We are not asked. to believe in a perfect world. We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.

Hello Chapter Members!

Below is a collaborative article written by Kathleen Barry, Linda Buzzell, Anny Eastwood, Sue Ford, Margaret George-Cramer, Genie Hoyne, Angelica Joachim, Elizabeth La Caze, Perie Longo, and Madelyn Swed, about the work we have been doing together for the past year on “Creating Pathways to Community”.

The first gathering of the Creating Community Pathways initiative was held on January 10, 2009 and we had a great turnout.

Thanks so much to all who joined us!

From Kathleen Barry:

Inspired by Mary Watkins talk at the October 17, 2007 SB CAMFT luncheon, Linda Buzzell and I were approached by several luncheon attendees about forming a group made up of SBCAMFT members interested in dialoguing about ways of furthering the scope of psychotherapy out towards community. In her presentation, Mary discussed the possibility that much of our psychological suffering goes beyond individual pathology and is more closely linked to the cultures and communities in which we reside. Working from a theme of “creating night vision”, Mary cited the work of psychoanalyst Neil Altman, who described the ability of psychoanalysis to critique society and probe the intrapsychic implications of culture. During her talk, Mary described the ways that we could imagine reorienting our practicing, teaching, training, and theorizing to strengthen this night vision which would include the confrontation of what has been normalized and taken for granted in our cultures.

My interest in expanding the scope of psychotherapy out towards the needs of community has been deeply inspired by my doctoral studies at Pacifica that merge the strengths of depth psychology with those of liberation psychology. The pioneering efforts of Freud and Jung at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century provide a valuable historical structure for depth psychology’s methodologies. From Freud’s work with free association and dream analysis, to Jung’s work with active imagination and dream interpretation, the field of depth psychology is rich with approaches to access the individual unconscious. However, many contemporary depth psychologists including Andrew Samuels (1993), Phillip Cushman (1995), and Lawrence Alschuler (2006), stress the criticality of depth psychology/psychotherapy seeing itself as an evolving tradition requiring continual renewal rather than a legacy that stays loyal to historical understandings.

With an over-emphasis on tending to the suffering of the individual psyche, a paralyzing disconnect has developed in our highly individualistic cultures which renders individuals unaware of community suffering. The creation of awareness and the design of social applications that can lead towards tending to the healing of community suffering is at the heart of linking depth psychological theories with those of liberation psychology. Ultimately the desire of this collaboration is to identify, understand and give voice to that which has been silenced or has not yet developed in both the intrapsychic life of the individual and the interpsychic lives of individuals. With the economic and ecological challenges we are facing individually and collectively, I believe we have come the "THE" critical time when reaching out to community is being demanded of the psychotherapeutic community. This is the time, an unfortunate perfect storm, to expand our efforts towards the needs of healing community.

From Linda Buzzell:

My current interest in how to create community pathways has been influenced by a new book from permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins called The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Based on his experience working with nearly 100 towns in the UK and abroad, Hopkins outlines a practical, step-by-step protocol for helping towns, neighborhoods or regions become more resilient in the face of the multiple challenges we now seem to be facing all at once: economic, environmental and social.

Because I am an ecotherapist as well as a psychotherapist, I am committed to expanding my understanding of the many contexts that affect each individual, family and community. I have come to believe that we as therapists can no longer diagnose or treat "individual pathology" or even "family pathology" as if it were somehow disconnected from the health of nature or culture. Allowing our minds to explore these larger contexts can shift our foundational paradigms and radically expand our scope of practice. This can be a daunting and emotional process, so it's lovely to be part of a supportive local group of therapists with whom we can share the adventure!

From Margaret George-Cramer:

Since the Tea Fire I have felt a sense of community grief and community pain, as well as an urge to sing and to cry out to the land. As an anthropologist I take a cultural/ecological approach to community and to community pathways – a self-in-society model – in which culture and ecology are fore-grounded. I am interested in the uniqueness and diversity of differences and how through respecting our differences we can work together in complementary ways to find common ground in the context of our challenging times. I am delighted to have found a diverse group of psychotherapists in Santa Barbara who seek to connect to the community at large and to offer their services and collective wisdom. For myself, I seek to practice maitri, or unconditional friendliness, and this too is my approach to community. I take an emic and dialogical approach by connecting to the voices, thoughts and feelings of community members and listening to the needs of others in these challenging times. I believe that a respect for difference must be contextualized in the specifics of socio-cultural environments, and to the ecology of Mother Earth. I envision community forums such as town hall meetings and creative workshops that will initiate conversations about our challenges, both present and future, and that will lead to community reinventions and empowerment. When things fall apart we must learn to stay on the edge to feel and to talk about the pain, and to live with the challenges together. The group Creating Community Pathways is itself a community of psychotherapists opening up pathways to the greater community to navigate through the challenges of our times.

From Perie Longo:

What interested me in the idea of Community Pathways is how people change and grow stronger in community through dialogue, sharing each other’s joys, frustrations, anxieties, sorrows, sufferings, concerns, and differences. I have worked in communities of classrooms teaching speech and communication in a setting of students from around the world, and later guiding children and adults of all ages toward finding voice through reading and writing poetry in a variety of different groups including Hospice and psychiatric centers. When I traveled to Kuwait to speak at the university about poetry for healing and faced a large audience of people in a very different culture than ours, and asked them to talk to someone they did not know about the “guest knocking at their door they were afraid to invite in”, based on a Rumi poem, they could not stop talking, and later writing and sharing and wanting more time. I learned their concerns were the same as ours. They wanted to know how to manage their daily lives better and how to come to peace for survival of all, not just themselves. To me this was psychotherapy in action in the world. Being together in community is about each of us AND everyone else, experiencing the greater sum of our parts to energize our lives through compassion and then transform what we learn to make the changes we need. I would be willing to help plan ways and means to reach out to our community as we each struggle with loss of power in the current financial crisis and devastation of the latest fire, among others, and help to create hope in our lives.

From Anny Eastwood:

I was drawn to this group when I heard that its members embraced the precepts of eco-psychology. I resonated with their view that emotional experiencing is shaped by context: political, social, cultural and one of major importance to me---our relationship to nature. Also, I was yearning to feel a more intimate sense of community within my professional world.

I believe shame, with its message of unworthiness, is at the root of human suffering. I liken it to an insidious poison that drives our destructive behaviors. Caught in shame's traumatizing grip we lose our capacity to hold complexity; we move into defensive postures (us and them), shut down and isolate. It becomes threatening to be inclusive, join in community and be creative. Psychotherapy is a powerful antidote. Through the therapeutic relationship we learn how to relate in ways that foster authenticity, include difference, complexity and conflicting needs. In short, we take (back) our place as loving human beings. As a profession I could see us expanding our contribution by holding forums and creating emotionally safe events where authentic dialogue within communities can be experienced.

My emerging role in tending to the needs community involves assisting individuals and groups in finding their authentic voice not only through respectful dialogue but also through singing and vocal exploration. Our natural singing voices give us a way to release pain, soothe ourselves, play and intimately connect with others. Singing together is powerful medicine. It is uplifting, transmutes negative energy, affirms our connectedness and brings us back into harmony with ourselves and each other. Amen!

From Angelica Jochim:

I think of community in an inclusive and far-reaching way. It contains not only the human, but the greater-than-human domain. Our neighbors and friends are the watershed and its denizens, the sky and its inhabitants, the land and its natives--all of whom we take for granted every day. Without these neighbors, there could be no community. The passage to our kinship must also lead to this realm, and to a richer appreciation of all living beings as interconnected and interdependent. When we feel this to be true then, how does it affect the course of our life? How do we behave every day? What actions do we take? For those of us involved in issues of community suffering, this insight has immediate implications. It becomes clear that social justice and environmental justice are intimately entwined, and that both must be won for either to be sustained. How we do this is a big question. The examination of oppression and exploitation requires a journey inward as well as out. Ultimately, there is no distinction. The goal of community healing asks us to consciously face the ignorance, confusion and fear that lie within us. Such feelings, when unacknowledged, contribute to acts of aggression towards all those that seem powerless, whether it be women, minorities, the rainforest, or our selves. Inevitably, the pathway to community is also the pathway to our own depths.

From Eugenia Hoyne:

I was drawn to Community Pathways because the women involved espoused a philosophy I share. We are one human family, our brother and sister’s keepers, wherever they may be. With respect for every human person we can promote a moral vision for our society. Human dignity is respected and the common good fostered only if human rights are respected and basic responsibilities are met. Anyone experiencing the psychotherapeutic process, from either side of the desk, is aware of the deep longing for a sense of purpose and inner peace. In the office, through unconditional positive regard and attentive listening, patients can be empowered to live their gifts. I believe these same tenets can be brought to the larger community, empowering groups of people to grow and develop. So many pathologies are the result of social injustice.

As an intern, I worked with young men suffering from addiction to drugs and/or alcohol. For most, it was the first time anyone took the time to listen to their story. So many of these men, if their learning disabilities had been recognized early on, if someone in their lives had valued education, if there were jobs in their communities, if they had not been discriminated against because of race or color would have been productive members of society rather than broken, wounded and incarcerated.

I believe our calling is to be people of hope despite all evidence to the contrary. We can achieve peace, both individual and communal, when we raise the consciousness of those in power and empower the disenfranchised by recognizing the dignity of every human person. And, I believe, a large part of the solution lies in empowering women. Who is better qualified to do this than other women who themselves have been marginalized.

From Madelyn Swed:

A belief in evolutionary change inspires and motivates my desire to contribute to that which will serve and honor the nurturing and sustaining of life. As therapists we understand that strong, loving, supportive relationships and communities are the building blocks for healthy individuals capable of self-reflection, emotion regulation, tolerance, social engagement, and creativity. These capacities are what is now required for the survival of humanity and life on the planet.

We are being required to take a quantum leap as a species to understand and regulate the fear and survival circuitry of our brains that has gotten us thus far but now threatens to destroy us. We cannot continue trying to create security from a threatened and isolated ego state through repression, marginalization, or destruction of that which is different and perceived as a threat to our well-being and survival. It is clear we are faced with unprecedented challenges as we compete for dwindling resources in an overpopulated world with destructive weapons and clashing cultures and values. Now is the time for we psychotherapists, psychologists, and mental health workers who comprehend this to lead our communities in understanding what is at stake and to assist in creating forms, which include but are not limited to the consultation room, that can support us in making this leap together.

From Sue Ford:

When I heard about "Gathering the Therapists, a Path to Community Action", I was very excited to be a member of this group because it is something I had been hoping to be a part of for some time: A place for therapists to engage in discussions that matter to all of us in relation to concerns for our community. We are all a part of our community and while grounded in ourselves, find our expression within the community we are a part of.

Since our beginnings, we have begun to know each other little by little which is where we are now. For example, I know Linda's passion for sustainable gardening, Larry’s famous bread (Linda's husband's bread made from their garden), Kathleen's for women's voices, Perie's for poetry, Sandra’s for dreams and mythology, and many more.

I hope others have known my concern for the homeless and for the fieldworkers. In September I was able to attend a city council subcommittee on the homeless. As the discussion centered about whether areas for panhandling should be limited within the city and whether the homeless were creating problems with panhandling, a homeless man spoke up "Is anyone here for democracy?". There was such an aliveness! It made me so happy to see people from all walks of life, businessmen, police, city lawyers, and homeless people all speaking their minds in the same venue.

Last year I was able to visit the Beatitude House in Guadalupe and to listen to a fieldworker describe his situation. It became clear he had cancer from working in the fields where pesticides are used for the crops. This is known in our community. This was all it took for me to change my grocery shopping to all organic produce and to place a proposal at a local hospital to begin growing and serving only organic produce. The Beatitude House stands for the needs of this community of fieldworkers, providing a free medical clinic and much support. As the winter comes along they will be in need of warm gloves, knit caps, toddler clothing, and food items such as rice and beans. Perhaps we can help them.

At our last community pathways group, we all discussed the possibility of an ongoing gathering in the community facilitated by therapists to offer an open forum for people to not only speak their concerns, but to express their thoughts, share their ideas, their joys, their achievements; really a venue for self expression for our community, a town hall type of ongoing gathering, for listening and for speaking. We were excited by the possibility and thought to bring these ideas to our larger CAMFT group. The possibility of therapists impacting our community, the community which gives voice to self expression is enormous. It seems this time has come.

From Elizabeth LaCaze:

Our Pathways to Community group offers exciting possibilities in these times of extremes and distortion. The influence of our surrounding environment has undeniable impact on our ability to maintain balance and wholeness. Pathways to Community offers an opportunity to explore, deepen and more clearly define myself as a therapist in relation to broader social issues.

As therapists are we not first fellow human beings living in the muck of societal confusion -- a confusion which has now reached extremes of global imbalance in environmental and economic crises? Especially in this recent period, attitudes of our current American society are more available to be named: ‘a culture of greed’, fear-based policies, lawsuit driven ethics, medical business models, youth-oriented values without a respected place for elders.

In our present societal climate of values that pulls me away from authenticity, simplicity, embracing of aging, a respect for and alignment with the natural world, a valuing of transparency and exposure of one’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities…how do I hold onto a self-knowing rooted in integrity and authenticity and then in turn serve others from this place? How do I resist the pull of the distorted societal undertow in the process of throwing others a lifeline? Who is there to name the distortions with me and support me in remembering a more promising possibility?

It seems important that we as therapists support one another in naming the collective distortions and claiming a deeper truth. From a base of clarity we are then able to truly serve others.