Psy.D. International Alumni Conference Fall 2024

Notes from the Field: Pushing Depth-Oriented Psychology Forward

The California Institute of Integral Studies doctoral program in Clinical Psychology is pleased to announce a conference for our alumni in fall 2024. 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 continues to be a vital and influential clinical orientation, despite pressures that seek to medicalize the complexity of the human experience. This year, at our annual Psy.D. conference, Notes from the Field, we seek to build off our inaugural conference last year and explore ways that depth-oriented psychology is pushing into new and novel spaces. This conference brings together CIIS' faculty and alumni as well as clinicians in the field who are expanding our understanding of depth-oriented psychology and pushing the discipline into new fields and terrains.

We will explore transpersonal perspectives within the clinical encounter, holding both the practical and the expansive possibilities. We will dialogue about psychedelic-assisted therapy and how it can interact with trauma and marginalization. We will discuss ways our alumni are pushing the field of depth-oriented psychology forward, and we will also feature our keynote, Dr. Jennifer Mullan, alumnus, who speaks to the vital need to decolonize psychotherapy.

Agenda

Presenters

MG Bagalso, DNP, CRNA
Mary Grace Bagalso DNP, CRNA is a Post-Doctoral student in the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program at the University of San Francisco. She is a certified registered nurse anesthetist for the past 16 years working in various arenas from austere environments to beautifully curated ketamine-assisted psychedelic centers. Her interests include clinical education, wilderness medicine, and the future of psychedelic therapy. She has been an educator for the United States Army Nurse Anesthesia program for ten years with research in pain management. Currently, she serves in the United States Army Reserve as a Military Government Specialist with a deep commitment to both healthcare and military service. She brings a wealth of expertise in anesthesia care and operational military governance.

Margaret Boucher, Psy.D.
Dr. Margaret Boucher is a core faculty member in the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Psy.D. 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.

Gena Castro Rodriguez, Psy.D.
Dr. Gena Castro Rodriguez is the Executive Director of the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers. With over three decades of experience in social services, juvenile and criminal justice, and community mental health, she has dedicated her career to supporting under-represented communities and dismantling systemic barriers to mental health and trauma treatment, particularly for victims of violent crime. Dr. Castro Rodriguez holds a master’s in counseling psychology from the University of San Francisco and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. In addition to her executive leadership roles, Dr. Castro Rodriguez is also an esteemed educator. She is a professor in the Graduate Counseling Psychology program at the University of San Francisco, where she inspires and mentors the next generation of mental health professionals.

Lani Chow, Psy.D.
Dr. Lani Chow has been the Chair of the Psy.D. 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.

David Cushman, Psy.D.
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.

René Dumetz, Psy.D.
Dr. René Dumetz has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is presently the Chair of the Psy.D. department at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). He is trained in Psychoanalytic, Jungian, Gestalt, Existential, Cognitive-Behavioral, Contemplative, and Transpersonal therapies. He has taught for the past 15 years; teaching general clinical psychology courses, as well as courses in depth psychology, LGBTQ therapy, clinical skills, transpersonal psychology, and qualitative research. He is deeply interested in the use of meditation and mindfulness in therapy, the process of psychological development, and the integration of all aspects of being human - incorporating our pre-personal, personal, and transpersonal selves. He is of mixed racial and cultural heritages and believes strongly in the importance of cultural awareness and respect for the great diversity of human experiences and identities.

Jennifer Mullan, Psy.D.
Dr. Jennifer Mullan is a major disruptor in the mental health industrial complex. Her work is an urgent call to dive into the root of global and generational trauma to unlock the wisdom of our sacred rage. Dr. Jennifer Mullan birthed Decolonizing Therapy®, a psychological evolution that weaves together political, ancestral, therapeutic, and global well-being. She is also the creator of the popular Instagram account @decolonizingtherapy and recipient of Essence magazine’s 2020 Essential Hero Award in the category of mental health. Dr. Jennifer Mullan is the author of “Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma & Politicizing Your Practice” which has ignited a fervent wave of acclaim and community support as a National Best Seller.

Eno Osaghae, Psy.D.
Dr. Eno Osaghae is a 2019 alumnus of California Institute of Integral Studies, where he earned his Doctor of Psychology degree, Clinical Psychology. Eno completed his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Augusta University, Augusta Georgia. Eno is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist at California Correctional Health Care Services and is presently assigned as a Psychologist in the High-Risk Team at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (Formerly known as San Quentin State Prison). Eno has previously been assigned to the Enhanced Outpatient, Clinical Case Management and Psychiatric Inpatient Programs at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, Mule Creek State Prison and California Medical Facility. His past work includes collaborating with regional centers, substance abuse treatment facilities, and working with international survivors of torture and human rights abuses. Eno is dedicated to working with marginalized individuals and his professional interest includes Indigenous healing methods, assessment and evaluation, collaborative health care practices, crisis management, and advocacy. Eno currently serves as the Clinical Director of Mysafespace Professional Inc, a Psychology practice located on Polk Street, San Francisco offering psychotherapy, disability evaluations and psychological assessments to varying individuals.

Willow Pearson Trimbach, Psy.D.
Dr. Pearson Trimbach is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is also a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a nationally board-certified music therapist (MT-BC). In summer 2020, Dr. Pearson Trimbach joined the core faculty in the Clinical Psychology Department at CIIS, where she enjoys learning with and from her colleagues and students. Dr. Pearson Trimbach’s work with patients is informed by dedicated personal practice and study in meditation, music, yoga, and dreaming. The musicality of being is a central theme of her therapeutic practice, teaching, writing and composing. Listening to, learning from, and being in relationship with our dreams and nightmares of the day and night is a specialization of her practice, teaching, writing, and composing. Willow is co-editor and contributing author of The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy: Mysticism, Intersubjectivity, and Psychoanalysis, published by Routledge in 2021. She is currently co-authoring a book of dreams, to be published by Routledge in 2026.

Amber Trotter, Psy.D.
Dr. Amber Trotter studied sociology and political activism at Middlebury College. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She thinks and writes about the nexus of psychoanalysis and contemporary society, including ethics, freedom, social change, and digital technology. She is the author of Psychoanalysis as a Subversive Phenomenon (2020), and is a founding editor at Damage Magazine. She teaches at SFCP and Access Institute. She is in private practice in San Francisco.

Related Academic Program

Clinical Psychology Department