference.

If people have ideas for CMT research or are interested in beginning or participating in a research project, please let me know. sfskydive@aol.com

I started my journey with the SFPRG back in 2006 at the Annual International Conference aka March Workshop, without knowing how that would change my life. I have had a few internships at the clinic for the past few years while completing both my Master Degree in Psychology in Milan, Italy and my PhD program in Ulm, Germany with a soon-to-happen dissertation about Control Mastery Theory. I came back full-time now more than two years ago to attend the entire program with the clinic and I feel like I am always challenged and stimulated to learn new things about psychotherapy.

Being a foreigner I have always been on a peculiar path: I've been an "extern" for a year on a J1 visa status and then a research assistant on a H1B visa status, working on a short manual of introduction to Control Mastery for the new interns. I never really felt far from home thanks to the SFPRG group and the incredible supervision of Norman Sohn, Molly Sullivan, Susan Badger and Jessica Broitman. I wish I could properly express, especially in a proper English, how much this experience has changed my beliefs about therapy and about myself. The road to private practice might still take some steps, but I will meanwhile keep on cultivating my love for psychotherapy.

Doing some fall cleaning? Have extra office furniture that needs a loving home? Our therapy rooms are in need of upgrading and we'd love to do so without spending much money. If you have any chairs, lamps, pillows, or anything that is just gently used and in need of a new home - we'll come pick it up and provide you with a letter of donation. Call or email with any questions or donations. You can be in touch with Jessica, Carol or Ginger.

Thanks for your ongoing support of our clinic.

It will be here before we know it. Yes, I am referring to the Annual International Conference on Control Mastery Theory. March 2 - 6, 2015. We will have classes you should not miss! More details to come in the next newsletter.

Continued from the November newsletter.

My next topic is psychopathology. According to my views, a person's psychopathology is based in certain beliefs that he develops in early life in his attempt to understand himself in his world and to adapt to his world. These beliefs cause psychopathology by interfering with normal functioning. They warn the person who subscribes to them that if he attempts to exercise certain essential functions or to reach certain essential goals he will put himself in some kind of danger. He will feel bad, humiliated; he will risk punishment or he will risk being intruded upon. He may risk hurting somebody whom he feels close to. The infant and child develops these beliefs by inference from experience with his parents. These experiences may be subjective. The child perceives his parents from his own special point of view. He may exaggerate his effect on his parents, believe he is more impactfull than he really is, or take their angry threats more seriously than the parents intended.

However, he infers these beliefs by normal reasoning from his experiences.

Freud in his late writings emphasized the importance of one particular pathogenic belief. It is the boy's belief that if he loves his mother sexually, his father will castrate him. There are many other pathogenic beliefs. One child may infer and so come to believe that if he is strong and independent of his parents, he will drain them. Another child my infer he will be punished by rejection if he is strong. Still another child my infer that if he is dependent on his parents they will run his life. Still another child may infer that if he is happy and successful, he will be punished.

The views I have just outlined also differ from Freud's early theory. For in Freud's early theory a person unconsciously has no ideas or beliefs about himself and the world. His psychopathology, according to Freud's early theory, arises from the fixation of his aggressive and sexual impulses to certain infantile objects and aims, and he struggles to maintain these gratifications in the face of reality. The psychopathology consists of the unconscious gratifications or the compromises that he makes with these.

to be continued in the next newsletter

We have an office available in our building at The Presidio. It's a large downstairs office with lots of windows available now. High ceiling, decorative (nonfunctional) fireplace. Shared large kitchen, waiting room, bathroom. Easy cheap parking. Bus line 2 blocks away. Utilities & janitorial split with other therapists in addition to base rent. Prefer 4 year lease.

Contact Rob in the SFPRG office: rob@sfprg.org

On December 6th we will hold our Holiday Party Art Show and Auction. We are looking for any last-minute donations for the auction. At last year's auction we had many great bottles of wine which folks had fun bidding on! If you can procure an item for auction, please let the office know. We are hoping for donations of wine, dinner certificates (ask your favorite restaurant if they donate to non-profits), vacation homes, tickets to shows (theater, concerts, sports), and of course, art. Anything you think would be a good auction item for our fundraiser, please donate it!

We would be happy to provide a receipt for tax records.

Seeking Psychodynamically Oriented Supervisors Interested in the future of Psychodynamic Supervision.

I am currently a student at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, San Francisco Bay Campus. I am conducting dissertation research on psychodynamically oriented clinical supervisors' perception of the use of clinical outcome measures in therapy and supervision. Increasingly, agencies and graduate schools require the use of clinical outcome measures for psychotherapy for students in their training. This research is geared towards understanding how experienced psychodynamic supervisors think about the use of these measures in their students' therapy and supervision.

For my study, psychologists must work at agencies that use clinical outcome measures, and must be supervising interns who are currently doctoral level; these internship programs must be accredited by APA, APPIC or CAPIC. Participation in this study would include providing basic demographic information and participating in one 45 minute to one hour semi-structured interview. Participants will receive a VISA gift card for their efforts. If you are interested in participating or have any questions, please contact Steven Moore at smoore@alliant.edu or call 707-299-0001.

If you live outside of the Bay Area, SFPRG needs your help!

We want to present conferences on CMT outside of the Bay Area. Do you have connections with an organization that could either sponsor us or allow us use of a mailing list? We are APA approved so we can give CE hours anywhere in the U.S. If you know of an organization that would sponsor us, we can provide a lecturer; if you can get us a mailing list and leads on venues, we can do the rest.

Please contact Rob in our office (rob@sfprg.org) if you can help!

Amazon.com has a program called AmazonSmile which will give a small donation from your purchase to the nonprofit of your choice. Thank you to those who are participating. We have already received small checks from Amazon! Please bookmark AmazonSmile and designate the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group as your charity of choice! Link to AmazonSmile here