CalPsychiatry Presents: Mindstories

Climate Change and Human Well-Being | Susan Clayton PhD

Susan Clayton is the Whitmore-Williams Professor and Chair of Psychology at the College of Wooster in Ohio, USA. She has a PhD in social psychology from Yale University. Her research focuses on the human relationship with the natural world and the psychosocial impacts of environmental changes; most recently she has been exploring the potential effects of climate change on human wellbeing. She has written or edited 5 books and is a lead author on the upcoming 6^th assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

 

Susan Clayton

The Trajectory of Grief | Tom Pier, LCSW

Thomas Pier is a licensed clinical social worker with 25 years of experience in psychosocial oncology, care of the dying, and psychotherapy in life transitions, loss and grief. He has a Los Angeles-based private practice providing video therapy throughout California; works as an ovarian cancer counselor with Steps Through OC which offers nationwide online support to ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers; facilitates support groups for Cancer Support Community Los Angeles; and teaches clinical practice at USC’s School of Social Work. Tom understands how overwhelming grief can be and believes grief is natural, normal and healthy after significant loss. With skillful guidance, everyone can move through grief, manage difficult emotions, grow through challenge and find insight and renewal to return to living life fully again.

Website

Therapy Den Profile

Psychology Today

Widowed Parent

Psychitecture: Design Intervention to Enhance Well-Being | Rachel Melvald, LCSW, SEP

Rachel Melvald, LCSW, SEP is a practicing psychotherapist and trauma expert specializing in couples and systemic therapy. Additionally trained in architecture and design she is the founder of PSYCHITECURE Inc., a niche coaching and consultancy working with interior design and personal growth. She’s developed a specialized set of therapy tools based on the philosophy of how our environment reflects our highest selves to also help couples and families in conflict. Rachel is uniquely qualified to guide families through these testing times, by combining straight-talk and one-on-one counseling with practical design solutions. ‘Boots-on-the-ground’ intervention is key to Rachel’s method, working closely on-site with the client’s vendors and intimately with the clients.

Psychitecture

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Instagram

Podcast: Apple or Spotify

How to Tolerate Uncertainty: Election Anxiety | Jennifer Shannon, LMFT

Jennifer Shannon is a licensed psychotherapist and a Certified Diplomat in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy specializing in anxiety.  She has over thirty years of experience treating children, teens and adults.  She is the author of several books, including Don’t Feed The Monkey Mind and The Anxiety Survival Guide for Teens.  Her latest book  is called  The Anxiety Virus, Five Essential Practices to Build Immunity to Uncertainty. 

Jennifer Shannon, LMFT

Jennifer Shannon, Meditations

Intercultural Psychotherapy - The Impact of Culture on Identity | Rincy Mathew, AMFT

Rincy Mathew is an AMFT with masters degrees in both Clinical Psychology and Public Policy from Pepperdine University. She maintains a private practice in Santa Monica where she works with adults and couples using psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to facilitate deeper insight into childhood trauma and relational difficulties. Rincy has a special interest in working with clients from non western cultural backgrounds who struggle to balance traditional family values with individual expression and identity development. She hopes to offer clarity and insight to the complex nature of this intersection of cultures that often involves an inherent struggle to find one's "authentic self" in the midst of opposing cultural expectations. Her work also offers helpful prescriptives to therapists who encounter such cases in their practice so they are equipped to understand the unique nature of these cases that often conflict cultural expectations with the clients' need to create healthy boundaries. To supplement her work with complex trauma, Rincy is also certified in EMDR to help further the connection between the mind and body and enhance her clients experience for a safe holding environment.

Rincy Mathew Pyschotherapy

Culture and Individuation: The Role of Norms and Self-Construals

Implications of Individualism and Collectivism on the Individual's Social Identity

Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice

Therapy Through a Social Justice Lens | Charmaine Utz, LCSW

Charmaine Utz is the Founder and CEO of Living Unapologetically Counseling & Coaching Services. She owns a private practice in San Diego, CA where she uses a social justice lens, making room to discuss how internalized, social, and institutional oppression are part of daily life experiences. Charmaine created Bias Coaching™ in an effort to cultivate more safe spaces for people experiencing oppression and/or wanting to learn about their specific biases.

Charmaine has served as a subject matter expert on issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and having courageous conversations. She provides trainings to organizations, giving employees a unique, self-explorative approach to understanding themselves and how they relate to each other. She brings authenticity and creativity to presentations and is known for inviting the audience into uncomfortable discussions as a way to connect during the learning experience.

Living Unapologetically

Climate Anxiety | Leslie Davenport

Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology educator and consultant who brings applied neuroscience into interdisciplinary dialogues that advance creative engagement with climate change issues. Leslie is a founding member of the Institute for Health & Healing, one of the nations’ first and largest hospital-based integrative medicine programs. Her 25 years of medical experience developing an empowering and collaborative approach to resolving crises has informed her climate psychology model. 

She is the author of three books including Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change and she is completing a similar book for kids through the American Psychological Association's Magination Press. She helped shaped the document: “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance.” Leslie is on faculty with the California Institute of Integral Studies and serves as an advisor with Project InsideOut.

Leslie Davenport

Project InsideOut

Emotional Resilience Toolkit for Climate Work

Sexual/Gender Identity and Therapy | Saba Harouni Lurie, LMFT, ATR-BC

Saba Harouni Lurie is the owner and founder of Take Root Therapy, a supportive and effective psychotherapy practice located in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California. In addition to being a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Board Certified Art Therapist, she is also a mother, a partner, and someone who enjoys deep introspection. Her philosophy is that self-acceptance and living with intention can change the world. Besides the work that she does with clients and while running her small business, Saba serves as a professor at Loyola Marymount University in the Marriage and Family Therapy/Art Therapy Department.

Take Root Therapy

Pharmacological Treatment of Anxiety During COVID | Dr. Jordan David, MD, MSPH

Dr. David is a psychiatrist who practices in the CalPsychiatry Downtown Los Angeles Historic Core office, and uses a secure and private video communication platform for telepsychiatry visits. He offers same-week, evening and weekend appointments.

He specializes in treating college students and young professionals whose mood, anxiety, or inattention are interfering with their personal, professional, or academic success.

Dr. David’s practice is based on developing and maintaining close and trusting relationships. He partners with each patient to learn about their life, their strengths, their relationships and their joys, in addition to their stressors and symptoms. Upon this foundation, Dr. David and his patients work together to develop a personalized treatment plan to feel well. He makes sure that all of his patients’ questions are answered before each visit concludes.

Dr. David completed his general adult psychiatry residency and emergency psychiatry chief residency at University of Southern California / LAC+USC Medical Center. He earned his Doctor of Medicine from New York Medical College, Master of Science in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Bachelor of Science from The George Washington University.

CalPsychiatry

 

Integrating Holistic and Spiritual Approaches in Psychotherapy | Rachel Koutnik, LCSW

Rachel received her Masters in Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. She has over 10 years of clinical experience having worked in community mental health, in hospitals, and in private practice. She now practices as a therapist in her own private practice In Playa Vista CA, primarily working with teens, adults and couples in person and online. She identifies as a holistic therapist, integrating approaches that incorporate the mind, body and spirit, while accessing her clinical knowledge in Psychodynamic therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Developmental theory and attachment theory. She hopes to support clients in the therapeutic space to strengthen their own intuition using therapeutic and healing practices that will help them reach their goals. 

Rachel Koutnik, LCSW

The Body Keeps the Score: Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD

Radical Acceptance: Tara Brach

You Can Heal Your Life: Louise Hay

The Gifts of Imperfection: Brene Brown