Presentation Day

As some of you know, Michael and I are gearing up to give a presentation at the American Family Therapy Academy’s National Conference at the end of this month.

For those of you who haven’t heard, we are kinda a big deal…. haha

All jokes aside, Michael and I are so excited to share about our practice and enthusiastically highlight that a family therapy practice can operate on client strengths and resilience. Our presentation is the culmination of the work we have put into our private practice, our values driven emphasis, a new body of research we are developing and our unique co-therapy. We will present on how these factors have come together to serve the community of Central Oregon and get colleagues excited about new research we are developing based solely on systems theory and social justice.

Too much jargon? Probably.

Most importantly, I wanted to take a moment and share our hopes and dreams. Michael and I imagine a world where clients come to therapy and find their strength. A world in which innate resilience, grit, commitment, and adaptation are valued over labeling people with mental illnesses. Most of all we are committed to showing our clients and the world that there are other options besides the medical model to mental health. Systemic therapists (or marriage and family therapists) offer unique skills and insights that no other mental health discipline offers. Our perspective often links the medical model in a powerful way giving clients a holistic approach to their health.

Michael and I also love to share when we are pushing ourselves as therapists. I am very nervous about presenting to people I strangely find myself referring to as colleagues when actually many of them are the authors of the books I studied in grad school. But it is important for future, current, and past clients to know we walk our talk. We are keenly aware we spend our careers asking client’s to push themselves out of their comfort zones and let go of familiar patterns and we ask the same of ourselves. We are passionate about what we offer here at Cascadia Family Therapy and we cannot wait to share it with our colleagues!