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The Redwood Empire Therapist
RECAMFT's Online Newsletter
May 2026
Don't miss this multicultural course - 2 CEs
Presented by Dr. Christine Chang, PhD Friday, May 1st, 2026 9:00 am - 11:15 am PT 2 CEs - On Zoom Course Description Grief and loss are universal human experiences, yet how they are understood, expressed, and processed is profoundly intertwined with cultural context, migration history, and intergenerational trauma. This skill-focused clinical training is designed for licensed therapists working with Asian and Asian American clients experiencing grief and loss. Appropriate for both beginning-level clinicians and experienced practitioners, this training will provide a culturally grounded framework for understanding how grief may manifest across diverse Asian and Asian American communities, while strengthening clinicians' capacities for assessment, conceptualization, and intervention within culturally specific tools.
Christine Chang, Ph.D., has been practicing as a licensed psychologist in California since 2016. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Counseling Program at Palo Alto University, after previously teaching in the Clinical Psychology PsyD programs at the University of San Francisco and the Wright Institute. Dr. Chang offers culturally informed depth psychotherapy with specialties in anxiety, grief, attachment trauma, and issues related to immigration and minority experiences. In addition to her clinical practice, she provides training and workshops focusing on contemporary psychodynamic theory and practice, cultural decolonization, and Asian/Asian American well-being.
Presented by
Ashley Green, LMFT
Friday, June 5th, 2026
9:00 am - 10:45 pm PT
Zoom, 1.5 CEs This training offers a comprehensive, trauma-informed framework for working with individuals recovering from narcissistic abuse, with a focus on moving clients beyond survival-based coping into sustainable healing and post-traumatic growth. Participants will explore the nuanced presentation of narcissistic abuse, including gaslighting, coercive control, trauma bonding, and identity erosion, as well as the complex clinical presentations that often accompany these experiences (e.g., anxiety, depression, complex trauma responses, and difficulties with trust, boundaries, and self-concept).
About our speaker, Ashley Green, LMFT Ashley Green, LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the founder of Heal Your Heart Therapy in Redding, California. With 14+ years of clinical experience, Ashley specializes in helping individuals recover from narcissistic abuse, trauma, and relational challenges. She is a Certified Narcissistic Abuse Treatment Clinician (NATC), and integrates evidence-based modalities into her work. Ashley is also an author, having published Healing Through the Pages: A Journal for Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse, and is developing additional professional resources, including training programs, group therapy curricula, and continuing education workshops. Her approach blends clinical expertise with compassionate, real-world strategies, empowering clients and clinicians alike to move from surviving to thriving. |
Working with Grief and Loss among Asians and Asian Americans
About our speaker Dr. Christine Chang, Licensed Psychologist
Restoring Reality: Therapeutic Approaches for Narcissism Recovery
Featured member
Did you miss the BBS-MANDATED 3 CE Telehealth course?
Telehealth: Law & Ethics, Technology, and Best Practices for Connecting with Your Clients with Dr. Lisa Wenninger, PhD, LPCC, BC-TMH Catch it on video here, and get your mandated 3 Telehealth CEs. Return to top
RECAMFT's Mission Statement The purpose of RECAMFT is to promote and maintain professional competence and integrity with knowledge, innovation, compassion, humor and respect for human dignity and diversity. We do this by providing opportunities for networking, education and community outreach for our members. (Note: "For our members" was added to the Mission Statement by the Bylaws Task Force on May 19, 2025).
May CARE Circle (Compassion, Acknowledgement, Recharge, Empower - formerly Compassion Fatigue) Support Group Meeting
Join us for the fun of Pride! Dress in your finest rainbows and don't miss our two 2026 Pride events! Photo of Tara D'Orazio and Dr. Bob Casanova from previous Pride events.
| Dear RECAMFT Community:
At out 2025 Board retreat we talked a great deal about finding ways to create more opportunities for member connection and enhance our sense of community. We are trying to create more opportunities to connect in different ways beyond just our monthly speaker meeting. We’ve had several networking events for our Prelicensed folks to provide an opportunity for connection and community. And we are trying to do this for our full membership, as well, with some fun social events. We’d love to have anyone with ideas and that want to help put them in action to joint our membership committee – just email info@RECAMFT.org if you are interested. There are several great opportunities for being in community coming up:
We hope to see you at one or more of these events soon. Since my first RECAMFT meeting back in 2014, I feel so proud and blessed to be a part of this amazing, rich community of therapists. I have a wonderful network of colleagues who provide a wealth of information, resources and support. And I am so grateful that some have become dear friends, too. Here’s to our RECAMFT Community – WE ROCK! Kindest regards, Pat Hromalik, LMFT 2026 RECAMFT President
Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org.
How to edit your Short Description which appears in our Therapist Directory in 4 easy steps!
Questions? info@recamft.org
Bring any craft you like, get on Zoom with us and visit with your colleagues while we knit, sew, paint, draw, cook, create, etc. (Note: No Crafting Circle in April.) Join us at our next meeting:
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On Friday April 24th I had a wonderful experience with just a few therapists. Four of us attended the RECAMFT Walk and Talk with the President at Schollenberger Park in Petaluma. While we were all surprised it was such a small turnout, we ended up having a great connection and experience. We sat at the picnic table near the park entrance with tea, fruit and baked goods and had such an engaging conversation about Artificial Intelligence and developing critical thinking in kids. Then we walked the park and continued talking about our field, our practices, our families and friends, and about RECAMFT. The time seemed to fly by and we ended up going an hour over our posted time. We have since exchanged emails, appreciating our time together and getting to know each other better. I think this is one of the great values of being part of RECAMFT – getting the chance to be in community together. I am planning another Walk and Talk at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa in the near future and will tentatively hold it on a weekend day in the hopes that will allow more people to attend.
Photo from Walk & Talk with the President(s): L-R: Pat Hromalik, LMFT, President; Kristi Hudson, LMFT; Bob Butler, LCSW; Joan Menke, LMFT. Photo by Pat Hromalik. 
Pat Hromalik, LMFT is the President of RECAMFT's 
Are you creative? Please join us for our
Two opportunities to show your PRIDE! June 6th - SoCo Pride - Parade and Booth June 21st - Lez-a-palooza Walk and Booth Come join RECAMFT as we show our pride in June.
Please join us for Sonoma County Pride on June 6th, both for the parade and staffing our booth. Find out more, including how to volunteer to help cover staffing schedules of the booth, and walk the parade when you register here.
| There was a nice crowd on hand for our Prelicensed Speaker Panel on Feb. 27, 2026! (L-R) Thanks to our speaker panelists: Lionel Cooper, Wendy Wheelwright, Kitty Chelton, Litsa Tanner, John Schneider.
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Thank you to our Racial and Social Justice Committee for planning this year's two Pride events! Thanks to:
FREE to Members - Visit our On-Demand CE Video Library!
Multiple new ONLINE offerings! Find all the latest here (including 6 CEs Law & Ethics)
Check it out! RECAMFT's On-Demand CE Library link: https://recamft.thinkific.com/
Catch "Support & Safety during Crisis: Treating Undocumented Families Facing ICE & Detention " (2 CEs, on-demand) with Dr. Sandra Espinoza, PsyD, LMFT - FREE to members!
This introductory workshop will prepare clinicians with the knowledge and tools to support undocumented clients and families impacted by the threat of deportation. Recent research highlights the urgent need for such clinical awareness. Personally knowing a detained or deported person, particularly when the individual is a family member, is strongly associated with poorer mental health among U.S. citizens (Pinedo & Valdez, 2020). This webinar will provide clinicians with specific skills to assess and address the relational ruptures, attachment disruptions, and trauma responses that often accompany deportation-related family separation. Participants will learn how to integrate trauma-informed, culturally-sensitive, and systemic approaches in their work. Practical interventions, case examples, and strategies for navigating clinical and community-based challenges will be included.
Dr. Sandra Espinoza, PsyD, LMFT (she/her) is an Associate Professor and Branch Director of the Couple and Family Therapy program at Alliant International University in Los Angeles. A bilingual Mexican-American therapist and AAMFT Approved Supervisor, Dr. Espinoza integrates cultural humility, social justice, anti-oppressive, anti-carceral approaches, and advocacy in her scholarship, teaching, and practice. She has presented on the issue of immigration and deportation at the local and national level. She has been in clinical practice for over 14 years and maintains a private practice supporting mostly interracial couples and Latinx clients.
To see a preview of this dynamic program... CLICK HERE.
Members - you can access recordings of our zoom events from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021 in our new on-demand library which has been migrated over to Thinkific (https://recamft.thinkific.com/).
- NEW! RECAMFT On-Demand Programs: https://recamft.thinkific.com
- NEW! RECAMFT discount codes are posted for members only here: https://www.recamft.org/member-discount-codes (requires sign-in using your RECAMFT member email/password)
Topic List
Addiction
- Attachment Infused Addiction Treatment Theory 2 CEs with Dr. Mary Crocker Cook, PhD, LMFT
Anxiety & Depression
- Identifying and Treating Imposter Syndrome 2 CEs with Stevon Lewis, LMFT
- Mental Wellness in the Digital Age 1.5 CEs with Julie Frumin, LMFT
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Evidence-Based Treatment Strategies That Work! 3 CEs with Dr. Robin Zasio, PsyD, LCSW
- Three Underlying Beliefs That Cause Anxiety and How to Change Them, A CBT Approach 2 CEs with Jennifer Shannon, LMFT
- Understanding Hoarding Disorder 1.5 CEs with Dr. Robin Zasio, PsyD, LCSW
Couples
- Part 1: Intro to PACT – Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy 2 CEs with Dr. Hans Stahlschmidt, PhD
Culture
- Support & Safety during Crisis: Treating Undocumented Families Facing ICE & Detention 2 CEs with Dr. Sandra Espinoza, PsyD, LMFT NEW!
Eating Disorders
- Treating Binge Eating Disorder with Self-Compassion: A Trauma-informed Approach 2 CEs with Erica Thomas, LMFT
- Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy: Update on a Transformative Treatment Option 2 CEs with Evolve Mind Wellness Staff
- Telehealth: Law & Ethics, Technology, and Best Practices for Connecting with Your Clients 3 CEs, with Dr. Lisa Wenninger, PhD, LPCC
- How to Write a 10-Minute Treatment Plan 3 CEs, with Barbara Griswold, LMFT.
- What Should be in Your Notes, But Probably Isn't 3 CEs, with Barbara Griswold, LMFT.
LGBTQ+
- Affirmative Family Therapy with Gender Diverse People and Their Loved Ones 2 CEs, with Dr. Shawn Giammattei, PhD
- Working with Dissociative Disorders & Plural Communities 4 CEs, with Serenity Serseción, PhD, LMFT
- How Sexuality Influences the Clinical Picture for Female Clients, 2 CEs with Dr. Jenn Kennedy, PhD, LMFT
Neuro-Biological
- The Neurodiversity Paradigm: Autistic & ADHDer Adults 3 CEs with Katy Higgins Lee, LMFT
- Transforming Trauma: The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) 3 CEs with Brad Kammer, LMFT
Sleep
- Sleep and Postpartum Mental Health 2 CEs with Kristina Anzell, LCSW
Members can watch the video, pass the test, fill out the evaluation, and download your certificate. It's that easy! You can earn CEs for any recorded event if you didn't already earn CEs from the live event. And our RECAMFT Thinkific platform keeps track of all your CEs and Certificates! Return to top
Exciting Prelicensed events planned for Fall 2026! Greetings Prelicensed RECAMFT members! We had a Prelicensed Meet & Greet on Friday, April 24th, 2026 from 5-7 pm at Brew Coffee & Beer House in Santa Rosa. We will plan to do this again in the fall. We hope to have a job fair this fall as well. I'm happy to tell you the RECAMFT Board appointed a 
Prelicensed Director at Large! She will represent the prelicensed point of view on our Board. Please welcome Angela Sanville, AMFT and congratulate her on this appointment! If you have any questions or concerns about the road to licensure, and how RECAMFT can help, or want to connect with Brian, please email info@recamft.org.
Chair, Prelicensed Committee RECAMFT Director at Large Scholarships for Pre-Licensed andNewly Licensed Members | Hello RECAMFT community! We are so excited to share some of the upcoming monthly CE events. RECAMFT Zoom presentations
Are you interested in seeing what we have coming up? Consider microvolunteering with the Programs & Conferences Committee! Microvolunteering opportunities: providing support at in person CE events; driving outreach to potential speakers for CE events; writing up a short article about each presentation for the newsletter ("What You Missed"), and more! Reach out to info@recamft.org if you have ideas of how you'd like to help out. Gwendolyn Watson, LMFT, she/her Programs Chair Programs & Conferences Committee RECAMFT Director at Large RECAMFT's Racial and Social Justice Pledge
We strive to advocate, educate, collaborate, and strategize for positive racial and social justice change within our membership and our community. Check out RECAMFT's Library page for books authored by our members! Have you written a book? Be sure to let us know so we can include it on our Library page. Email info@recamft.org.
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Upcoming events
| Featured member
If you are not currently enrolled in the listserv, please email therapy@recamft.org and ask to be added. You have the option of setting up your account to be
After you have been added to the listserv, you can change the way you receive the emails to any of the above choices. In Gmail the emails will appear under your Forums tab. To send an email to the listserv, simply address your email to recamft@groups.io If you do not want to be on our listserv, you can delete your account or write to info@recamft.org and ask to not be a part of the listserv. But we urge you to give it a try. You are missing out on a ton of meaningful collaboration with your colleagues. We hope you will enjoy being part of our online community! Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org. |
Our listserv has around 400 members on it, and is active daily with great conversations, resources, offerings, in search of, books, movies, office rentals, jobs, internships, etc. You can view the home page of our listserv at
Contact info@recamft.org to advertise a job. Featured member | Highlights from RECAMFT's Board of Directors April 10th, 2026 Board Meeting on Zoom
Photo of the April 2026 Zoom Board meeting by Tara D'Orazio:
Tara's term starts June 1, 2026. We're so proud of you! |
Congratulations, Tara D'Orazio, on winning the election to the state CAMFT Board of Directors as a Director at Large!!!
We love our Sponsors!
Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org. |
Find out more about advertising with RECAMFT here. |
| Featured member |
Can you help? Jobs for Awesome Volunteers PROGRAMS Committee needs Programs Co-chair: · Work with the Programs Chair to bring in diverse and interesting · Projected commitment: 1-2 hours a month every other month, plus 3 hours of event time on the month that is yours. Programs Advertising/ Social Media manager · Work with the Programs committee to promote events · One hour per month.
Programs Non CE event Coordinator · One hour per month plus time at the events one or two times per year.
Programs Committee Member · One hour per month plus – support the committee and its members
RACIAL and SOCIAL JUSTICE Committee needs
RSJC Members (Openings for 5+) · One hour per month and a little more when we are involved in community events or launching a project.
MEMBERSHIP Committee needs Social Media Volunteer · Post monthly events to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. · One hour per month Membership Committee Members (Openings for 6+) · Participate in committee meetings · One hour per month Please send an email to info@recamft.org if you can help. This month we'd like to thank the following awesome volunteers who, in addition to our Board of Directors, are helping us plan future events! Members Meeting Committee - thank you to all these wonderful volunteers are planning our next networking event!
Prelicensed PREP Committee
Thank you to our volunteers who help make RECAMFT great! |
Not consultation, just a great way to get some ideas about how to handle your sticky case. Friendly and open group. Learn more here.
Welcome to our newest Board Member! Angela Sanville, AMFT We are pleased to announce the appointment of Angela Sanville, AMFT to the RECAMFT Board of Directors as our Prelicensed Director at Large. Angela has been invaluable in helping and advising the Prelicensed Committee, and attended and assisted with numerous events. Thank you, Angela, for taking the next step!
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presentations.
Book recommendation:
Finding the Gold in Grief: What Children Teach Us About Loss and Love
by Nina Gorbach, LMFT with a forward by Sylvia Boorstein
Reviewed by Hannah Caratti, LMFT
RECAMFT Member
I have been uplifted by reading a book written by my colleague and friend, Nina Gorbach, LMFT. She has spent her career counseling children and teens as they grieved the loss of close family members. The book is available through Barnes & Noble and on Amazon and other online sites, on Kindle and paperback.
I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed reading this book and felt fulfilled and enriched by it. I did not know that reading a book about grief could be such a positive experience, but it has been! I think many of you will enjoy it, too. To be honest, I did cry often while reading, but found the experience was healing. My friend Nina is quite spiritual, so there is a feeling of being uplifted and rejoicing in the successes of many of her grief therapy clients. I enjoyed it on Kindle.
The book, with a foreword by Sylvia Boorstain and a glowing recommendation by Tara Brach, LMFT, highlights 29 stories of children that Ms. Gorbach worked with in a variety of environments. The stories are grouped into sections that have meaning for all people in our times:
- Connection and Belonging,
- Creating Out of Brokenness,
- Contribution,
- Play,
- Listening,
- and Choosing Life.
All of the stories focus on relationship and how we help one another in the midst of grief, loss, and trauma.
Ms. Gorbach has been involved in education and counseling for more than 50 years. She worked as an MFT intern as of 1988 in southern California, working in schools, hospices, mental health organizations, homeless shelters and a host of other places. She became licensed as an MFT in 1992, which is when she started a bereavement program for children in San Diego. She founded the WillMar Center for Bereaved Children in 2000, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the town of Sonoma, and later went into private practice. The 10 years that Ms. Gorbach lived in other countries gave her a broad cultural and multi-generational perspective which informs all of her work.
Here below are two of the many inspiring reviews of this beautiful book:
“As a healthcare provider privileged to shepherd people through many challenges, this book landed in my lap like a blessing. Nina’s writing is tender, and the precious stories reveal moments of hope and insight based on a lifetime of working with grief and loss.” --Lata Maddipati, MD, Chief of Wellbeing, Kaiser San Francisco, Certified Instructor of Mindfulness and Compassion Practice
“I’m convinced the end result of the children’s grief support group was the difference between potential life-long emotional problems versus a sense of compassionate understanding and reconciliation of their loss.” -- Jeff Adams, Parent of bereaved children, now young adults.
Hannah Caratti, LMFT, has a
Link to our Therapy Groups page and a PDF of current offerings - RECAMFT.ORG/Therapy-Groups CLICK HERE to learn more about local group offerings, and payment to advertise your group. 
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Thank you for reading this month's newsletter! RECAMFT is great because of involved members like you!! Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org. |
Are you looking for help? Find therapists offering free natural disaster and crisis sessions here. Please check out MySonomaStrong.com. Visit the NAMI Warmline. Take a trauma-informed yoga class. We will recover together! ¿Buscas ayuda? Encuentre terapeutas que ofrezcan sesiones gratuitas de crisis y desastres naturales aquí. Visite MySonomaStrong.com. Visite la NAMI Warmline. Toma una clase de yoga informada sobre el trauma. ¡Nos recuperaremos juntos!
Redwood Empire Chapter of California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists |
