Dr. Sheila Addison, president of AFTNC, will give a talk called “Beyond the Dyad: Couple and Family Therapy with Consensually Non-Monogamous Relationships.”  Dr. Addison presented a version of this talk at AAMFT in 2017. Couple and family therapists are recognizing that intimate partner relationships today come in more forms than the monogamous couples we trained to work with.  Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) encompasses a variety of sexual and romantic styles, including polyamory; open relationships; and monogamous triads, quads, and more. In this talk, Dr. Addison will fill you in on what you need to know about CNM relationships and the families they form around themselves to help you with ethical decision-making and clinical effectiveness when working with these clients. Raised by a […]

We’re excited to be co-presenting “The Twinning Reaction” at the 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival which runs July 19 – August 5, 2018 throughout the Bay Area! Description: Many children fantasize about having an identical twin, a perfect carbon copy of themselves. Imagine finding out as an adult that you had been born an identical twin and were purposefully separated to be in a secret study to determine the impact of nature vs. nurture. Weaving interviews, archival footage and animation, filmmaker Lori Shinseki creates a moving and artistically rendered portrait of several families from New York whose lives are forever impacted and at times shattered as they discover that the Jewish adoption agency they used was covertly separating and […]

At Sports Basement, Community Room, 2727 Miliva, Berkeley.  Sunday, July 29th 2 – 4:30PM. Please come join us for an interesting afternoon with Marianne. She has been active in Family Therapy for over forty years, and has been writing and providing Family Therapy Trainings across the country. Marianne Ault-Riche, LCSW, has a private practice of Family, Couple and EMDR Therapy in Menlo Park, CA. Previously she worked for 20 years at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas where she was Curriculum Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Training Program. In Kansas she taught workshops with Harriet Lerner PhD upon which The Dance of Anger was based. Her 1985 book, Women and Family Therapy was the first family therapy text on […]

June 10, 2018 Dear members, First, I want to welcome the new members who have joined us this spring during our spring membership drive and our recent training events.  We are glad to have new folks join us! As a reminder, many long-time members have not renewed their membership in some time. With the transition to our new website this past winter, accounts for the AFTNC site have needed to be re-created.  If you do not have a login that works here, then you may not have kept your membership current.  Please consider re-activating your membership at this page, which will allow you to join either through October 1 of this year (our annual membership renewal date), or, at a discounted […]

When:  Sunday, June 3, 2-430pm Where:  Sports Basement Berkeley, 2727 Milvia St. You went to school to learn to be a therapist, not to learn to run a business. But a successful private practice is a business. Can you learn all the skills you need on your own? Or should you hire experts to do some things for you?  When do you need a Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA compliance? Do you need a confidentiality agreement if you use a bookkeeper? Join us on June 3, 2018, for “The Business of Your Private Practice,” and get all your questions answered in one place. This training will feature a variety of business professionals who support therapists in private practice.  Topics featured will […]

  Salvador Minuchin was one of the greats of family therapy. While his death in October 2017 was a loss for his family and friends a well as the field, fortunately he left us with his legacy of writing and video on Structural Family Therapy. We will meet to watch and discuss some of Minuchin’s classic family therapy moments from across the span of his career.  We’ll leave time at the end for a collegial group consultation on applying Structural Family Therapy to cases brought by attendees interested in feedback. The workshop will be led by Sheila Addison, PhD and will help you understand Structural Family Therapy, see Minuchin’s techniques and have examples of how to implement structural changes. AFTNC members […]

The future of AFTNC depends on membership.  And you are our best ambassadors to new members!  Announcing our 2018 Winter Membership Drive. Our goal:  For each existing member to recruit FOUR new members to join AFTNC.     Who could you talk to about joining? Coworkers Consultation group members Office or suitemates Students Supervisees Clinicians in your referral networks Members of professional mailing lists you belong to AFTNC is open to all mental health professionals, pre-licensed or licensed, who have an interest in family systems and conjoint therapy.  Whether they’re a seasoned family therapist, or an individual therapist who wants to learn how to leverage the power of relational systems to make change, AFTNC can offer a home for learning, […]

While many family therapists receive their training in a Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program, others come to the field via master’s or doctoral degrees in social work, professional counseling, and clinical or counseling psychology.  Each discipline has its own training track and its own funding, conferences, and travel opportunities. For those coming via the psychology world, this list of psychology scholarship resources may be helpful to you.  Take particular note of the Roy Scrivner Research Grants: Offered by the American Psychological Foundation (APF), the Roy Scrivner Research Grant supports graduate-level, applied and empirical research in the field of lesbian, gay and bisexual family psychology and therapy. Students planning to use human participants in their research must receive approval from […]

Get ready for another great AFTNC Annual Conference! It’s August, and that means our preparation for the Annual Conference is in full swing.  This year, we are having an “urban conference,” based closer to home for most of our members.  Hosted at Northbrae Community Church, we are looking forward to two days of learning and family therapy community. Save the Date:  Our fall conference will take place on Friday, October 20 and Saturday, October 21.  Our featured speaker, Dr. Pilar Hernandez-Wolfe, is known for her work with immigrant and refugee families, and her writing on traumatic stress and vicarious resilience. Tickets for the conference, which will feature two boxed lunches and a catered dinner on Friday, will be available for […]