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• 2019 Legislation & Advocacy Luncheon: THIS IS THE YEAR FOR L&A: OUR SOCIETY’S ROLE IN LEGISLATION AND ADVOCACY

  • When
    Sunday, October 27, 2019
  •  
    11:30 AM - 3:00 PM
  • Location
    Maggiano’s Tyson’s Galleria 2001 International Drive | McLean, Virginia 22102
  • Spaces left
    16

  

  One of your important member benefits!

  Join Us at the ANNUAL FREE AND FABULOUS

  2019 Legislation & Advocacy Luncheon

  FREE PROGRAM AND LUNCH-REGISTRATION REQUIRED! 

  ALL MEMBERS INVITED AND ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND! 

  Three (3) CEUs | Category 2 are available for $60.
  

   THIS IS THE YEAR FOR L&A:

  OUR SOCIETY’S ROLE IN LEGISLATION & ADVOCACY

  Sunday, October 27, 2019, 11:30 am-3:00 pm

  Maggiano’s Tyson’s Galleria
  2001 International Drive | McLean, Virginia 22102

  The news can be overwhelming: mass shootings, family separations at the Mexican border, DHHS rollback of protections against discrimination, and the list goes on.  Then there are the insurance companies reluctant to cover psychotherapy treatments of any depth, the Medicare audits, and the need to keep up with state legislation and the Board of Social Work regulation changes.  Our mission is to protect our clinical practice and to work to ensure Americans’ access to affordable quality mental health care.  And beyond?  Watching the news, our social work values remind us to ask:  What can we do as individuals to strengthen our voice? What can we do together?

  Join us for a stimulating discussion with our Virginia lobbyist Sue Rowland, our Maryland lobbyist, Pam Metz Kasemeyer, and our DC co-chair of L&A, Margot Aronson. Margot will also inform us about the national role of CSWA as their Deputy Director of Policy and Practice. Adding to the perspectives will be Judy Gallant, Judy Ratliff, Adele Natter – and YOU!

  Please note:  The luncheon is a free member benefit, but advanced registration is required. Chicken piccata, eggplant parmesan and a vegetarian lasagne will be offered for our main course. If a vegan main dish is requested please note this on your registration and the restaurant will accommodate this. 

  Our Society needs YOU to help us advocate and impact legislators in many different ways, or our messages simply will not get out. 

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• Steps or Stepping Stones? CHOICES in Substance Misuse & Addiction Recovery

  • When
    Thursday, October 31, 2019
  •  
    3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
  • Location
    Forest Hills in DC | 4901 Connecticut Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20008
  • Spaces left
    5

  Register

  PRESENTER:  Eryca Kasse, LICSW

  Category 1 | 1.5 CEUs per session

  DESCRIPTION: 

  Appropriate for all clinical levels. Target audience: clinicians working with clients living with co-occurring substance use disorders and histories of trauma.  Analyze language of the 12 steps through a trauma-informed lens.  Provide clients with alternative language options to promote healing empowerment & prevent re-traumatization.

  Learning Objectives:

  Participants will be able to:

  1. Understand secular, harm reduction and moderation approaches to substance use.
  2. Identify 10 peer support alternatives to AA/NA to refer clients.

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• How to Use Intuition in Clinical Practice (SESSION 2)

  • When
    Friday, November 01, 2019
  •  
    9:00 AM - 12:15 PM
  • Location
    5319 Lee Highway Arlington, VA 22207
  • Spaces left
    0

  Join waitlist

  PRESENTER: Marilyn Stickle, LCSW

  www.MarilynStickle.com
  

  Category 1 | 3 CEUs 

  SESSION 2: November 1

  1. Differentiating intuition from intellectual process
  2. Learning to distinguish intuition from linear thinking
  3. Identification of the arrival of intuitive information
  4. Learning to discern the meaning of intuitive impressions
  5. Timing and use of intuition: clinical application
  6. The patient’s worldview
  7. The therapist’s language
  8. Clinical considerations
  9. Intuition as a process that comes holistically through direct experience

  Learning Objectives:

  Participants will be able to:

  1. Define intuition distinguishing it from intellectual process.
  2. Identify, from their own perspective, the source of their intuitive knowing.
  3. Explain how an intuitive insight arrived in their clinical work.
  4. Describe the timing and use of an intuitive insight in the clinical process.

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• Alice Kassabian Memorial Conference | On Being A White Therapist: Countertransference, Color and Culture in a Diverse Psychodynamic Practice

  • When
    Saturday, November 09, 2019
  •  
    9:00 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Location
    Cosmos Club 2121 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC

  Register

  REGISTER NOW:  EIGHTH ANNUAL ALICE KASSABIAN MEMORIAL CONFERENCE

  Presenter:  Barbara Berger, PhD
  Discussant: Kerry Leddy Malawista, MSW, PhD

  Our GWSCSW's 8th Annual Alice Kassabian Memorial Conference focuses on a challenging and timely topic that currently animates the external and internal world of our clinical social work practice and we can benefit from having an informed and mindful conversation about it.
  

  Our presenter, Barbara Berger, PhD, BCD, a clinician, educator and author, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the conference discussions. She has a full time clinical social work practice in Chicago and is Faculty Emerita and member of the Board of Trustees at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago. She has served as editor of The Clinical Social Work Journal and The Psychoanalytic Social Work Journal.  Barbara is also former president of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work and chair of the Social Work Academy in the National Academies of Practice, elected as Distinguished Practitioner in 2002. Among her many honors, she received the Award for Distinguished Service from The Institute for Clinical Social Work in 2012 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work in 2013. Most importantly, Barbara Berger is cherished for her capacity to teach with clarity, respect, and intelligence in her down to earth engaging style.

  Our own Kerry Leddy Malawista, MSW, PhD, will be the conference discussant. She is a clinical social worker psychoanalyst and maintains a full time private practice in Potomac, Maryland and McLean, Virginia. She is on the faculties of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, the Contemporary Freudian Society, George Washington University’s PsyD program, Smith College and VCU Schools of Social Work, and the Washington School of Psychiatry. Kerry is also a well known prolific writer on clinical issues.  

  EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

  1. Participants will learn a language and set of sociological concepts through which we can discuss and understand conscious and unconscious racial and cultural bias.
  2. Participants will learn the application of psychodynamic theoretical ideas in working through ruptures due to racial or cultural rifts.
  3. Participants will learn the complexity of interracial and cross cultural therapeutic relationships as cases are presented to illustrate the intersections of socio-cultural and psychological issues.

  Cosmos Club Dress Code: Business Professional

  

  GWSCSW honors the memory of Dr. Alice Kassabian, a former president of our Society, clinician, advocate for social justice and excellence in clinical practice. Dr. Kassabian was an active member of the Diversity and Social Action Committee of American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW) which promotes excellence in clinical practice by providing opportunities for expanded conversations regarding the centrality of focused attention to culture and issues of diversity.

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• Using Present Moment Interventions to Address Anxiety

  • When
    Friday, November 15, 2019
  •  
    12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
  • Location
    Sunrise at Chevy Chase | 2201 Colston Dr, Silver Spring, MD 20910

  Register

  Category 1 | CEUs: 2

  Presenter: Rachel Phillips-Anderson, LCSW-C (https://www.rpatherapy.com)
  

  Description: 

  Clients often enter therapy preoccupied with threats – real and perceived. Trying to control their anxiety can eat up much of their attention, with little left over for what is really important in their lives. Present-moment awareness techniques can help clients regain control over their attention so that anxiety doesn’t have to get in the way of valued activities.

  Objectives

  By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

  1. Understand anxiety from a present-moment awareness perspective.
  2. Help clients recognize the negative impact of anxiety, learn control strategies and increase their acceptance of anxiety.
  3. Identify 5 psychological tasks involved in present-moment awareness.
  4. Describe how mindfulness can help clients regain focus on valued activity.

  Agenda

  12:00 – Introductions and assessment of audience experience & objectives

  12:15 – Theory of anxiety from a present-moment awareness perspective

  12:30 – Presentation of a five-phase present-moment clinical approach:

              1) Notice, 2) Name, 3) Detach, 4) Practice self-compassion, and 5) expand

  1:15 -- Experiential exercise

  1:35 – Conclusion and summary of how clinicians could incorporate these ideas/skills in

  their practices

  1:50 – Q and A

  Bibliography

  Eifert GH, Forsyth JP (2005). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders. Oakland, CA, New Harbinger Publications.

  Fleming, JE, Kocovski, NL (2009). Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Group Treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Treatment Manual, available at: http://www.actonsocialanxiety.com/pdf/Treatment_Manual.pdf

  Hayes, S.C., Strosahl, K.D., & Wilson, K.G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

  Roemer, L., & Orsillo, S.M. (2005). An acceptance-based behavior therapy for generalized anxiety disorder. In S.M. Orsillo & L. Roemer (Eds.) Acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches to anxiety: Conceptualization and treatment (pp. 213-240). New York, NY: Springer.

  Strosahl, K., Robinson, P. J., & Gustavsson, T. (2015). Inside this moment: A clinician's guide to promoting radical change using acceptance and commitment therapy. Oakland, CA: Context Press.

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• Diversity Book Meetup: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

  • When
    Saturday, December 07, 2019
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    2312 Mount Vernon Ave Suite 201 Alexandria VA 22301
  • Spaces left
    3

  Register

  Date Change for Diversity Book Club Meeting: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
  

  This event was mistakenly scheduled on the date of the Kassabian Conference.  The new date for this meetup is December 7, 2019 | 2:00-4:00. 

  Discussant: Tamara Pincus

  On behalf of the GWSCSW Diversity Committee meet-ups, you are invited to a discussion of White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. We will explore issues around whiteness including why it is so hard for white people to own their experiences of racial privilege, how we can help white people become more open to accountability around things they may have said or done that are racist, and how we can identify white racial solidarity when it is enacted around us. We know that this discussion will not be comfortable but we will support each other through the difficult feelings that do come up.  Ideally, you’ll have read the book but if you didn’t get all the way through it’s OK. Come anyway.

  No cost to attend and snacks will be provided.

  Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414/ref=asc_df_0807047414/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312446862670&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=
  g&hvrand=15223394541005544723&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=
  &hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008238&hvtargid=pla-524798377889&psc=1

  Discussion Questions:

  1. What are some of the earliest racial messages you can recall?
  2. How have you seen white racial solidarity enacted around you or within you?
  3. What can you do to further your ability to talk about race and own the ways in which you have internalized society's racism? How can you learn to be less defensive and more accountable around these issues?

  Category: 2 | CEUs: 2.0
  

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• Board Meeting (January 2020)

  • When
    Saturday, January 11, 2020
  •  
    10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    River Road Unitarian 6301 River Road Bethesda

  Full board meeting

  
  

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• Diversity Book Meet-up: The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker

  • When
    Saturday, January 18, 2020
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    9250 Limestone Place College Park, MD 20740
  • Spaces left
    11

  Register

  Host/Discussant: Nancy Harris

  Category: 2 | CEUs: 2.0
  

  On behalf of the Diversity Committee meet-ups you are invited to attend a discussion of The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker, book II of the Regeneration Triology. This book can be read alone and I can fill people in on any details that were covered in the first and third books of the trilogy. We will be exploring issues of gender, class and sexual identity in the context of this great anti-war novel, but generalized to our present time, as all of these issues are still with us. In addition to these issues so germane to our thoughts on diversity with ourselves and our clients, the book looks at the impact of childhood abuse, trauma recovery, and dissossiative states in an early example of psychotherapy, I encourage you to read the book (or the whole trilogy which isn’t long), but you are certainly welcome to join us if you haven’t read it.

  No cost to attend and snacks will be provided.

  Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Door-Pat-Barker/dp/0142180610

  Discussion Questions:

  1. It is clear in terms of events in the book how Billy’s symptoms are related to his war experiences. But how do we understand his symptoms in terms of class and sexual identity issues, as portrayed in the book?
  2. Billy at times struggles with his relationship to his therapist Dr. Rivers. How is their conflict related to class differences?
  3. Billy must hide aspects of his sexuality, both from his therapist, general society, and his fiancée Sarah. How does this affect him? How does this affect his recovery from PTSD?

  There are undoubtedly other questions that will arise as we talk. We might also think about how class differences are played out in our military.

  Finally we can think about our own and our client’s acceptance of our own and others’ sexual identity as well as class differences.

  Contact: Nancy Harris | (301) 385-3375

  Note: Nancy has a cat!

  
  

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• Board Meeting (April 2020)

  • When
    Saturday, April 04, 2020
  •  
    10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    River Road Unitarian 6301 River Road Bethesda

  Full board meeting

  
  

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