Presented by Dr. Liz Abrams, Faculty St. Mary's College
"What White Therapists Need to Know and Are Afraid to Ask"
- When: Friday, May 12, 2017
- Time: 8:30 am to 12:30 pm
- Where: Oddfellows Hall, 545 Pacific Ave., Santa Rosa
- $60, 3 CEUs ($65 for non-members of RECAMFT)
- Space limited to 25 participants
- 3 potential work exchanges available
Presenter: Dr. Liz Abrams is a faculty member of the Counseling Department at Saint Mary’s College. She has a PhD in Counseling Psychology.
Course Description: Power and privilege exist in all relationships, and they are especially potent in therapeutic relationships. White privilege and unconscious bias consistently emerge for White therapists in our work whether we acknowledge it or not. If left unexamined, we can reproduce the same harmful dynamics of privilege and oppression in the supposedly “safe” therapeutic relationship that our clients and colleagues experience in their everyday lives. Thus, to reduce the potential for harm, it is crucial for White therapists to do “our own work” in unlearning privilege and unintentional racism.
In this experiential workshop we will engage in a relational and holistic process of learning that engages cognitive, affective, reflective, and other processes that aim towards gaining a deeper and more complex understanding power, privilege, and oppression in therapeutic contexts. Participants will be invited to mindfully participate in a series of experiential activities and small- and large-group discussions to explore these topics and our relationships to them. A multicultural and social justice model of counseling recognizes the importance of putting awareness and knowledge into action, in our own personal, social, and counseling relationships, as well as the importance of social activism and advocacy on the part of the counselor. Thus, throughout the workshop, participants will have opportunities to develop racially conscious counseling skills.
About the Presenter: Dr. Liz Abrams is an Assistant Professor in the MFT/PCC program of the Counseling Department at Saint Mary’s College of California. She has a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Utah and completed her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral residency at UC-Davis Student Health & Counseling Services, an integrated health setting.
She specializes in liberation and social justice counseling models. Other areas of clinical interest and training include trauma therapy, interpersonal process, anti-racism identity development, unlearning White privilege, LGBTQ identity and issues, clinical hypnosis, mindfulness-based counseling approaches, body size/shape, self-empowerment and agency, decolonizing approaches to counseling, and compassion (towards self and others).
Dr. Abrams has experience working in various settings such as VA medical centers, university counseling centers, and in community mental health. Dr. Abrams’ scholarship combines interests in three core areas: (a) power dynamics and processes in research methods; (b) impact of oppression and privilege on individuals and communities; and (c) interventions that assess and address the needs of marginalized communities as well as provide cultural immersion experiences for graduate counseling trainees.
Learning Objectives:
1. Understand counselors’ roles in developing cultural self-awareness as well as counselors’ roles in eliminating biases, prejudices, and processes of intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination.
2. Understand how living in a multicultural society affects clients who are seeking counseling services and how the effects of racism, discrimination, power, privilege, and oppression impact one’s own life and career as well as those of the client.
3. Demonstrate evolving multicultural and social justice counseling competencies through a self-reflective process.
Register at recamft.org: $60.00 ($65 for non-members) including three (3) CEUs - Coffee, tea, and snacks will be provided.
Disability Accommodation: To request an accommodation for a disability, please email therapy@recamft.org.
CEU Certificate: You must stay for the entire meeting, sign in and out and complete an evaluation to receive your CEU credit certificate. At the conclusion of this event, an email with a link to the evaluation form will be sent to all attendees who signed in AND out of the event. Once you complete and submit your evaluation, you will have immediate access and be able to print out your CEU Certificate. Course meets the qualifications for 3 hrs of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. RECAMFT CEU Provider IMIS 57173.
Grievances: direct grievances to therapy@recamft.org, and/or the chapter president at recamftpresident@gmail.com.
