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• DEI Committee Social Event.

  • When
    Sunday, October 08, 2023
  •  
    4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
  • Location
    3850 Airport Boulevard Austin, TX
  • Spaces left
    29

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  Hosted by: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee. 

  
  

  

   

  Please join us for a DEI Committee Social Event

  Sunday October 8 from 4pm - 7pm.

  Bobo’s Snack Bar at 3850 Airport Boulevard
  

  This is a casual drop-in event to get to meet with and know other AGPS members who are interested in topics of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. We will provide food, conversation, and fun!

  Please RSVP so we know how much food to order.

  We will also be asking if you have any ideas for themes or topics for next year’s diversity dialogues.

  We look forward to seeing you in person, eating good food, and meeting other members.

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• 2023 Annual Conference: Am I My Sibling's Keeper? An exploration of sibling dynamics, how they influence the roles we take and the people we become in groups.

  • Start
    Friday, November 10, 2023
  •  
  • End
    Saturday, November 11, 2023
  •  
  • Schedule
    2 sessions
  • Location
    University of Texas at Austin Commons Conference Center 10100 Burnet Road, Bldg 137 Austin, TX 78758
  • Spaces left
    39

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  Annual Conference 2023

  Siblings are among the few people in the world who know what it is like to grow up in our family. And yet, our siblings’ experiences frequently differ from our own.  

  The conference will explore this unique affiliation, the intense feelings of love, rivalry, connection, envy, and loss that arise in these formative bonds and how they establish a new template for future relationships. 

  We will combine didactic, demonstration and experiential components, meaning that in addition to learning from lecture and discussion, participants will have the opportunity to observe the leaders conducting group treatment live and attendees will have the opportunity to participate as members of process groups over the course of the weekend. 

  Would you like a taste of what the annual conference will be like? Watch AGPS President Alyson Stone's interview with our conference presented here.

  
  

  About the Presenters

  

  Terri Lipkin, PsyD is a bilingual licensed psychologist at the Center for Behavioral Health, HMH-JFK University Medical Center in Edison, NJ, where she offers psychological services in English and Spanish for employees as well as adolescents and adults from the surrounding communities. 

  

  Brett Kociol, PsyD currently works as a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has conducted psychotherapy groups whenever given the opportunity and is currently leading two process groups, one of which is fully online and one of which is a hybrid online/in person group. 

  
  

  

  Yair Kramer, PsyD, CGP is in private practice in New York City where he conducts individual, group and couples therapy. Yair is currently a process group facilitator at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. 

  
  

  Benjamin Mueller, PsyD is a licensed psychologist in the state of New York and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Albany Medical Center. He provides individual, couples, and group psychotherapy to medical students, hospital employees, and members of the Capital Region community.

  Drs. Lipkin, Kramer, Kociol, and Mueller have presented half- and full-day workshops focused on the impact and importance of sibling relationships in group psychotherapy at the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) Annual Institute and Conference, the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society (EGPS) Annual Conference, and the discussion group of the Manhattan chapter of EGPS.

  We are proud to showcase a slate of local expert group therapists to co-lead process groups as a unique component of this conference. Leaders include:

  Joseph Acosta, MA, LPC, CGP, AGPA-F & Katie Griffin, MA, LPC, CGP, AGPA-F

  Jeanne Bunker, LCSW, CGP, AGPA-F & DeLinda Spain, LCSW, CGP

  Laura Ebady, PsyD, CGP & Allen Lambert, LCSW-S, CGP

  Anna Graybeal, PhD, CGP & Rhea Pledger, MA, LPC, CGP

  Stacy Nakell, LCSW, CGP & Lavanya Shankar, PhD

  Scott Phillips, LMFT, CGP & Donna Rich, LCSW

  
  

  10.5 CEUs including 3 Ethics available for social workers, LPCs, LMFTs and psychologists.
  

  Early Bird Pricing Ends September 29th!

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• Holding Cultural Complexity in Groups: Group Therapists with Different Races and Genders Exchange Ideas

  • When
    Saturday, December 02, 2023
  •  
    2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Virtual
  • Spaces left
    20

  Registration is closed

  Hosted by: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee. 

  Facilitated by Aaron Bandy
  

  

   

  Diversity Annual Workshop

  In this half-day diversity workshop, Dr. Kavita Avula and Dr. Haim Weinberg, will examine how intersectionality informs group therapist choice and vantage point especially when facing DEI or social justice issues.  They will explore their target and agent identities and work together to embrace humility and mutual respect even in the face of different core identities and places of positionality.  

  With clinical vignettes from our therapy groups, training groups, and international work, the co-presenters will discuss how complex the work can be and how hard it can be to "get it right".  In this session, we will share our best work, our worst mistakes, and guidelines for how group therapists will ideally respond in the face of bias (or when caught in a possible microaggression). We will have a dialogue about our different points of view, exploring these differences, some of them related to our own identities.  We will have a group discussion as we work to amplify the options for responding to fraught situations, all the while working to embody respect and vulnerability.  

  
  

  Presenters:

  
  

  Dr. Kavita Avula is an Indian-American licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, international psychology, unconscious bias, and large group dynamics.  She is the President of Therapist Beyond Borders, an organization comprised of individuals with multiple marginalized identities with outstanding skills to facilitate culture change at institutions that know they are stuck. Dr. Avula serves as the Vice President of the Board of Trustees at the Soundview School and engages in strategy to improve the future of the school. She dedicates a portion of her time to serving the Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BBIPOC) community and offered the first ever BBIPOC Institute at AGPA.

  For decades, Dr. Avula has worked with human rights and humanitarian organizations on a range of issues from conflict resolution to critical incident response. 

  She has offered group facilitation and trauma healing  in the face of natural disasters and conflict in many different countries including Colombia, Ukraine, Uganda, Tanzania, Mexico , the Philippines, and Kenya. Currently, she is engaged with an international finance institution and two hospitals who are looking to address bias in their systems.  

  Additionally, she is Dean and serves on the Large Group Team at the Washington School of Psychiatry’s National Group Psychotherapy Institute, a nationally recognized advanced group training program.

  
  

  
  

  Dr. Haim Weinberg (PhD) is a licensed psychologist in Israel and California, a group analyst, and Certified Group Psychotherapist in private practice in Sacramento, California. He is the past President of the Israeli Association of Group Psychotherapy and of the Northern California Group Psychotherapy Society (NCGPS). Dr. Weinberg is the list-owner of the group psychotherapy professional online discussion forum. He served as the Director of International Programs at the Professional School of Psychology where he created and coordinated an online doctoral program in group psychotherapy.  He co-edited a series of books about the social unconscious and wrote a book on Internet groups. His co-edited book “Theory and Practice of Online Therapy” was published just before the COVID-19 pandemic started. His new co-edited books are "Advances in Online Therapy: The Emergence of a New Paradigm" and "The Virtual Group Therapy Circle - Advances in Online Group Theory and Practice".

  Dr. Weinberg developed group therapy training groups in Asia, and is leading online training process groups for therapists around the world.

  Haim Weinberg, PhD, CGP, PSY#23243. Private Practice in Sacramento.

  New Book: Weinberg, H., Rolnick A., & Leighton, A. (eds.) (2023b) The Virtual Group Therapy Circle - Advances in Online Group Theory and Practice. Routledge.

  New article: Weinberg, H. (2023) Online Training Process Groups for Therapists: A Proposed Model, International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 73:2, 141-165, DOI: 10.1080/00207284.2023.2170236

  Weinberg, H., Rolnick A., & Leighton, A. (eds.) (2023a). Advances in Online Therapy: Emergence of a new Paradigm. Routledge.

  Weinberg, H (2022). Adjusting Group Therapy to Asian Cultures. In: C. Martinez-Taboada & M. Honig (eds.). Cultural diversity, groups and psychotherapy around the world. pp: 168-187. Illinois: International Association for Group

  Psychotherapy and Group Processes. https://www.iagp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Transcultural_2022_Ebook.pdf.

  Weinberg, H. (2021). Obstacles, Challenges and Benefits of Online Group Psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy.
  

  
  

   

  
  

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