Scott Cohen is a former President of the Massachusetts Association for Marriage & Family Therapy. Scott served for 15 years on the Allied Board of Mental Health as a representative for MFTs, and he’s currently the Treasurer of the Association for Marriage & Family Therapy Regulatory Board.

This is a transcription from the interview conducted by Jeremiah Gibson, Executive Director of the New England Association for Family & Systemic Therapy (NEAFAST), with Scott Cohen on July 27, 2020. Watch the full interview here.

Interview with Corky Becker, PhD, a Family Therapist and Clinical Psychologist who is overseeing the Monthly Master Series in Couple Therapy: Seven MORE Approaches to Interviewing at Therapy Training Boston starting November 6, 2019. These are the highlights from the interview. Watch the full interview here.

Jeremiah Gibson: Tell us a little bit more about the Monthly Master Series. What’s the format of it?

Interview with Acey Mercer, LMSW, Practice Manager at Choices Counseling & Consulting in Albany, NY. Acey is one of the Keynote Speakers for the Couple & Family Institute of New England's (CFINE) symposium Sexual Identity, Gender Identity: Staying Current in a Rapidly Changing Landscape taking place Saturday, October 26, 2019 at the Smith College Conference Center in Northampton, MA. These are the highlights from the interview. Watch the full interview here.

Jeremiah Gibson: How did you become interested in becoming a therapist?

Nancy Knudsen, Co-Director & Co-Founder of the Couple & Family Institute of New England (CFINE) in Northampton, MA was interviewed by Jeremiah Gibson, NEAFAST President, about CFINE's upcoming symposium Sexual Identity, Gender Identity: Staying Current in a Rapidly Changing Landscape. These are the highlights from the interview. Watch the full interview here.

Jeremiah Gibson: We’re excited to announce and promote a symposium that CFINE is hosting on Saturday, October 26th called "Sexual Identity, Gender Identity: Staying Current in a Rapidly Changing Landscape."

Jennifer Eaton, Director of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Training and Consultation at the Bridge Institute in Worcester, MA, is presenting Communicating Effectively with Children and Families: Key Strategies from Dialectical Behavior Therapy on Wednesday, October 9 in Worcester. She was interviewed by Jeremiah Gibson, NEAFAST President, about the intersection of DBT and family therapy. These are the highlights from the interview.

Jeremiah Gibson: There are some really neat things going on in the Worcester area. I'm curious, Jen, if you could talk for a few minutes about what's happening at the Bridge Institute? 

Last month, we wrote a blog post about the collaborative efforts of the Executive Office for Health and Human Services (EOHHS) as they help create processes that improve access to quality behavioral health care in our state. Quite a few NEAFAST members have attended these meetings and provided input, including Mary-Jean Beach, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in Cape Cod, and NEAFAST Board Member. The following are her reflections from a listening session meeting in Cape Cod.

I went to the 2^nd EOHHS listening session at Cape Cod Community College on June 18, 2019. It was very well attended by a representative sample of consumers, families, providers, schools, advocacy organizations, and constituents. Senator Julian Cyr (D Truro) came in and spoke about his interest and concerns. The meeting was informative, exciting, and affirming for me as a family therapist. In our community the important take-aways were: 1) family advocates and consumers pled for more family sensitive behavioral health care and support; 2) parents and young adults over 22 are left without help when they lose Special Education Services; 3) the future of ambulatory behavioral health care may be in schools and primary health care offices.

An Interview between Steve Gaddis, Director of the Narrative Therapy Initiative, and Jeremiah Gibson, NEAFAST President

Watch Here

NEAFAST is eager to highlight the work of its members, and are honored to introduce Rosa Khorsidi..

Rosa has worked with individuals, couples, and families since 1991 in Iran and America. Relationships, especially couples therapy, is her focus. She is the world's first Iranian/Muslim Certified EFT Therapist. She is also the only Muslim LMFT of MA and the only Iranian LMFT of New England.

These excerpts from an Interview between Steve Gaddis, Director of the Narrative Therapy Initiative (NTI), and Jeremiah Gibson, NEAFAST President, focus on NTI's 2019-2020 programming, specifically the Apprenticeship Program and the Certificate Program.

Jeremiah Gibson: I wonder if I can ask a couple questions about the programming for 2019-2020. You’ve alluded to the Narrative Certificate Program. And then there’s another program that you guys are offering too that’s called the Apprenticeship Program. I’m wondering if you could take a few minutes to describe those.

Although regular clinical supervision is a pre-licensure requirement, once licensed, a therapist in Massachusetts can practice without regular clinical supervision. As a PhD student steeped in learning about, from, and through receiving and providing clinical supervision, I find the idea of not receiving supervision, especially related to self-of-the-therapist issues, concerning and rather sad. Do we ever stop growing, changing, and learning? Is there some after-licensure miracle that makes us impervious to our own demons, flaws, biases, and blind spots? Can we give an infinite amount of support to others without replenishing our own tanks? Nope. My husband, an LMHC who works in a community health center, practices without regular clinical supervision, as it is not required and hence not prioritized in a medical setting. Even as an experienced individual therapist, I watch him struggle under the weight of carrying his clients’ pain, with remaining empathetic and creative without burning out, and facing his own struggles without projecting them onto his clients. It doesn’t seem fair or right that he, and other therapists -- regardless of their time served -- are doing this critical work on their own, without structured support.

One thing I love about my MFT PhD program at Antioch New England is the opportunity to provide clinical supervision to masters students as they embark on their journey towards becoming therapists. As a student of experiential and Emotionally Focused Therapy, I feel strongly that effective supervision starts with developing a secure bond with each supervisee and, when you’re lucky enough to have a group of supervisees, building security and cohesiveness within the group as well.  In our Masters program students start with live supervision, and then ultimately graduate to self-report and video review and eventually more distance supervision as they undertake their internships. Working with student therapists, over our year together my key focus was on helping build confidence, growing within a theory that personally resonates, and exploring the multitude of person-of-the-therapist issues that arise starting with seeing first clients.