PSYD International Alumni Conference Fall 2023

Notes from the Field: A Dialogue on Contemporary Practice of Depth-Oriented Psychology

The California Institute of Integral Studies doctoral program in Clinical Psychology is pleased to announce a conference for our alumni in fall 2023. Registration is now open to all interested people through Brown Paper Tickets:

In-Person Tickets

Virtual Tickets

CPD hours are available for the California BOP. Please consult with any other licensing agency about their requirements for professional development hours.

Conference Overview

Depth-oriented psychology is under continual pressure to move toward a behavioral medicine approach, emphasizing short-term treatment that is narrowly focused on symptom reduction. At the same time, depth-oriented approaches are experiencing a renaissance, with new journals and podcasts broadening the scope of what is seen as psychoanalytic. New ways of working that promote creativity and expansiveness and undermine marginalization are being introduced into the field, opening potential spaces for reflection and greater inclusion.

This conference brings together California Institute of Integral Studies’ faculty and alumni as well as psychologists in the field to speak about this paradox and share how they are providing depth-oriented treatment in this current climate. We will hear from psychologists working in private practice, in community mental health, and in training programs and how they see depth-oriented psychology as crucial to how they think.

We will explore how a psychoanalytic perspective can help unlock and unwind neo-liberal colonial attitudes and challenge the status quo. We will take up the burgeoning field of psychedelic-assisted therapy and how a depth-oriented stance is necessary within this arena of psychology. Join us in engaging in dialogue and building community as we come together to reconnect, learn, and engage with our values.

Conference co-organized by Dr. Margaret Boucher, PsyD, Core faculty in Clinical Psychology (PsyD) & Dr. David Cushman, PsyD, Core faculty in Clinical Psychology (PsyD).

Agenda

9:00am-10:00am

• Coffee & Socializing
• Welcome

10:00am-10:30am

Opening Plenary: Practicing Depth Psychology in the Current Cultural Environment

• Dr. Willow Pearson Trimbach: Being with the Impossible
• Dr. Stephanie Chen: “How Many jobs you got?”

10:30-11:00

• Fika*

11:00am-12:15pm

Cracking Up: Confronting the Central Organizing Powers

• Dr. Mahima Muralidharan
• Dr. Diane Swirsky
• Dr. Greg Clinton
• Dr. Lani Chow

12:15-1:30pm

• Lunch and Poster Sessions

1:30-2:15pm

Panel discussion: What to do with a PsyD

• Dr. Nancy Mullen
• Dr. Leah Oliver
• Dr. Ariadne Papacostas

2:15-2:45pm

• Fika*

2:45-4:00pm

Analytic Lens on Psychedelic Therapy: Notes from the Field

• Dr. Evan Sola (Q&A to follow presentation)

4:00pm

• Closing

*Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. We offer these Fika times in order to build community and create spaces for connection in-between presentations.

Presenters

Margaret Boucher, PsyD - Dr. Margaret Boucher is a core faculty member in the California Institute of Integral Studies’ PsyD program and is a licensed clinical psychologist in CA, where she teaches, supervises, and provides psychotherapy to children and adults. Over the course of her career, she has worked in community mental health, private practice, and academic settings. Margaret works within a depth-oriented perspective that acknowledges the power of the unconscious as well as the transpersonal, is deeply humanistic, and recognizes the multiplicity of one’s intersecting identities and accompanying positionalities. Relationships are held sacred, and she is continually awed by what is possible within the co-created, intersubjective space of the classroom and the therapy room. Margaret is passionate about thinking about schools and school-based mental health and how children/families, teachers, and school systems impact one another and are impacted by culture, socioeconomics, histories of discrimination and oppression, trauma, and the sociopolitical backdrop. In addition to her professional pursuits, Margaret is deeply engaged with her family and community and celebrates the ways in which these relationships inform and enrich her teaching, scholarship, and psychotherapeutic work.

David Cushman, PsyD - Dr. David Cushman is a licensed clinical psychologist. He is a core faculty member of the Clinical Psychology (PsyD) Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He came into the field of psychology with an interest in thinking about both individuals and systems, and locating the individual within larger socio-cultural-political structures that produce marginalization, trauma, and widespread disenfranchisement. He has written and published on community mental health from a psychoanalytic perspective and on whiteness in the clinical encounter. His involvement in psychoanalytic organizations has centered on integrating psychoanalytic thinking with community mental health. Dr. Cushman trained and worked for several years at RAMS Inc., a community mental health clinic in San Francisco, where he was a clinician, supervisor, and program manager. He has a private practice in Oakland, where he sees children, teens, adults, and couples.

Stephanie Chen, Ph.D. - Dr. Stephanie Chen is a 1.5 generation Chinese American, immigrant and cisgender-female licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor who practices, teaches, presents, and writes from a depth-oriented, multicultural, and liberatory lens. Stephanie has many years of clinical experience in providing direct clinical services to children, youth, adults and families in community mental health, hospital, school-based and private practice settings. In addition, she has provided individual and group supervision to trainees and staff from different stages of their professional development. Stephanie has particular passion and interests which include topics such as immigration and acculturation, cultural identity development, life transitions & phases, and issues related to inter-and transgenerational, familial, and cultural roots of trauma, healing, and growth. Her theoretical orientations and interventions weave psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories with a decolonial, and relational approach. Lastly, she recently completed a certification in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with CIIS to expand definitions and pathways to healing for BIPOC communities.

Lani Chow, Ph.D. - Dr. Lani Chow has been the Chair of the PsyD department (2017-2020) and the Director of Clinical Training for the Psychology Doctoral Program 2014-2018. She was the Director of the Psychological Services Center from 2008-2020. Her research interests include clinical training and supervision, the intersection of Psychoanalysis and Community Mental Health, psychodynamic theory and practice; relational theory and intersubjectivity, gender and sexuality, abolitionist feminist theory, cultural and community practices, and trauma and recovery. She maintains a clinical practice in addition to supervising/consulting at a number of community mental health agencies in the Bay Area.

Greg Clinton, Ph.D. - Having worked in private practice for 35 years, Dr. Greg Clinton specializes in working with internet porn and sexual addiction. Addressing issues around race and inclusion are also important aspects of his clinical practice. He has written on child sexual abuse and is PastPresident of the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. His office is in San Francisco.

Nancy Mullin, PsyD - Dr. Nancy Mullin received her PsyD training at CIIS where she specialized in substance use and the intersection of psychodynamic psychotherapy and community mental health. She has provided depth-oriented therapy to youth and adults in a variety of settings for over a decade in addition to facilitating individual and group process around clinical work. Dr. Mullin has worked in a range of contexts within the field of substance use but has an abiding love of harm reduction as a philosophy that guides the work with people who use drugs. She focuses her community work on providing therapy in the context of street-based outreach, drop-in spaces, and syringe exchange services. Dr. Mullin works from a relational perspective, seeking to meet people where they are, offering spaces of connection, respect, and safety. This includes a commitment to working from a stance of cultural humility as a backdrop to any of the work that she does. She shares her time between working in private practice in the East Bay and providing therapy with the San Francisco based community organization Homeless Youth Alliance.

Mahima Muralidharan, PsyD - Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Mahima Muralidharan is passionate about creating spaces where individuals and teams can identify their emotional experiences and use their awareness to foster inclusion, belonging and organizational change. She advises companies and facilitates training sessions on workplace well-being, trauma informed practices, product design, and inclusion and belonging initiatives. After a long tenure in community mental health she shifted her focus to helping organizations prioritize their employees mental wellness. Mahima maintains a private practice in San Francisco and teaches at several graduate level training programs. She volunteers at mental health organizations and serves as an advisor to several organizations including Thunai, a Chennai based non-profit focused on maternal mental health initiatives. Mahima served on the board of the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and served as board President of NCSPP. She was born in Chennai, India and immigrated to the United States as an adult. She lives in San Francisco and fantasizes about becoming a chef sometime during her lifetime.

Leah Oliver, PsyD - Dr. Leah Oliver (she/her) is a licensed psychologist. She earned her doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2017. Dr. Oliver has previously worked with children, adolescents, and adults and currently serves as Associate Director and Staff Psychologist for the Counseling and Psychological Services Department at California College of the Arts (CCA). In her position at CCA, Dr. Oliver works with students in individual therapy sessions, and with staff and faculty to provide consultation, workshops, and psychoeducational training utilizing a psychodynamic, systems, and liberatory approach. Outside of CCA, Dr. Oliver sees adults and teens for individual treatment in a group practice centered around providing psychotherapy to marginalized individuals and communities. Additionally, Dr. Oliver had the honor to work with local community groups; providing workshops to assist organizations in thinking critically and inclusively about self-care.

Ariadne Papacostas, PsyD - Dr. Ariadne Papacostas has been running her private practice in Mexico City for the past five years. She offers psychodynamic relational psychotherapy to adults, both in-person and online. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from UNAM, a renowned institution in Mexico. During her PsyD program at CIIS, Ariadne gained invaluable experience through practicums at the Psychological Services Center and the Instituto Familiar de la Raza. Her internship at the Jung Institute further enhanced her vocation for clinical practice. Beyond her professional pursuits, Ariadne is a lifelong ballet dancer, which complements her deep fascination with the complexities of the human mind and body. She is also an ardent ocean lover, consistently drawing inspiration and solace from the natural world.

Willow Pearson Trimbach, PsyD - Dr. Willow Pearson Trimbach is director of clinical training and associate professor of the Clinical Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A psychologist, psychotherapist, and music therapist, she has a private practice in Oakland, California (drwillowpearson.com), seeing adults online who reside in California and Washington. A specialty of her practice is helping patients, consultees, and supervisees to be in relationship with their dreams. Dr. Pearson Trimbach is also a singer and songwriter, with six albums of original music and a seventh album of Tibetan Buddhist songs of realization (lionessroars.org). She is co-editor and contributing author of The Spiritual Psyche: Mysticism, Intersubjectivity and Psychoanalysis, published by Routledge in 2021.

Evan Sola, PsyD - Dr. Evan Sola is a licensed psychologist practicing in Oakland, where he offers intensive depth psychotherapy, occasionally facilitated by ketamine. He is passionate about creating a bridge between psychedelics and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. He is a contributing author on the MAPS treatment manual, and served as a therapist in FDA clinical trials using MDMA assisted therapy in the treatment of severe PTSD at UCSF, as well as anxiety associated with life-threatening illness at a private practice site in Marin. He now serves as a supervisor and educator for several psychedelic therapy organizations in the Bay Area. Evan's dissertation involved coding themes of transformation with combat veterans in daylong psychedelic therapy sessions. He is a graduate of the CIIS PsyD program, where he was a Kranzke scholar, and trained at several analytic training sites in the Bay Area.

Diane Swirsky, Ph.D. - Dr. Diane Swirsky is a psychologist in private practice in Berkeley, CA, with over 30 years of experience seeing adults and couples. She has a specialty in the treatment of trauma and for the past 10 years she has written and presented on the topic of race and culture in psychoanalysis.

Clinical Psychology Department