Staying True To You
Whether you are exploring the art of practicing therapy during your traineeship or associateship, similar aspects are important to consider as you move closer to licensure. To assist you as you provide trainee or associate clinical care, begin by identifying your core values of the past, present, and future. Knowing what and how much you value the details of your life, including the dimensions of relationships, work, relaxation, education, studying self-care, and personal values, will help you determine your boundaries within those dimensions while moving toward your value of becoming a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
Seeking out your own therapist can contribute to processing your values more fully. Paving the way for student therapists, some graduate schools require students to receive individual therapy services; however, even if the school does not require it, partaking in therapy opens up the possibility of self-reflection, personal empowerment, and awareness to see blind spots that will do you well as you serve clients.
Staying On Top
Be prepared to organize the following to ensure you’re staying on top of all the necessary paperwork to get licensed: logging clinical hours, receiving signatures of clinical hours obtained from supervisors, holding onto supervision contracts and BBS applications, cataloging proof of necessary training required to update associate registrations, confirmation of liability insurance, and lastly, arranging experience verification forms. CAMFT supports its members through ongoing learning, including continuing education (CE) necessary for renewing BBS associate registration.
We’re here to make it easy. The CAMFT website offers information on continuing education requirements, on-demand CE courses, and liability insurance.
Considering Yourself
Throughout your pre-licensure path, it’s important to assertively communicate your boundaries. Pre-licensure is a time to increase mindfulness of your clinical values and boundaries while asserting them with colleagues, supervisors, and clients. Understand and know your worth as a provider of therapy care. Attending regular therapy sessions with a therapist may also help expand assertive communication skills while actualizing your worth as an associate psychotherapist.
Furthermore, Pre-Licensed clinicians may find opportunities to participate in therapy training related to career growth. While directing your course of planning therapy training, including specialties, modalities, and narrow areas of practice, researching evidence-based treatments in which you could train and possibly gain certification is possible with the Ebscohost database provided with CAMFT membership. Research evidence-based treatments, such as CBT, DBT, ACT. and, of course, several more that you might be interested in training.
Self Care
Putting self-care into action is crucial for staying mentally and physically healthy enough to provide psychotherapy to others. Remember that self-care evolves throughout your emotional healing and life development. Some days, you may not feel capable of catering much to yourself; other days, you can make room for much-needed self-care.
Think of involving yourself in self-care as creating an individualized treatment plan outlining and timelining what activities you need to implement for the outcome of feeling soothed, wellness, and your whole being, especially during significant distress. As a guide, you may evaluate your self-care by benefiting from Satir’s Self-Mandala, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or SUD scale questions. Integrating self-care may require you to access your inner parent to support you in caring for yourself compassionately, significantly if your primary caregivers or family of origin did not value self-care. Taking time to be still and present with the self may create the capacity to listen to what your mind and body need. Curiosity and compassion are the lights during the dark that guide you in applying your self-care.
Magdalena’s Personal Self-Care:
Candle Rituals, Receiving the Gift of Unconditional Love from her Dog, Leo; Stillness Meditation, Considering Ongoing Values and Boundaries, Weekly Individual IFS Therapy, Bi-weekly Salt and Oil Baths Representing the Beginning and End of Weeks, Gardening, Swimming, Jazzercise, Step Aerobics, Evening Mountain Trailing, Lots of Tea, Vocal Humming, Supplements, Maintaining a Variety of Air Cleaning Houseplants, Song Writing with Guitar, and Ongoing Improvement in Self-Care Includes Attending Regular Physicals and Sleep Hygiene .
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Magdalena Werne, AMFT, provides therapy services to clients in a private practice setting under supervision of a licensed professional. She specializes in working with adults who have survived childhood maltreatment and traumas. She is passionate about Brainspotting and Internal Family Systems and hopes to one day open her own private practice. Magdalena has recently begun Internal Family Systems Level Two Training, and Positive Psychology is a developing interest. Magdalena became a mental health clinician to help individuals and family systems increase healthier connections to the self and the other. She enjoys swimming, mountain trails, gardening, and spending time with her dog, Leo.
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