The AAMFT Podcast

Jackie Williams-Reade is an associate professor at Loma Linda University and a therapist, researcher, trainer, and speaker. In this episode, she discusses integrating spirituality into practice, defining religion versus spirituality, and normalizing these conversations in the classroom to become more comfortable with them in the therapy room. She talks through helping a client build spiritual resources when your own are low and recommends training and resources for integrating spirituality and a biopsychosocial-spiritual lens into your practice.

Stefanie Frank, JD, former legal counsel for AAMFT, discusses common questions, gray areas, and ethical dilemmas about interfacing with the legal system as a systemic family therapist. She covers a wide berth of topics including best practices for expert witnesses, responding to subpoenas, HIPAA compliance, notetaking, and privilege, and termination as part of ethical practice.

Patricia Papernow is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on blended families. In this episode, she discusses what has and hasn’t changed over her four decades of researching and working with blended families. Dr. Papernow provides practical insight for couples, co-parenting, and integrating children into stepfamily dynamics.

This panel of LMFTs shares their perspectives in the classroom and beyond on healing from racial trauma. They discuss how to help Black clients and people of color name and understand symptoms and lived realities as historical, racial trauma, how systemic thinking can bridge the connection between dysfunction and healing, and how all people are racialized beings with internalized narratives. As academics, they talk about their approach to teaching, the importance of stating their social location, and how to create space to work towards dismantling a racialized system.

Froma Walsh is an internationally respected leader in the field of MFT and the foremost authority on family resilience, developing a resilience-oriented, community-based approach to strengthen families in crisis. Go behind the model in this episode and learn about Dr. Walsh’s journey from the Peace Corps in Morocco, to finding a home in family therapy, to forming her resilience practice around lived experiences.

Kathleen Laundy, PsyD, LMFT has over 40 years’ experience in private practice and the collaborative educational system. She is the chair of the MFTs in Schools Topical Interest Network and is involved in the Oxford Symposium in School-Based Family Counseling. She discusses how systemic thinking has grown in school systems and how MFTs can produce effective change in schools.

Jill and David Scharff are the founders of the International Psychotherapy Institute and collaborators on many books, most notably Object Relations Couple Therapy. They take us on the journey through their early careers, developing the object relations therapy technique and how it should be integrated into MFT training, starting the IPI, and what has driven them through their decades of work.

Cloe Madanes is a world-renowned teacher and innovator of strategic family therapy. In this episode, she discusses her origin story, her career journey, and her personal and professional relationship with Jay Haley. She shares a story about being hypnotized by Milton Erickson, as well as working with other pioneers of systemic therapy. Finally, she discusses her most recent project of partnering with Tony Robbins to train on strategic intervention.

Erica Hartwell is an associate professor at Fairfield University, where she has launched a certificate program for working with sexual and gender minorities. She is the chair of the Queer and Trans Advocacy Network. In this episode, Erica discusses how to provide affirmative and effective care for clients with a different social identity than you, and how QTAN’s seat at the table can help the profession best support society.

Dr. Alexandra Solomon is a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. In this episode, she talks about therapists taking a holistic approach to help clients reclaim their sexuality and to communicate their desires to build satisfying relationships, and why it's important to train young MFTs to become more comfortable dealing with sexual issues in the therapy room.