Psychotherapist Blog

Link to September Newsletter

Licia Ginne — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:57:30 +0000

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Newsletter-from-Licia-Ginne-MFT.html?soid=1102593731283&aid=bq4YiA8EOV8.

check out my newsletter and sign up to receive it directly if you are interested. thanks so much

Licia Ginne, MFT

http://www.TherapyMarketingCoach.com

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Attachment, The Need to be Seen & My Next Workshop

Licia Ginne — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:34:29 +0000

Of course I am avoiding doing the real work I need today and got lost reading posts on LinkedIn. One discussion was about cyber-bullying. Even though several people mention that what you write online stays online, people can’t seem to walk away. There is a difference between having my feelings hurt by what someone writes in response to my post, which has happened, and people posting they have been stalked or sent inappropriate emails. For me it is a reminder that we are on the World Wide Web and we must be very careful about how we participate. Many of the participants in the cyber-bully thread were asking for the owner of the group to take responsibility, but what we forget is anyone can start a group and there is no real management of these public forums unless the person is making obvious threats or inappropriate responses. Some of the described abuses are not overt threats but more belittling comments. I know for myself I have at times felt comfortable in my exchanges and forgotten that this is a public forum and not a private conversation. I try to remind myself to think, edit and consider before I post. I am sure for many of us we are busy and the time for social media only gets added to an already busy schedule.

On a personal level it brings up issues of neglect and the feelings of not being seen. I can get a feeling of urgency about needing to correct the misperception and have to rein myself in. I have to remind myself to tolerate how people see me and remind myself what I can and cannot control. For those of us that have been neglected this can be a very strong triggering point. There are so many articles out now about social media and how it affects people. Social media can portray people having a life-style that is much bigger than it might actually be. Posting of pictures of vacations and parties often end up hurting other people’s feelings, we end up feeling less than. The conversation I have with many people is: I am living on the sidelines of life and I’d like to be in the game but am afraid. The posts and pictures on facebook can make it seem that everyone is in the game but them. I find it important to understand the complex feelings beneath this perception. Often someone will say I am not adequate or am lazy but I think there is a stronger meaning. One that has to do with failed attachment and the pain that accompanies the experience and understanding of this. There is a strong pain of being alone and at the same time a strong pain that comes with being with people. I see the work of therapy as expanding and understanding this idea and usually finding that it is attached to a failed early attachment. It is not a statement defining the person as broken or doomed. This was a statement brought about by the need to accommodate to reduce the feelings of aloneness and separation. This was an adaptive style to dysfunctional parent-child attachment. I look to the works of Bernard Brandchaft and pathological accommodation, the works of Robert E. Stolorow, George Attwood and Bernard Brandchaft for Intersubjective-systems theory and also the works of Beatrice Beebe on infant-mother interactions. You can find more information under those authors about attachment, pathological accommodation and adaptive styles as well as what it means to work within the subjective framework.

As a complete non sequitur I’d like to let everyone know that October 22, 2011, 10am –1pm, I am offering my Building A Successful Private Practice workshop. The workshops have been going great and I am always excited about offering them. For more information and to sign up please go to my Marketing website TherapyMarketingCoach.com/events.html

Licia Ginne, MFT
LATherapists.com
TherapyMarketingCoach.com

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Insurance- Not Proud of Myself

Licia Ginne — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:38:07 +0000

I think many of you know my feelings about working with the insurance companies. I don’t blame them for all the problems in the healthcare system anymore, only see them as a thorn in my side. They often feel unfair to me, when I used to be on insurance panels and the client was coming to someone in network to save money, what the insurance company felt was reasonable and customary was $60 a session and the client’s co-pay was $40, that didn’t seem fair. I also objected to being on panels for about 10 years and never getting a cost of living increase and one time actually getting the rate lowered from $60 to $50. Before I got off all the panels and this was over 7 years ago I did ask them for a cost of living increase and was turned down by all of them, I know many of you have had better success and have received raises. Even though I am off of the panels I still end up dealing with them and it seems like they are asking more of the out of network provider than they ever have. I have received several requests to have my sessions authorized and this requires a “medical necessity outpatient treatment form”, it looked no different then the forms I used to have to fill out when I was on the panels. Though today’s topic is about me losing my temper, a day I am not proud of. I was seeing a client for only a couple of sessions and they wanted to use their insurance. As a courtesy to my clients I will submit a claim form to the insurance company for them as an out of network provider. This particular client needed prior authorization and she called ahead before seeing me to get the authorization, she forwarded me a copy of this authorization and the company sent me forms to sign up as a provider again. I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. I submitted a claim form and added the authorization number to it and after 2 months received a notice of denial based on no prior authorization. I called them today and after going through my story many times would be transferred, after the third transfer and having to go through all the information again, clients name, account number, my tax id, clients birth date, etc., I apparently was now transferred to the correct person, though my patience had worn thin . This person did the same as all the others, pulled up the file, put me on hold why she investigated the denial and realized the authorization was dated for the 28th and the date of service was for the 27th, so it would be denied and she could not change the date of the authorization. The second session was a cpt code they would not authorize, I saw the long list of approved cpt codes and assumed it was in the list. I asked her again it is one day off the client had gotten the approval long before we met and couldn’t the date of authorization be changed? No. At that point I lost my temper, shouted and hung up on her. Left in my feeling of helplessness and feeling shame at losing my temper and not having accomplished my goal. I remember many calls like this when I used to be on the panels and would be dealing a lot with the insurance companies. You feel like you have done everything you need to do and they find a small mistake made, I have a prior authorization code I screamed but it didn’t matter she wasn’t going to budge on changing the authorization. I am glad I don’t have to manage authorizations or wonder why the paperwork keeps getting lost in the mail. Yet, the state of the healthcare industry is not one I am proud of nor am I proud when I have lost it and am screaming into the phone.

Licia Ginne, MFT
www.LATherapists.com
www.TherapyMarketingCoach.com

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July 23, 2011 Design & Develop Your Successful Private Practice with a Business & Marketing Plan

Licia Ginne — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:53:44 +0000

Three hour group: First will be a short overview of business development and marketing plan techniques. Then we work to create marketing materials and everyone will leave with a plan in place and the steps to execute their plan. This can be anywhere from defining yourself and your target market to writing a blog, website, social media or creating your next speaking engagement. I will walk you through the steps so even those with little computer experience can have a blog, website, facebook or twitter account. In this workshop we will create an online presence for you. I know it can be overwhelming and it helps to have someone direct you through it. We will do it. Come prepared with your ideas. Once you sign up for the group I will email out materials to get you started.

3 CEU’s are available for MFT & LCSW

This workshop will be held in the conference room at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis Los Angeles.
10780 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 350
Los Angeles, California 90025-4749

For More Information and to sign up TherapyMarketingCoach.com/events.html

Licia Ginne, MFT

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Are you in Relationship with the Wished for or the Person in Front of You?

Licia Ginne — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:36:28 +0000

I have been thinking about couples work, the couples I see, the part of the couple I am, and the couple I create with my clients. Before moving into a two person psychology I think I was working at trying to get my clients to buy into my belief systems; mainly that anything could be resolved if it could be talked through. I think we can survive and resolve many things in relationships if we can be open, honest and tolerate the feelings that get stirred up with conversation. Though not everyone wants to talk or can tolerate the emotional upheaval. Yet for many it is too hard to walk away because we are looking at the wished for person not embracing the person we have. Or how do we tolerate this is our person and can I accept that this baggage comes with them.

In working within a two person framework the analyst/therapist is not an observer but a participant in the relationship. The therapist is not the authority with the answers but looks to the client to provide an understanding and context from their perspective. I could really understand this concept when one weekend I was out of town and staying at a resort. I had gone up to the empty outdoor patio to read and watch the ocean. After a period of time a couple had come out onto the patio and I realized my presence was impacting them and their presence was impacting me. They seemed to want to play and take pictures and I think my presence inhibited them & I wanted the quiet to concentrate on my reading and they had disturbed me, I was also reading about this concept and so I was really experiencing it live and in the paper. I recognize the impact my presence makes on the client or couple sitting in my office. How safer it felt at times to be the all knowing therapist who had the answer and could guess at it with the slightest bit of information. Ah, yes, you had a mother who did this and that and that always leads to this. What a difference it makes to sit there and say wait a minute what does this mean to them, how are my belief systems impacting this relationship and am I trying to direct it in some particular way?

So I go back to the couples and think about am I trying to change them into what I think they “should” be. We should all be good communicators, we should all tolerate our emotions and be curious about why we do what we do. It is my version of the wished for client. The client that wants to adapt to what I think is “healthy” and do the work according to my perception of the perfect analysis.

Tonight I saw a married man and woman and I know how hard it is for the man to be there. Both of them have been raised to put on a good front, not accept or expect help and to take care of themselves, certainly no talking in this relationship. In couples work they have grown so much and now can talk about their problems though there are still withheld feelings and thoughts. So now the crisis has reared its head again and the man has things he needs to talk about but needs his own therapy to do it in. He needs to be able to talk about his feelings and thoughts without the worry of how his wife will hear it. He compares the idea of going to therapy with going to the dentist, he feels he has to do it but doesn’t want too. My heart goes out to him because I know he wishes it would all clear up and he wouldn’t have to unearth all that he has buried. He doesn’t have to unbury all of it but if he could develop a stronger mindfulness he could recognize the triggers and recognize when he is about to make a choice that puts his whole marriage on the line. Are they in relationship with the wished for?

I think for both of them they have been so emotionally neglected, so wanting to be taken care of and yet afraid of being taken care of, that they keep hoping the other won’t have needs and can meet theirs. It is an unspoken desire that I would guess feels unacceptable to express. The last month of our treatment things seemed to compliant, but when prodded about this they said things were fine, they were talking more, getting along. Though something felt off to me yet with all my questions it was still only within my own subjectivity and I could only wait for something to develop. Which it did and now they need to make a choice about what they want to do and how to proceed forward.

Licia Ginne, MFT
LATherapists.com

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Adults Abused as Children – Trauma

Licia Ginne — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 18:24:15 +0000

Dr. Jasquith says that tyranny is sometimes expression of the maternal instinct. If that’s a mother’s love, I want no part of it.
Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale in “Now Voyager”

The experience of having lived (or living) in trauma is probably the number one reason that brings people to psychotherapy. It is the shame we feel at who we are, how we feel and what has happened to us and why it has happened that truly brings us to seek help. We may not immediately identify our problem as the result of trauma or neglect, that label may come later with more analysis and objectivity. What you may identify is a difficulty with relationships, self-esteem, eating disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, or any compulsive behavior, self-sabotage and/or self-destructive behavior. What’s important to remember is we are not born with self-loathing or low self-esteem we learn this from how others have and do treat us.

The goal of in-depth psychotherapy is to teach us how to identify our needs, our feelings and our experience of us and the world we live in. Contemporary Psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis creates a relationship where the analyst and client are able to understand and learn how we came to be who we are and how to challenge some of these false beliefs we have learned about ourselves. The relationship is an interactive one where hopefully the client does not feel alone exploring topics and feelings that may feel frightening. People with histories of abuse often do not feel safe, have trouble trusting others and have limited tools for problem solving.

We learned coping skills in our homes and schools as children and these tools should grow and develop as we grow and develop. Adults, who have been abused or neglected, find their tools to be limited and have been taught to ignore their needs and wants. It may surprise you to think of an addiction as a coping tool but think how it can soothe and calm our pain. Anger is another coping tool it gets people to back up and stand clear; if I am not feeling safe I want what is threatening me to back up. Learning how to communicate I find that I have only one speed for getting angry and that mode of expression is not getting the best results. The goal of communicating is to have my message heard and understood. I need to learn more effective tools so my anger is not just blowing everybody away

What is abuse?

The purpose of defining abuse is so we all have a common language and so we can fully experience and embrace the depth of the hurt we have suffered. It is not about blaming but lets us understand why we may always feel like someone is blaming us, or out to get us. We have our feelings in a context that makes more sense and gives us options to choose our behaviors and not just always reacting to things. It helps us to understand why we may feel or think the way that we do.

It is not for the purpose of blaming others but to help us all be accountable.

During the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s the alcohol and drug recovery movement was abundant and developing the concept of co-dependency and “inner child work”. The self-help bookshelves were over-flowing with “how to re-parent your inner child” and re-defining abuse. The definition of “Adult children of alcoholics” was expanded to include adult children who had experienced any kind of abuse or trauma. During this time I was working at the Monterey Peninsula Recovery Center (drug and alcohol recovery program) and I was lucky enough to hear Pia Melody present her theories on abuse and co-dependency. I returned to Los Angeles and began working at the John Bradshaw Treatment Center, learning even more about trauma and recovery and from childhood abuse.

We all struggle with understanding and believing in how these behaviors have affected us. From the safety of our lives now we can look back and rethink our experiences. We may minimize or distance ourselves from those critical comments, from being ignored, or being left to fend for our selves. A key to healing is acknowledging our treatment and/or neglect, understanding how it impacted our self-worth and forgiving ourselves for assuming the blame.

We tend to empower our past experiences — like being a latchkey kid – by saying it toughened us up, that it built our self-confidence or independence. Yet research supports that being left on your own actually causes us to doubt our perceptions, feelings, thoughts and lower self-esteem. Latchkey kids were forced to grow up too quickly and take on too much responsibility, and they were not allowed to be afraid. When children are left to figure out their feelings on their own the best coping skill they have is their minds: you can change how you think and feel about something a lot better than you can change whatever reason it is that you have to stay alone. You learn to override what you think and feel in exchange for getting along. As you grow up and develop intimate relationships, you may find it is hard to form close relationships. Trust has been broken and there is a fear to depend upon anyone else. A fear of feeling let down and rejected the way you did as kid when no one was around.

Here are some definitions of abuse

Physical Abuse:

Touching someone’s body without their permission, hitting, punching, pinching, slapping, tickling, pulling hair, hitting with objects, banging the head, so that marks are left on the person. Punishment that may go too far, or what is often referred to as corporal punishment. Punching someone to the point of knocking them off their feet, slamming them into walls or hard objects, strangling or choking someone. Intimidating someone with the threat of violence, punching walls or throwing objects. Also, you might think that because some other member of your family was receiving the blows you are not a victim of physical abuse, but if the underlying fear is, “When will it be me?”

Sexual Abuse:

Whenever an adult is being sexual with a child, it is abusive to the child. Physical sexual abuse is bodily sexual activity with a child or touching in a sexual way. It includes: intercourse, oral sex, anal sex, an adult masturbating a child or having a child masturbate an adult, sexual hugging, sexual kissing, and sexual touching. When the perpetrator is a family member it is called incest, and when it is a non-family member it is called child molestation. To coerce or guilt another adult into sexual activity is abusive.

Inappropriate seductive behavior by a parent toward a child, or any adult toward a child, an adult sharing explicit sexual information with a child (which only serves the adult and not the child), teasing the child during maturation, and making the child into a surrogate spouse.

Many people who have been molested or incested feel responsible for what happene, feel that they caused it to happen or wanted it to happen. I have also heard clients express acceptance since it was the only kind of attention that they received. You are not responsible and it is not acceptable behavior. A child will not seek out sexual encounters except what may be age-appropriate sex play with other children. It is the adults responsibility to set appropriate boundaries and protect the child.

Emotional Abuse:

An umbrella term for the following abuses:

Verbal abuse includes screaming, name-calling, teasing, ridiculing, sarcasm and witnessing someone else receive verbal or any type of abuse

Social abuse includes isolating the child, not allowing friends to come over or not allowing the child to visit others. Indirect social abuse occurs when the child chooses to not have friends come over because the child may be embarrassed about home, a parent’s behavior, or it might not be a safe environment to bring other children into and the parents have indirectly communicated this to the children. Mother or father might be passed out on the couch, depressed, angry, or some other handicap that makes it uncomfortable to have outsiders to the family home.

Neglect and Abandonment – Are the child’s dependency needs met? Remember the child cannot survive without a caretaker. The impact of neglect and abandonment is often harder for people to comprehend. They often express relief at being left alone, felt it toughened them up and they became better people. In some ways its true but they didn’t get to feel taken care of or protected and don’t expect to find it in other relationships.

Food, Clothing, Shelter, Medical/Dental care, Physical nurturing (appropriate touching and comforting), emotional nurturing (empathy, time, attention, and direction), sexual guidance and appropriate information.
How to succeed in the world we live in; financial guidance and information, education and occupation guidance, career and life goals.

Intellectual Abuse

Where you told you were stupid, girls were you told you were lucky to be pretty because that’s all you had, or where you told you would never succeed. When the child is not encouraged or supported to think independently, told they are stupid or incapable, not taught to problem solve, how to be accountable your actions and thoughts and how to communicate is abuse. It also includes not being taught a philosophy or belief system in life.

Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual abuse occurs when the parent is so rigid that they are the final word in everything. The child is not allowed to have their own desires, wants and needs; it must coincide with what the parent wants and needs.

Addiction to Religion

Is similar to any addiction, it means that there is no room for questions or alternative thought. Religion can be used to scare and control, which is abusive. If you recall the Brian De Palma movie, Carrie, it is a good example of religious addiction; the mother’s religion controlled Carrie’s life and did not allow for alternative thought or experience.
Abuse from a Religion Representative
When a representative of a religion abuses besides the trauma of the crime it also casts doubt on “God” for the victim as well as the fear of authority figures.

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Practice Development, Marketing & Social Media

Licia Ginne — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:06:24 +0000

I have been following the Linkedin groups and the current social media fever. Though I am not sure everyone grasps the reason for using these marketing tools. It has also lead to some interesting conversations about the direction of healthcare, the insurance companies and anti-trust laws (are we breaking them by even discussing how we are paid) and the struggle many are having in building private practices. In my previous post I was talking about the way healthcare may be headed and the demise of the insurance companies as we know them. Though this leads me off topic of marketing and practice development, but I would encourage you to check out some of these conversations.
There are simple things one can do for promoting their website, and I believe everyone should have one. It is one of the most economical means of having a web presence. I see many people with websites who continue to use their email from gmail or yahoo, or whatever but don’t use an email that is attached to their website. My email is licia_ginne@LATherapists.com, you can see clearly my website is LATherapists.com. I have been hounding my friend Kathy Memel who is the Mediator Consultant on the LACAMFT group to change her email from her private email to her business email so everyone can see her website; I think she finally just did it. These are changes that don’t cost a cent, do take a bit of time but I wonder how many more visits your website would get from this change. You can track it and see. I have been watching the traffic for my websites and they have been increasing with Facebook and Twitter. I try to keep my tweets pertinent to psychotherapy or marketing and still have some learning to do with it. I have always been about marketing at a reduced rate. I get a lot of calls from people who tell me they want help but don’t have any money. I do think you need to have some development money set aside or borrow, you qualify for a small business loan. The couple of hundred of dollars you invest in your practice today will pay off long term. Think of what you make when you gain a new client at $125.00 per session, you earn $500.00 a month, that’s $5,500.00 for 11 months. An accountant one time asked me how many clients would I need to make the money I was wanting to make. It never dawned on me to think of it that way. It made so much sense and seemed more possible. I could get one more or two more clients, or even 10 more, if I needed to. I would have to first come up with a business and marketing plan. When I first started in private practice I shared a small office with a friend, until my practice needed more space, then I found a office that was affordable and eventually I was able with friends to open our own office and design it from scratch. I have been in this office for almost 20 years. I can see the mistakes we made in design and have learned from the experience and I have watched my relationship with my practice grow and change as I have grown and changed. Where I get my clients today is not where I got many of them 20 years ago, my marketing and networking has changed with the times. I have found that learning to market has been like therapy, it is a puzzle to be figured out. It is something that interests me and I have enjoyed the learning process even though at times I want to throw the computer through the window when I can’t make something work. When I talk with my friends and make suggestions to them I understand the overwhelm they feel and believe it helps to have mentors along the way. It is one of the reasons I offer my workshops and am now putting together an online workshop so people can attend on their computers. My next workshop is July 23rd, and the early registration ends on June 15th. I am always trying to offer a little something different with each workshop. This one will be 3 hours, I will do a brief overview of business development & marketing but then we will spend a majority of the time working on materials. If that means creating content for your website or how to get started with a website or blog, social media, creating business pages, twitter accounts and the keys for making them work to get referrals, we will do it. I look forward to this workshop, I love the creative process and love how a group can come together and brainstorm. Go to TherapyMarkeingCoach.com the events page for more information and to register for the workshop.

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A New Thought About Healthcare

Licia Ginne — Sat, 21 May 2011 02:37:29 +0000

I know I have railed against the insurance companies and been certain their greediness is at the bottom of my insurance woes. In having a conversation with a medical doctor that I highly respect we talked about the insurance companies and troubles in healthcare. I am not sure I understand all of the argument, it is a conversation in progress that I wanted to invite you into. My perspective comes from the mental health world and to narrow it further one of private practice, he comes from a larger world of the healthcare system and I was intrigued by what he had to say. He talked about the liabilities of healthcare and gave a great example: pointing to the nursing home across the street which is across the street from St.John’s hospital, he said if a patient needs to go to the hospital they can’t just put them on a gurney and wheel them across the street. An ambulance is called and they are driven across the street, at what price? He told me that most of a nurse’s time is spent administering medicines, but the system will not let patients administer their own meds, much the same way morphine drips can be controlled by the patient. His point was that the government imposes these liabilities that run up the costs of doing business. He told me how he spent a week comparing the price of a brain MRI, the price ran from $6,200 to $800.00, without much variance in quality. Why are the costs not posted or why are we not told we can call around for the cheapest price, because I now know we can call around a check prices. With the MRI he said he trusted all the places that did the scan, so why not have the least expensive scan and then pay for a consultation with the best expert. It might cost about $300.00 or more for the consultation but you’ve already saved so much by doing the inexpensive MRI. Yet the government stops doctors from consulting across state lines, so you can’t have a consultation with the best expert on the phone or over the internet, you can go there if you can afford that and see the consultant in person. These are some of the liabilities that the government has imposed that cause prices to go up, it is why the hospitals are failing and he believes at some point even health insurance will be useless. We will move to paying cash for services and those that can’t afford it will be the one’s using Medi-Cal or Medi-care. He agreed with me that insurance companies have executives that are over paid and they are pushing for the profits though he says these liabilities are more what is pushing the costs. It is why many people are going out of the country to get medical treatment; they don’t have all the government rules. Neither one of us is saying that all rules should be tossed out but it seems like these rules are built on top of one another and often the original intent of protection is lost under a stack of unnecessary paperwork. The question we were left with is this being done by some smart government organization or is the government incredibly stupid. If the government is putting these practices into place, I think they are doing it for the lobbyists, the medical supplies people, the ambulance people, who ever is asking for favors to make a profit. The big question is how do we fix this? I know a thread started on linkedin about how to bill for insurance and it led into the discussion of how the insurance companies are raising their fee’s yearly yet don’t change our reimbursement rate. Though when I look at this in the context of healthcare and I am just one part of it I fear that all this current political healthcare talk is way off target. I must qualify myself here and say I have not read all that much on the healthcare plan but it seems that what I do hear about is how they are going to make sure everyone has health insurance, though now I am not so sure that is the answer. I believe the answer lies in making sure that our voices are heard in government, that we take the time to vote and listen to what the candidate is saying about healthcare.

So what do you think? To comment on this article or any other, click on the comment or no comments at the the top of the article. this will bring a comment box down.

Licia Ginne, MFT
LATherapists.com
TherapyMarketingCoach.com

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Doing Therapy- The Theories We Work In

Licia Ginne — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:49:36 +0000

The other day in my class at ICP, we were talking about what informs our work. Within Contemporary Psychoanalysis there are many theories to work within. It started me thinking about friends and colleagues who work in different theories and some I wasn’t sure what their theory was. There are so many theories to work from. My journey as a therapist has had many theoretical orientations, I started off in Gestalt therapy, added some Jung, moved into the recovery field, a brief stop in solution-focused, then into codependency work, object relations and now my training in psychoanalysis. Wow! that is quite a road. I have worked in psychiatric facilities, drug and alcohol in-patient and out patient programs, in-patient eating disorders unit and out-patient sexual addiction program. All of these have influenced how I work and how I feel as a therapist. So let me ask you:

1) Do you believe having a theory is important?
2) Do you believe you solely have to stick to that theory?
3) What informs your work?
4) How do you listen to your client, process the information, and think about what is curative?

We will never practice the theory as it is written, I say this because each theory is a reflection of the theorists own life and what has influenced them.It is also why I like to learn about the theorists life and circumstances. I was more interested in the life of Freud and how his life influenced his theory then the theory itself, sometimes. As I listen to my client’s I think in many layers and borrow from many theories. There are certain pieces that resonate with me and I will take them from that theory. I can’t say I accept all of attachment theory but John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth started off thinking about caregiver and infant attachment and the types of attachment they saw. Others have expanded on this work and I find it helpful to think of what type of attachment my client may have experienced. There is fabulous research by Beatrice Beebe with video’s of mother /infant interactions and types of attachment. Another working concept for me is Bernard Brandchaft’s concept of pathological accommodation. Bernard Brandchaft’s book “Toward an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis” is a great resource. The idea of organizing principals(Intersubjective Systems) helped me think about how people organize their experience and put into words what I had been thinking about when I thought of a patients blueprint. I would encourage you to look at the works of Robert D. Stolorow, Donna Orange, George E. Atwood, William Coburn and Jeffrey L. Trop, they have greatly informed my work. If you are interested they all offer supervision in person or by telephone and some have study groups and I would encourage you to check them out.

As a final note and qualifier, I’d like to say that being a candidate at ICP has greatly changed the way I work and think. I have found a vitality to my work, I have a community to share and a place to learn. I have always been a firm believer in supervision, I would say that for the last 15 years I have been in supervision for most of the time. It keeps my work fresh and I am always learning. Of course I have to close with a note that all this not only improves my work as a therapist but the more people that know me and the work that I do the more possibility for referrals, yes it ends with a marketing plug.

Licia Ginne, MFT

LATherapists.com

TherapyMarketingCoach.com

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Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis Los Angeles – Open House

Licia Ginne — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:51:04 +0000

April 9th 12:30 – 3:30, sorry for the short notice.
I wanted to invite everyone to this program at the new home of ICPLA (Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis of Los Angeles). The program, Dr. Bill Coburn, Dr. Roger Frie & Dr. Peter Maduro are fabulous presenters, you get free ceu’s and will be able to see the new home of ICP. My experience with ICP has been a great one. Having a theoretical foundation to work from has made such a difference in my work as a therapist. Having a community open to discussion and learning is so rewarding and of course the marketer in me must promote the networking possibilities. I have learned so much and my work continually evolves as I learn in classes and the supervision I get. I have also found a great a community of friends and colleagues at ICP, something important to me since working as a therapist can be isolating. ICP offers different programs and I would encourage you to come and find out about the programs offered and learn what Contemporary Psychoanalysis is, I can tell you its not your regular Freudian analysis. For more information and to check out other events offered by ICP go to ICPLA-Open House. I look forward to seeing you there!

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