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The Redwood Empire Therapist
RECAMFT's Online Newsletter
September 2025
Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org.
"Sustaining Mental Wellness in the Digital Age"
Friday, September 5th, 2025
Hold the date! Fri., October 3rd!, 9 am!
Postpartum Sleep 101: Understanding Sleep and Mental Health in the Postpartum Period
Presented by
Kristina Anzell, LCSW
Zoom, 2.5 CEs
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). | Dear RECAMFT Community: A warm welcome back to all from what I hope was a restful and restorative summer break. While many of us are returning from vacations and resuming our regular schedules, RECAMFT is ready to jump back into the swing of things with you! We are kicking off our fall programs on Friday, September 5th with Sustaining Mental Wellness in the Digital Age, presented by Julie Frumin, LMFT. This timely presentation will explore the psychological impacts of technology and offer evidence-based strategies for cultivating healthier, more balanced technology use in our daily lives. We are also excited to be hosting a NEW Prelicensed Meet & Greet on the same day, Friday, September 5th from 4 to 6 pm at Brew Coffee and Beer House in Santa Rosa. This event is open to all master’s or doctoral level students, trainees, and Associates – both members and non-members are welcome. Parking is available at the garage located at 521 7th St. or on the street. Please spread the word to your fellow prelicensed colleagues, supervisees, and friends! This will be a fantastic event for attendees to build relationships and referral networks for the future. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make lasting connections as you start your career!
Stay tuned for more events to come, and be sure to mark your calendars for our next in-person training on January 9th for our Annual Members Meeting with noted sex therapist David Khalili, LMFT. This festive event will include food, prizes, networking opportunities, and a chance to celebrate our RECAMFT community. I look forward to seeing you soon and wish you a wonderful start to the fall season! Warmly, Emily Larkin, LMFT 2025 President, RECAMFT.org
Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org.
Are you creative? Please join us for our Crafting Group! 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:
Call for Submissions for the Oct 2025 Issue of The RECAMFT Therapist! October is the balance of Hispanic Heritage Month which began on Sept. 15th. It is also ADHD and LGBTQ+ History Awareness Month. See more here. We especially welcome submissions where awareness themes intersect with mental health. Please send your submission (500 word max) to info@recamft.org by the 15th. Questions? info@recamft.org. Return to top |
RECAMFT continues to be hard at work to provide dynamic trainings and events. We have heard requests for more in-person events and chances to connect. Beginning this fall, we are launching 
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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 Introduction to PACT (Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy), Part 1 with Dr. Hans Stahlschmidt - no charge to RECAMFT members!
This course will introduce a different approach to working with couples. It suggests that couples will co-develop a relationship that reflects a deep mutual care system and is also a growth model that encourages and supports the partners to grow and prosper. Major principles of this care system are building safety and security with each other and putting the relationship first, as well as finding agreements that organize their relationship in a secure-functioning way and develop effective co-regulation. Pact is both a bottom-up and a top-down model of couple therapy. This approach allows more freedom for the therapist to use the self for the benefit of the therapy.- To see a preview of PACT, 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)
NEW! The Neurodiversity Paradigm: Autistic & ADHDer Adults, 3 CEs with Katy Higgins Lee, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2025-04-neurodiverse-paradigm
Identifying and Treating Imposter Syndrome, 2 CEs with Stevon Lewis, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2025-02-imposter
Understanding Hoarding Disorder, 1.5 CEs with Dr. Robin Zasio, PsyD, LCSW https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2025-hoarding-ondemand
Three Underlying Beliefs That Cause Anxiety and How to Change Them, a CBT Approach, 2 CEs, with Jennifer Shannon, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2024-06-3-Beliefs-Cause-Anxiety
Transforming Trauma: The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), 3 CEs, with Brad Kammer, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2023-03-NARM
Addiction: Attachment Infused Addiction Treatment Theory, 2 CEs, with Dr. Mary Crocker Cook, PhD, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/attachment-addiction-2024-01
Law & Ethics: Telehealth: Law & Ethics, Technology, and Best Practices for Connecting with Your Clients, 3 CEs, with Dr. Lisa Wenninger, PhD, LPCC https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2023-05-Telehealth
Law & Ethics: How to Write a 10-Minute Treatment Plan, 3 CEs, with Barbara Griswold, LMFT. https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2022-law-and-ethics-treatment-plan
Law & Ethics: What Should be in Your Notes, But Probably Isn't, 3 CEs, with Barbara Griswold, LMFT. https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2022-06-15-law-ethics-progress-notes
LGBTQ+: Affirmative Family Therapy with Gender Diverse People and Their Loved Ones, 2 CEs, with Dr. Shawn Giammattei, PhD https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2024-transgender-families
LGBTQ+: Working with Dissociative Disorders & Plural Communities, 4 CEs, with Serenity Serseción, PhD, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2023-12-DID
LGBTQ+: How Sexuality Influences the Clinical Picture for Female Clients, 2 CEs with Dr. Jenn Kennedy, PhD, LMFT https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2024-09-06-sexuality-female-clients
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.
Welcome back, RECAMFT community! We are so excited to share some of the upcoming monthly CE events. RECAMFT Tentative Zoom presentations
Are you interested in seeing what we have coming up? Consider microvolunteering with the Programs & Conferences Committee! Microvolunteering opportunities: screening speaker applications; providing support at in person CE events; monitoring Q&A for speakers during monthly Zoom presentations. We are especially looking for Programs Committee helpers to evaluate applications for programs. 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.
We need help with
Please send an email to info@recamft.org if you can help. 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.
| Scholarships for Pre-Licensed andNewly Licensed Members |
Members! Your SHORT DESCRIPTION is the most important thing on your profile. Why? Because that shows in our 
Welcome to Brian Crites, LMFT and adjunct professor at USF Santa Rosa Campus and Sonoma State University! Brian graduated from Sonoma State University with a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, with an emphasis on Clinical Mental Health Counseling, in spring of 2014, and completed licensure as Marriage and Family Therapist in 2016. Brian currently works for the Santa Rosa Center for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and previously worked for a variety of agencies, including High Schools, behavioral intervention agencies, and residential treatment programs. He is certified in providing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders in children, adolescents, and adults, and conducting evidenced-based treatment protocols for obsessive-compulsive disorder, body-focused repetitive behaviors, insomnia, and Tourette’s syndrome.
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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 info2recamft.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 | June 13, 2025 Board meeting. Pride Parade photo by Laura Strom.
"RECAMFT is committed to creating events that are respectful, inclusive, and professionally enriching, whether in-person or virtual. By registering for or attending our events, you agree to engage in a manner that is courteous, constructive, and aligned with our community’s values. We expect all participants to treat others with courtesy and professionalism, to participate in good faith, and to honor personal boundaries and confidentiality. Please use your real name and accurate contact information when registering, and only sign up for events you are eligible to attend. Unacceptable behavior includes harassment, disruptive or mocking comments, repeated unwanted contact, misrepresentation of eligibility, or any conduct that interferes with others’ comfort or safety. We reserve the right to remove participants who violate these expectations, deny access to future events, revoke membership privileges, and report serious misconduct to relevant professional or legal bodies. By joining our events, you help ensure a supportive and respectful space for everyone. Thank you."
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Congratulations to Emma Coe, LMFT on winning one of the Joe and Pamela Ward Scholarships for 2025!
Emma works full-time as a counselor at Sonoma State University Counseling Center where she is able to help later age diagnosed students with ADHD. Interestingly, Emma states she likes treating the differences between woman and men who have this diagnosis. As I was talking with Emma and listening to her enthusiasm for working as a therapist, I asked her what she would like to include in her association with RECAMFT. She immediately spoke of how much she wants to give back to her community, both colleagues and those seeking therapy. Emma stated she would appreciate and enjoy having an informal monthly in-person brunch peer-led consultation group to discuss clients while learning from each other. Thrilled, I replied this was a great idea, and suggested October as a start date. If you are interested in joining Emma and me in a brunch peer-led consultation group, please email info@recamft.org with your interest. We look forward to a wonderful in-person event with colleagues!
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CONGRATULATIONS to EMMA Coe, LMFT, for winning the Joe and Pamela Ward Memorial $1000.00 Scholarship Award towards training for her career goals! Emma is a three year licensed Marriage and Family Therapist particularly interested in expanding her knowledge in working with the neurodiversity population, particularly autism. She resonates with the work of Katy Higgins Lee, LMFT, exploring the intersection between neurodiversity and trauma with young adults.
Dr. Jean Hayes, PhD, LMFT is a RECAMFT
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Featured member |
Find out more about advertising with RECAMFT here. Please note: our new email address is info@recamft.org. |
The Gift of Burnout
by Tara D'Orazio, LMFT
RECAMFT CFO
The first thing I noticed was that my energy wasn’t bouncing back like it had before. Week after week, I found myself lamenting a blurry brain that made it difficult to excel beyond reflective listening and holding space. I am usually a very active therapist. Working with me feels like a good conversation, lots of eye contact and nodding, you can tell I’m following you with avid curiosity. I ask a lot of questions and I’m known for my enlightening zingers. But here I was, sitting back, low-key, not opening doors I didn’t have the energy to walk through.
I started to wonder: is it my hormones? Is my nutrition off? Am I working too much? Is it my medication? I changed some things, but none of those possibilities explained why I was no longer showing up grateful for the work. Why self-preservation seemed more urgent than expansion.
I logged into my IFS coaching session and spilled the beans. She used the word burnout, and my system answered YES. Now it was time to figure out what was causing it. Through the amazing internal exploration that is IFS, I got still, I got quiet and curious, and I stopped trying to do something about it. I simply listened. And I learned a lot.
Burnout brought with it the gift of clarity around what wasn’t working. I had no energy left to put towards avoiding tough conversations. If a client was going to leave because of a difficult exchange I was no longer invested in stopping them. I call this the “eff it” stage – more commonly referred to as surrender - where you have nothing left to give to the status quo and are busted open into receptivity for change. When the time comes that the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it takes to bloom (“Risk” by Anais Nin)
To be clear, I never stopped caring about my clients. What was gone were the exhausted caretaking parts. My energy had been drained by what I hadn’t said, boundaries I had let slide, the conversations I wasn’t having. With my IFS coach’s guidance, I met the parts who needed me, and I promised to change. My energy burst forth in an instance, unbridled and burning bright again.
I wouldn’t have chosen it; I don’t romanticize the exhaustion or the despair. But I can say now that
burnout gave me a gift
I might never have claimed otherwise. It interrupted the momentum of overwork and perfectionism long enough for me to imagine something different. It insisted that I pay attention to myself in a way I had long avoided. And in that way, it offered not just an ending, but a beginning.
Tara D'Orazio, LMFT is RECAMFT's CFO on our Board of Directors. She has an online private practice and offers EMDR and IFS to those healing from trauma and seeking new ways of relating to themselves and others.
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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RECAMFT hosted a booth at 2025 Pride this year with fun giveaways. L-R Dianna Grayer, Emily Larkin, President, Laura Strom (past president of RECAMFT and CAMFT), and Thea Privette.
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A close up of some of the giveaways we had for folks who wanted to chat with us about what we offer the Sonoma County community.
RECAMFT's rainbow logo celebrates pride!
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This year's parade theme was "40 and Fierce" to celebrate the ruby anniversary of Pride in Sonoma County. 
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We marched with Redwood Psychological Association right behind us. We held a meeting the night before the parade to paint signs hosted by Claudia Haskel - thanks, Claudia!
Our Pride Committee came up with our own themes based on the "40 & Fierce" parade theme, and made signs to match.
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Fierce Advocacy: Family therapists often serve as fierce advocates for their clients’ emotional well-being, especially when helping individuals and families navigate trauma, abuse, or systemic oppression. They stand up for the most vulnerable voices in a family system, including children, marginalized individuals, or those silenced by dysfunctional dynamics.
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Fierce Compassion: True therapeutic work requires a fierce kind of compassion—a deep, unwavering commitment to holding space for pain, struggle, and transformation without judgment. This fierce compassion means therapists are willing to face discomfort, conflict, and emotional intensity rather than shy away from it.
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Fierce Boundaries: Effective therapists model and maintain strong boundaries, helping clients learn to do the same in their own lives. This fierceness isn’t aggression, but clarity, integrity, and a commitment to healthy relational functioning.
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Fierce Truth-Telling: Therapists often have to deliver difficult truths or challenge harmful patterns in their clients’ thinking or relationships. This requires courage and conviction, rooted in a desire to help clients grow.
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Fierce Hope: In the face of despair, addiction, chronic conflict, or grief, family therapists often hold a fierce hope—believing in the possibility of healing and change even when clients cannot yet see it themselves.”
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 |
