Community Voices: Stories From The Frontline

All RAMS staff, interns, and trainees are invited to this presentation & discussion at the 10th Annual Evelyn Lee Diversity and Cultural Competency Training:

Community Voices: Stories from the Frontline 

Friday, November 13th, 9am – 12pm 

State Building, Milton Marks Auditorium, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco

This presentation will describe grassroots efforts for community and capacity building, strategies for advocacy and community empowerment, and engagement with leaders and legislative groups.

PRESENTERS:  Gordon Chin, MSW, and Robert L. Okin, MD

Robert Okin, MD was chief of service at SFGH Department of Psychiatry; professor of clinical psychiatry at UCSF; and vice chair of the UCSF, School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, where he oversaw the development of crucial services for San Francisco’s most acute & chronic patients with mental health conditions, including the SFGH Department of Psychiatry’s culturally focused inpatient units and Emergency Department Case Management Program (which received the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems’ Safety Net Award in 1999). He has been quoted numerous times in the New York Times, was featured on ABC’s 20/20, and in 2009, he received the American Psychiatric Association’s prestigious Human Rights Award.

Gordon Chin, MSW is the founding Executive Director of San Francisco’s Chinatown Community Development Center, serving in this position until his retirement in October 2011. He has been active in San Francisco’s Chinatown community for over four decades, and has served on many community and civic boards including the national boards of the Center for Community Change, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, and the SF Public Utilities Commission. Mr. Chin was selected as one of six inaugural fellows for the Fannie Mae Foundation’s James A. Johnson Community Fellows Award, and was one of the community development leaders honored at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Silver Anniversary with a Mike Sviridoff Leadership Award.

*******************
If you have any questions about this training, please feel free to contact Angela Tang at angelatang@ramsinc.org or (415) 800-0699.

To view the flyer below, right-click and select any option to "Open".

A Day With Adam Phillips

RAMS was honored to present renowned author & psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in San Francisco on March 15.  Here is a video excerpt from that day, in which the esteemed author is interviewed by RAMS staff member Dr. Loong Kwok.

A Day with Adam Phillips

March 15, 2014

9:30 am to 4:30 pm

UCSF Mission Bay, Genentech Hall, Byers Auditorium

600 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94158

More From Adam Phillips

RAMS is very excited to present renowned author & psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in San Francisco on March 15!

A Day with Adam Phillips

March 15, 2014

9:30 am to 4:30 pm 
(Registration at 9:00am)

UCSF Mission Bay, Genentech Hall, Byers Auditorium

600 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94158

To register, use this link http://www.ramsinc.org/register.html

Click HERE to read more about the upcoming event.

Here are a few recent articles written about Adam Phillips, for your reading pleasure:

One Way and Another: New and Selected Essays by Adam Phillips – a review by Daniel Cohen in The Guardian.

Photo credit: Eamon McCabe

"How should we read psychoanalysis? Many of its great theorists – Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Jacques Lacan – trained as doctors, and their successors tend to follow the rigid formulae of academic papers. However, for Adam Phillips, a practising psychoanalyst who is also a perceptive literary critic, it is "more illuminating" to consider psychoanalysts as poets "rather than failed or aspiring scientists"."

This Is Your Life - A psychoanalytic writer urges us to just deal with it. By Joan Acocella in The New Yorker.
"Phillips, Britain’s foremost psychoanalytic writer, dislikes the modern notion that we should all be out there fulfilling our potential. In his new book, he argues that, instead of feeling that we should have a better life, we should just live, as gratifyingly as possible, the life we have. Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for bitterness."

Tickling Our Minds: How Adam Phillips Changes Our Thinking.  By Robert McCrum in Newsweek.
"He was taken up by the pragmatic English as a servant of the dark arts who could somehow translate the mysteries of analysis into brilliant, readable, and seductive prose."

Second Selves - "Missing Out", Sunday Book Review.  By Sheila Heti in the New York Times.
"Phillips continued in that Bomb interview to express his hope for “a world in which there is less art and better relationships. . . . The only game in town is improving the quality of people’s relationships. Everything is about group life, and there’s no life without group life.” This seems indicative of how he wants his essays to function: less like art-objects (beautiful, stable things to be contemplated at a distance) than a training ground for how we might relate differently to the world and one another through how we relate to the text. Modeling relations in a safe environment is what many therapies do; it’s fascinating to see it work in a book."

The Q&A: Poetry as Therapy.  By E.H. in The Economist.
"Freud suggests not exactly that we speak in poetry, because poetry has line-endings, but that we potentially speak with the type of incisiveness and ambiguity that we're most used to finding in poetry. So, to put it slightly differently: the reading of poetry would be a very good training for a psychoanalyst."

Renowned author & psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in San Francisco

RAMS is pleased to present:

A Day with Adam Phillips

March 15, 2014

9:30 am to 4:30 pm 
(Registration at 9:00am)

UCSF Mission Bay, Genentech Hall, Byers Auditorium

600 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94158

ONLINE REGISTRATION LINK: www.ramsinc.org/register.html

Photo credit: Jerry Bauer

Adam Phillips is internationally acclaimed as an essayist, literary critic, cultural scholar, and practicing psychoanalyst. He is a renowned author who has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and Newsweek to just list a few. Currently in private practice in London, he is the general editor of the new Penguin Modern Classics translations of Sigmund Freud as well as a regular contributor to the London Review of Books. He is also a Visiting Professor in the English Department at York University. Previously, he was Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital.

Adam Phillips is called “one of the finest prose stylists at work in the language, an Emerson of our time” by John Banville. He has published over 17 scholarly books and numerous essays on psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, the history of science, sociology, politics, child psychology, and biography. The Guardian says “’Phillipsian’ would evoke a vivid, paradoxical style that led you to think that you had picked up an idea by the head, only to find you were holding it by the tail.”

This seminar includes a presentation titled “On Unforbidden Pleasures” analyzing, from historical to current day viewpoint, how particular behaviors are perceived in our society as acceptable and how that influences the individual’s wellbeing. This will be followed by a discussion on his latest book One Way and Another: New and Selected Essays, which focuses on psychoanalysis: its history, methods, and its preoccupations including desire, memory and narcissism. The seminar concludes with an in-depth interview examining the latest ideas about psychoanalysis and its application in working with culturally diverse populations in the community.

As a result of attending this seminar, the participant will be able to:

1. Understand how “unforbidden pleasures” impact the individual’s wellbeing
2. Learn how the psychotherapist shapes the therapeutic relationship
3. Learn about the application of psychoanalytic concepts and principles into practice in the community

Seminar Rates (Includes morning refreshments and lunch):

• $130/General
• $90/Former RAMS Staff/Intern/Trainee
• $65/Student
• Continuing Education: Additional $20
• On-site Registration: Additional $10

Space is limited so REGISTER NOW!

Continuing Education Credit:

Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc. (RAMS) is approved by the California Psychological Association (RIC121) and California Board of Behavioral Sciences (PCE4601) to provide continuing education for Psychologists, MFTs, LCSWs, and LPCCs. RAMS maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Course meets the qualifications for 6 hours of continuing education credits. Those arriving more than 15 minutes after the start time or leaving before the workshop is completed will not receive CE credit. CANCELLATIONS are subject to a $50.00 processing fee and must be received 10 days prior to be eligible for a refund.

For any questions, you may contact Angela Tang at angelatang@ramsinc.org and/or (415) 800-0699 ext. 200

CARF surveys for the holidays

The Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) surveyors shall be visiting RAMS Hire-Ability Vocational Services on December 11 & 12 for our re-accreditation.  CARF accreditation is a process that demonstrates a provider has met standards for the quality of its services.  We are proud to have received in 2010 the maximum 3-year accreditation that is awarded to agencies, and we are looking forward to demonstrating our strengths and dedication to our work and community at the upcoming visit.

Founded in 1966, CARF International is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services in the following areas:

• Aging Services
• Behavioral Health
• Opioid Treatment Programs
• Business and Services Management Networks
• Child and Youth Services
• Employment and Community Services
• Vision Rehabilitation
• Medical Rehabilitation
• DMEPOS (Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies) 

The CARF family of organizations currently accredits close to 50,000 programs and services at more than 22,000 locations. More than 8 million persons of all ages are served annually by more than 6,500 CARF-accredited service providers. CARF accreditation extends to countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.   This prestigious accreditation signals a service provider's commitment to continually improving services, encouraging feedback, and serving the community. Click HERE to read more about the accreditation process.

Stereotype Threat: How it affects us and what we can do

RAMS is honored to have distinguished speaker Claude Steele, PhD, as our featured presenter for the 7th Annual Evelyn Lee Diversity and Cultural Competency Training on October 11.

This seminar will focus on the theory of stereotype threat, designating a common process through which people from different groups, being threatened by different stereotypes, can have different experiences in the same situation. It will illustrate its application in understanding group differences in performance ranging from the intellectual to the athletic, in a variety of settings such as the workplace and academia. The psychological experience of the individual and, particularly, on the experience of threats to the self and the consequences of those threats will also be discussed along with the concepts of self-image threat, self-affirmation, and its role in self-regulation, the academic under-achievement of minority students, and the role of alcohol and drug use in self-regulation processes and social behavior. Furthermore, the seminar will reveal interventions and strategies, from a community service provider perspective.

When: Thursday, October 11.  9:00am - 12:00pm (Registration 8:30am)
Where: Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa Street, San Francisco (Next door to RAMS)

Dr. Steele is a renowned social psychologist who is currently the I. James Quillen Dean for the School of Education at Stanford University. Previously, he served as the 21st Provost of Columbia University, as well as a professor of psychology. He is best known for his work on stereotype threat and its application to minority student academic performance. His earlier research focused on the self (e.g. self-image, self-affirmation) as well as the role of self-regulation in addictive behaviors. Dr. Steele has also published articles in numerous scholarly journals and his recent book, Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, was published in 2010.

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche

June 2, 2010 was the 5th Annual Evelyn Lee Diversity and Cultural Competency Training, an annual event for all RAMS program staff (named in honor of the late Dr. Evelyn Lee, former Executive Director at RAMS).

This year, we had the honor of having esteemed author Ethan Watters as our featured presenter. His latest book is titled "Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche", which is described as revealing that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad. He is also a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Discover, Men's Journal, Spin, Details, and Wired. A frequent contributor to NPR, Watters' work appeared in the 2007 and 2008 Best American Science and Nature Writing. He co-founded the San Francisco Writers Grotto, a work space for local artists.

He was a featured guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Ethan Watters
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Click HERE for an essay written by Mr. Watters for the New York Times Magazine, titled "The Americanization of Mental Illness", which is also an excerpt from the book.

Joining him onstage was Kwong-Liem Karl Kwan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, SF State University, Dept. of Counseling, and formerly a tenured faculty in the Department of Educational Studies at Purdue University (1996-2005) and University of Missouri at Columbia (2005-2008). His research focuses on the development and assessment of counseling constructs specific to Asians and Asian Americans. Dr. Kwan is past program co-chair and conference co-chair of Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) annual conferences. Serving as the event Discussant was Alvin N. Alvarez, Ph.D., Professor, SF State University, Dept. of Counseling; Member of the RAMS Board of Directors; Past President, Asian American Psychological Association; and Co-Editor of Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives, the first textbook written to welcome those who are new to Asian American psychology, and includes contributors from the leading experts and emerging scholars and practitioners in the field.

UPDATE:
Here's a video of Ethan Watters as a guest on The Agenda with Steve Paikin. He is joined by Dr. Salman Akhtar, who was a featured speaker at an event presented by RAMS this past November 2009.