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NPI Spring Workshop

Saturday 22 May 2010
"Healing Through the Dark Emotions"
Miriam Greenspan
more details soon

NPI Smorgasbord

Saturday 6 February 2010
“Expanding our Perspective:"
presentations by
Lisa Beavers, Tammy Roth, & Linda Manning

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“Beginnings and Endings:

The NPI Changing of the Guard”

NPI Luncheon
Friday, 12 February 2010

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Mambu Restaurant: September 25, 2009

Some NPI members may not realize that for several years now, current, incoming, and former board chairpersons meet over an annual dinner and brainstorm about the future of NPI. This year, Kacy Silverstein and Carleen Britton gently guided us through a spirited discussion at Mambu.

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"Enlightenment Therapy": A Discussion

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Today's New York Times Sunday Magazine includes "Enlightenment Therapy", an article by Chip Brown “The vessel you took to escape your childhood became your prison cell." describing the life and therapy of a Zen monk (Louis Nordstrom) with his psychoanalyst, Jeffery Rubin. It is a thoughtful consideration of the life of a man whose dedication to his Zen spiritual practice was both liberating and confining. Part of what is interesting about it is the way that reclaiming his life didn't require renouncing Zen.

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TETAN

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2009 brings us a new president, a new NPI Chair, John Waide, and a new feature in Psychobits.   This new column has been designed to provide a forum for the expression of a NPI community “voice”.  The articles will explore the human component of being a psychotherapist, focusing on the challenges that touch us emotionally as well as professionally.   Interviews and essays featuring the voices of NPI members will hopefully enhance our opportunities to use the NPI community as a resource for growth.  The name of the column, TETAN, may need some explaining.

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Taking Action

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TETAN: A small reminder: Tetan is a recurring column in Psychobits. Tetan is Mayan and it means “to speak”. Hopefully this piece will stimulate some of you to speak (to the NPI membership, to each other, on the website, in your consultation groups) about the issues presented.

During my commute to work the other day I found myself fantasizing about writing a letter to the parents of one of my adult patients. They were treating him in a manner that was unconscionable, and in a flash of grandiosity I imagined that receiving a letter from me might soften them up a bit. Of course, it was a crazy idea. Just the realization that I was fantasizing about taking action on behalf of my patient and inserting myself into his family system made me realize how deeply his pain is affecting me.

My fantasy of writing that letter was motivated by my discomfort with the psychic burden of simply sharing his pain and disappointment.

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The Strange Relationship of Theories of Attachment and Differentiation

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I was reading today at the office, in between sessions, on Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson’s website. They’ve got some good material there for therapists and clients alike (check it out). I was reading particularly in Ellyn Bader’s short essay reflecting on her experience participating in a panel presentation called “Attachment and Differentiation in Couples Therapy”. She herself had set up this panel presentation at a recent couples’ therapy conference and she and Stan Tatkin were the panelists. Maybe some of you were there. I wish I had been.

Dr. Bader wrote:

I structured this panel into the conference because I believe it is time for people [in] our field to begin integrating the best of these two theories. Couples therapy is most effective when the therapist knows how to use both attachment and differentiation based interventions and conceptualizations.

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