Hello Community,

This 4th of July finds me in Atlanta with a few of my friends and family. Yesterday we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site. The site includes the house where he was born, Ebenezer Baptist Church and a museum which includes him and his wife's tomb. They had many wonderful exhibits and videos of his marches and speeches. I feel blessed to live in a country that has a history of people fighting and sacrificing their lives for the ability for all of us to live freely.

I only have a few things to report. We will be celebrating you, the membership, at our Summer Samba at Jessica Broitman's house August 16th.There will be great food and music. Hope to see you there. Several months ago I ran into Michael Bader who is also lives in the Sierra Foothills about a half hour from me. We are teaming up together to bring some CMT trainings to the area. The first is on July 18th. in Auburn. My husband and I are hosting Peter Schumacher and his wife Judith for a weekend stay at our home in a few weeks. They won this fabulous opportunity at the last Art Party and Auction. I can't wait to see what will be auctioned off this year. Stay tuned for more information on events and trainings this fall.

Best Wishes,

Susan Landes

SFPRG's annual Membership Drive is underway. Please support this organization by renewing your membership. If you are not a member, now is the time to become one!

Please use the form that you have received in the mail. If you cannot find it, please contact the office and ask for a copy.

Although our Member Directory has been online for several years, some of our members prefer to use a hard-copy paper Directory. We will be mailing out a new Member Directory that lists our dues paying members sometime this fall.

Dear SFPRG Community:

We're pleased to share our recent publication on the treatment of "failure to launch" young adults. We hope you find this application of control-mastery theory helpful in your clinical work with this population.

Sincerely,
David Auld, Ph.D.
Bob Lieb, Ph.D.

"From Unfinished Adolescent to Young Adult: A Constructivist Control Mastery Theory Approach to the Treatment of the Emerging Adult Still Living at Home"

Abstract
The distinct time in life known as emerging adulthood presents its own unique developmental challenges, most centrally the creation of an adult identity. However, an increasing number of young adults today are not living on their own, as would be expected, but instead are living with their families of origin. For some, co-residence is largely a function of current economic forces. For others, it is evidence of problems with the separation-individuation process. Assessing relational maturity and the development of autonomously valued goals is crucial in forming a treatment plan. Constructivist control mastery theory is a treatment approach that integrates psychodynamic and narrative paradigms and is especially well suited for the treatment of this population, whether applied as a family therapy or individual therapy. This approach focuses on fostering mastery oriented conversations that facilitate the emergence of adult identity.

a pdf of this paper is here

We are thrilled to announce that we have chosen to hire Jodi Engstrom as the incoming Assistant Training Director as of this August. As many of you know, Jodi has been in training with us as both a pre and post doc over the last several years and will be licensed this fall. This coming training year she will work closely with Carol Drucker to learn about the position. The staff and the interns are all delighted that Jodi will continue to be an important part of the training clinic.

Ginger Rhodes PhD
Clinical Director

I am a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at CIIS. As a pre-doc intern at SFPRG's clinic, I have been supervised by Jane Weisbin, Psy.D., Bill Meehan, Ph.D., and Joseph Cristofalo, MA, MFT. My dissertation work, utilizing intake data collected at SFPRG's clinic, examines the moderating effect of gender in the linkage between dysfunctional parenting and psychopathology.

Prior to joining the field of psychology, I had a fairly lengthy career in the technology sector. In addition to many years as a self-employed consultant, I worked in both banks and law firms during this period. In my work with patients, this has helped me to better relate to the unique stressors related to work in these types of professional settings. I also consult with organizations on technology projects.

Beginning in August 2015, I will be a psychological assistant to John Snyder, Psy.D. My office will be in the Financial District, with convenient access to transit and parking, and my fee will be $140. I work with adult individuals and couples from an eclectic perspective informed by Control Mastery theory, Existential-Humanistic theory, and Psychodynamic theory. My clinical interests include anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, behavioral change, identity definition/redefinition, and (especially) men's issues. Other areas of focus for me include retirement, aging, and other aspects of profound change across the life course.

It has been a pleasure to work at SFPRG, and becoming steeped in Control Mastery Theory has made a substantive difference in the way that I practice and think about cases. Please consider me when looking to make referrals. Thank you!

The SFPRG Board of Directors invite you to a gathering for a chance to meet new folks and renew old acquaintances... all of the SFPRG community (including spouses) is welcome to come!

This is our annual gathering to eat and drink, enjoy music and good company at Jessica Broitman's home in Berkeley.

Sunday, August 16, 2pm - 5pm. Invitations will be emailed with address. If you don't receive it by next week, contact the office.

Sierra Foothills Chapter of CAMFT presents:
Control Mastery Theory and Clinical Applications
with
Dr. Michael Bader and Dr. Susan Landes

Saturday, July 18, 2015
9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Auburn Holiday Inn / Max's Cafe
120 Grass Valley Hwy
Auburn, CA. 95603

This course is for clinicians and students to learn about and/or deepen their understanding of Control Mastery Theory. Control Mastery theory is an empirically supported, integrated cognitive psychodynamic relational theory. The training includes lecture with clinical case material, with time for question and answer period for in-depth dialogue with the presenter.

You will learn:
1) How pathogenic beliefs are acquired and how they produce psychopathology;
2) The patients primary motivation in psychotherapy;
3) How patients work unconsciously in therapy to solve their problems;
4) The role of the therapist in helping patients in their work;
5) How to infer a patients plan and to develop a plan formulation; and
6) How patients test their pathogenic beliefs in the therapeutic relationship.

Michael Bader, DMH is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst who has been practicing in San Francisco for 35 years. Dr. Bader has written extensively in his own field of psychology and has also pioneered studies looking at the intersection of psychology, culture, and politics. He has published two books about sexuality and over 60 articles on applied psychoanalysis in print magazines, edited collections, academic journals, and popular websites such as Alternet.org and HuffingtonPost.com. A list of his publications can be found on his website: www.michaelbader.com. In 2002, he was one of the founders of the Institute4Change and is currently its Associate Director. He has treated, coached, and taught hundreds of leaders in the progressive community, bringing insights from his clinical practice to bear on problems of leadership and organizational change. He currently splits his time between San Francisco and Grass Valley, California.

Susan Landes, PsyD, MFT has been working in the fields of mental health and addiction since 1987. She received her master's degree in Clinical Psychology and Specialization in AOD from J.F. Kennedy University in 1989. Dr. Landes earned her doctorate from the Wright Institute in 2003. While a student at the Wright, she became excited about DBT and its application to co-occurring disorders. She has completed five trainings with the Marsha Linehan training group (Behavioral Tech.) and has been using DBT in her clinical practice for the past ten years. Dr. Landes is currently in private practice in Oakland, Davis and Auburn and is the Executive Director of the Auburn Center for DBT. Additionally, Dr. Landes has been a member of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group since 1990 and is currently the President

More info here

Mark your calendar for the 2016 Annual International Conference! We are planning on holding the Introduction to Control Mastery Theory overview on the Monday of the week (Feb 29), and the core classes on the Tuesday and Wednesday. The conference will continue on Thursday, Friday and a separate Saturday conference on March 5th.

Stay tuned for more details in subsequent newsletters.

This is the fifth installment of the lecture given by Hal Sampson in April 1997 in Italy. See the previous newsletters for the beginning. Our newsletter Archive is accessible from our website homepage, on the right hand menu below the newsletter sign-up.

Therapy
Therapy is a process in which the patient works to change his pathogenic beliefs with the help of the therapist. The patient thereby may solve his problems, which are rooted in those beliefs.

The patient's primary and most powerful motivation in analysis or psychotherapy is to change his pathogenic beliefs, for they are the cause of great suffering and constriction. Moreover, the patient is not only powerfully motivated to get well, but is almost always working as hard as he can, unconsciously as well as consciously, to do so. This is usually true even when the patient professes little or no interest in changing, and seems bored, uninterested, or even actively resistant, insulting, and uncooperative. The case I will present this afternoon was selected by me to illustrate this point. I will, however, introduce the point now by presenting a brief vignette from a case described by Weiss in out 1986 book.

The patient, whom I will cal Mr. M, was a passive , socially isolated man of about 40. He responded to virtually every interpretation by the analyst with a discouragingly bland, bored, uninterested comment such as "Well, I don't know. It doesn't seem quite right" or "Well, I don't know, I just can't make much sense out of that. Maybe I'll understand it some other time." In behaving this way with the analyst, the patient was testing the analyst by turning passive into active. That is, he was behaving toward the analyst as in his experience a parent had behaved toward him. His mother, in childhood, had consistently thwarted the patient's initiative and enthusiasm with discouraging responses. In a typical instance, he asked her if they could go to the park to play. She answered with a tired sigh: "Well I don't know. I'm afraid it might be too winding outdoors today." Or, "Well, I don't know, I'm not sure it makes sense because it's getting late. Maybe another day." This type of interaction occurred repeatedly.

Mr. M, in acting toward the analyst as his mother had acted toward him, unconsciously hope that the analyst would not be as defeated, as discouraged, as crushed as Mr. M had been as a child. The analyst did not get discouraged, and continued to offer interpretations enthusiastically in spite of the patient's lackadaisical responses. In this way, the analyst passed the patient's tests by not reacting as the patient had reacted in childhood to traumatizing parental behavior. Each time the analyst persisted in the face of the patient's discouragement, Mr. M seemed slightly better, and over time he became more active and showed some initiative in the office as well as in life. He even began to feel enthusiastic and adventurous. Mr. M used the analyst's behavior as a model to fight back against the internalized belief that he should comply with his mother by relinquishing his own initiative.

Mr. M's behavior in testing the analyst by being bored and uncooperative was not a resistance. It did not express lack of interest in the analysis. Instead, it was an unconsciously planful, purposive piece of work. He unconsciously devised and carried out precisely those tests which might, with the help of the analyst, begin to change the pathogenic belief wish had crippled his own activity.

Testing is one of the most important ways that patients work in therapy to change pathogenic beliefs. Mr. M carried out a passive into active test, in which the patient assumes the role of the traumatizing parent and treats the analyst as the child upon who the trauma is inflicted. There is another important type of test, the transference test. In a transference test, a patient repeats the pathological situation in which a pathogenic belief arose by carrying out a trial action involving the expression of an attitude, affective state, or behavior that the patient believes let in childhood to a traumatic situation.

For example, Miss T repeatedly invited me to criticize her achievements as her father had done. She did so by suggesting some way that she was not working well in the analysis -- for example, in one session , she said that although she was presenting a problem clearly, she was not showing enough feeling about it. When I did not accept the invitation to criticize her, she was invariably relieved, and could begin to talk more freely both about her impressive abilities, which she had hidden, and about her problems in relationships with men.

The task of the analyst is to help the patient carry out the patient's plan to disconfirm pathogenic beliefs and pursue the goals that have been blocked by those beliefs. The analyst may do so by making interpretations that help the patient understand his pathogenic beliefs, and that assist the patient in his struggle against them. The analyst may help the patient to carry out his plan by passing the patient's tests, and thus disconfirming the patient's pathogenic beliefs. The analyst may do so by interactions that convey attitudes that implicitly challenge or contradict the patient's pathogenic beliefs.

To be continued in next month's newsletter.

Please put these dates in your calendar!

The Summer Samba at the Broitman-Basri home on Sunday, August 16th. This is our annual get-together to socialize with food and drink, and enjoy the the East Bay sunshine.

Our Annual Honorary Dinner will be on September 19th where we will be honoring our recent Past President, Steven Foreman. Steve has been a stalwart member, teacher, supervisor and board member for many years.

On November 7th George Silberschatz will be teaching a day-long conference "Using patient feedback to improve psychotherapy effectiveness"

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