• Group meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11am online.
• We are currently looking more like a process & support group with some skills sprinkled in— maybe 80% discussion, 20% skills.
• We talk a lot about everyday life, anti-oppression frameworks, and queer-, trans-, and neuroaffirming perspectives.
• When folks want skills, we do more skills; when folks want more discussion, we do more discussion.
• We have BIPOC and white members, and the group is an anti-racist space.
• Members also have disabilities and chronic pain; the group is an anti-ableist space.

The group’s needs have evolved beyond a mostly-skills format. The group is still a great space for prosocial neurospicy queer and trans adults who are looking for connection and support.

More info about RQ-DBT here. Hope you can join us if you wish!

Although the NBGQ group is full and has a waitlist, there are currently openings for the transfeminine group.

If you’re interested, hope to hear from you soon! Wishing you warm holidays.

I work hard to reach out to everyone who gets in touch with me via the website, as it’s really important to me not to leave people hanging.

If you’ve reached out to me via the contact form in the past months and never heard anything back, I apologize! It wasn’t that I ignored your message— I never got the email! My new plugin should take care of this problem. Mea culpa!

I think I have it all sorted now. (And if you want to find out, just drop me a line!)

Although WPATH standards cut both ways and can seem like an obstacle to trans and non-binary folks getting the care they need, I think it also provides some needed education and standards to bring the gender care professions forward. I hope to contribute to future GEI training by making non-binary, genderqueer, and other gender non-conforming folks’s needs more visible and present in WPATH’s offerings. I’m also looking forward to the release of SOC 8, which is rumored to be a lot more inclusive of different trans identities and better at removing obstacles to care.

If you or someone you know might be interested, check out the Trans and Queer-Centered Supervision Group page and then get in touch so we can talk about it. Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

Being a trans and queer therapist has some subtleties that aren’t really covered in grad school or in most internship placements. To start with, if you’re also working with clients in the trans and queer community, there’s more chance for multiple relationships arising, because we have a small community. However, most therapy training programs have a cis-het bias, and they don’t often offer specific guidance for navigating these realities. Second, when our clients’ issues in therapy impinge on our own gender and sexuality, it can bring up stuff that might not seem welcome in your run-of-the-mill supervision group. Finally, few graduate programs devote serious time to issues specific to trans and queer clients, and even less so issues specific to the trans or queer therapist. This group is designed to be a safer space where trans and queer clinicians can talk about these issues and more. Join us, and build your private practice in good company.

Interested in improving your work with trans healthcare consumers? Our 2-hour training will teach you the basics of creating a welcoming, inclusive environment for gender-diverse people. This training is approved by the Oregon Health Authority to offer cultural competency CEs to health professionals.

This live online training will be held Thursday, March 25, 2021, 6:30-8:30pm PT via Zoom.

Facilitators

Sasha Strong, MA, LPC and Kaden Winterkorn, M.Ed. are professional counselors who specialize in supporting trans youth and adults. Their training and experience in gender competency include conducting research, attending specialized trainings, facilitating gender support groups, and offering workshops like this one.

Format

This live Zoom class includes engaging lecture components, small group discussion, and a question and answer session. Group size is limited to 20 so that everyone has a chance to participate and ask questions.

Learning Outcomes

We’ll cover important topics for creating an inclusive healthcare environment, including:

• Key terms and concepts and best practices with pronouns
• Understanding diverse trans identities and experiences
• Research findings on trans experience in healthcare
• Ways to make your policies, procedures, and people skills more trans-inclusive
• 10 best practices & some things to avoid
• Time to reflect and receive feedback about applying these principles to your workplace
• A Q&A session to answer your questions

Fee

The fee for this 2-hour training is $100, but we’re offering an Early Bird Discount. Sign up before the end of the day on March 18th and get 25% off the cost of the training. Just enter this coupon code at checkout: EARLYBIRD-2103

Ready to register?

Great! Use the scheduler below to reserve your spot.
This training is on March 24, 2021.

Prior commitment? Want to book for a larger group?

No problem! Our trainings page has more info about other trainings we offer and how to schedule for your group or organization.

Briefly, the paper gives an overview of Contemplative Psychotherapy (CP) as a discipline at the intersection of psychotherapy, Buddhism, and mindfulness, reviews its core theories and practices, and argues that CP may have special value in helping therapists become better at the common factors— the active ingredients of psychotherapy that are common to the different schools and styles of counseling.

The version of record is visible at https://doi.org/10.1037/int0000191. You can also download a self-archived version of the paper here. (It lacks the fancy typesetting of an APA journal, but reads just fine.

The abstract is ©2019 American Psychological Association.

Contemplative Psychotherapy: Clinician Mindfulness, Buddhist Psychology, and the Therapeutic Common Factors

Abstract:

Contemplative psychotherapy (CP) is a counseling discipline that integrates psychotherapy training, clinician mindfulness, and Buddhism. This review articulates CP as developed at Naropa University, contextualizes its core concepts and practices with regard to the common therapeutic factors, and briefly reviews the Buddhist frameworks, theories of pathology, and interventions that characterize CP.

The foundation of CP training is clinician mindfulness and compassion. Because of its integrative approach to developing these therapeutic traits in clinicians, aspects of CP have the potential to enhance the common factors and therapeutic outcomes across counseling disciplines. Future empirical research should investigate these claims, and if they are verified, explore best practices in clinician mindfulness and compassion training. Because CP thoroughly integrates clinician mindfulness and compassion into clinical training and practice, it is a notable field for research into psychotherapy practice, pedagogy, and outcomes.

Keywords: Contemplative psychotherapy, mindfulness, compassion, Buddhism, common factors

Many thanks to my clients, supervisors, peers, and colleagues! I’m really looking forward to continuing this work and supporting our community.