The Feminist Art Counseling & Training Institute (FEMACTI) provides seminars, workshops, and trainings as well as learning and experiences to facilitate self-awareness and develop leadership skills. Trainers employ lecture, discussion, film, and experiential avenues. As social workers, staff provides therapy services. Insurances are accepted.
Feminist thinking drives trainings offered for clinicians and agencies who want to better understand how to work with families in trouble, intimate violence issues, trauma recovery, addiction, and issues faced by incarcerated individuals. Spiritual practices are integrated into all training experiences.
Understanding women’s development is central within the institute, which means, of course, the inclusion of men’s and boys’ developmental dilemmas.
Trainings for Mental Health Providers
Teaching at a university has given me a natural milieu for creating curricula in psychology. My course topics have included the DSM4, interpreting diagnosis, behavioral and psychological theory, alcohol and drug addiction, co-occurring disorders, trauma, and recovery. Teaching these subjects at a university level has deepened my perspective as a mental health trainer.
Every instructor has her favorite psychological orientation, from unconditional positive regard (C. Rogers) to gestalt therapy (F. Perls) to rational-emotive therapy (A. Ellis). These theorists and practitioners provide the basis for good work, while Freud, Jung, Maslow, and others have tremendously influenced our work. H. Kohut (Self Psychology) enhanced my understanding of the human condition. Today, neuropsychology helps us understand how the brain influences all that we do and how trauma registers in the brain in powerful, impactful ways.
Connection theory drives my work as I incorporate the above perspectives in training other professionals. Relational-cultural therapy uses connection as a primary path to healing sadness and pain. It acknowledges the differences in ways that culture often determines the ways in which people cope with and overcome barriers to internal growth. Connection as the way to recovery addresses individual, family, group, and community disconnection. The tenets of the therapy process involve authenticity, interconnection between therapist and client, advocacy, and addressing social change (How Connections Heal, Walker & Rosen, eds.).
In my work as a trainer, my most prized experience is when participants understand the vitality of connection with the commitment to help others engage in meaningful ways in their relationships and in community life. Trainings involve lecture, demonstration, and media presentations.