The AAMFT Podcast

Vienna Pharaon is a licensed marriage and family therapist and one of New York City’s most sought-after relationship therapists. Vienna is the creator of @mindfulMFT on Instagram where she’s helping over 600K people around the world heal their wounds. She has been featured in The Economist, Vice, and Motherly, and has led workshops for Peloton and Netflix, among others. Her latest book, The Origins of You, unlocks a healing process to help our clients understand their own family of origin—and examine what worked (and didn’t) in that system. In this episode, Eli sits down with Vienna to explore the importance of continuing to do your own family origin work throughout your life course as a systemic therapist.

Helping families/systems to achieve their goals is one of the most rewarding (and challenging!) clinical tasks. While therapists usually receive excellent training in theoretical underpinnings coupled with many hours of therapy and a high standard of supervision (often delivered by live or video review).There still remain too few avenues for practice and to achieve competency in core Systemic Family Therapy (SFT) skills.In this episode, Eli talks to Tony & Ryan about adopting deliberate practice methods to support experiential — “learn by doing” — training.

Jessica ChenFeng Ph.D, LMFT- Currently holds position as Associate Director of Physician Vitality and Professor of Medical Education at Loma Linda University. In this podcast Jessica discusses her background as a second generation Taiwanese American, and how her personal and surveyed experiences within her community influenced her career path. Eli and Jessica dive into some of the racial and cultural considerations practitioners should keep in mind when working with Asian and Asian American clients. Along with reasons why members of certain communities might seek out therapy at lower rates, and how the landscape of therapy for these communities is shifting with more culturally informed practices.

In this episode Dr. Bill Miller, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry may be best known for his framework on motivational interviewing.Dr. Miller shares a bit of his path as a clinician and how he finds his work at the intersection of psychology and spirituality.He and Eli discuss his most recent work with ambivalent clients, and client systems. Which utilizes techniques such as rolling with resistance and changing how systemic therapists can reframe the concept of low motivation by engaging with empathy and alliance.

Dr. Pauline Boss is a clinician, educator, and principal theorist on the concept of ambiguous loss. In this episode, Pauline talks about her research, work with grieving communities, and how we are all impacted by ambiguous loss. This experience can be defined by the way we handle major life transitions, psychological loss, or unfulfilled expectations. Dr. Boss delves into the lack of attention grief receives in educational realms, due to our culture’s fear and rejection of pain, along with the myth of closure. Finally, she discusses how she hopes her body of work impacts future clinicians and the way our culture handles the nuances of loss.

This week’s episode features collegial debate between two colleagues who are proponents of two schools of thought: Attachment or EFT Theory, and Differentiation or Crucible Theory. The two schools are substantially different in how they view aspects of adult development, and we have two guests who will walk us through the differences and similarities. We are joined this week by Adam Fisher and Nathan Hardy. Dr. Fisher is an assistant clinical professor at Brigham Young University, with a joint appointment between Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), and the department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education (CPSE). Dr Hardy is an Associate Professor and graduate of the COAMFTE accredited Ph.D. program at Kansas State University. Dr. Hardy came to OSU in 2016. Dr. Hardy serves as the MFT Program Director and is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and Clinical Fellow of AAMFT. This week they sit down with Eli to discuss their early education and influences, similarities and differences between Attachment and Differentiation, the type of therapist and client each model works best for, and more.

What is a professional will, and do you need one? What would become of your practice in the event of an emergency? This week, Eli sits down with Dr. Ann Steiner. Dr. Steiner is a licensed as a Marriage and Family Child Counselor and maintains a private practice in Lafayette, CA. She and Eli discuss early influences and what drew her to the profession, what a professional will is, why it’s important to have one in place, practical advice on how to set one up, and the importance of choosing your own “emergency response team.” Finally, they discuss the challenges people face when attempting to set up a professional will, some strategies to overcome them, and more.

This week on the podcast we’re talking leadership with outgoing AAMFT President Shelley Hanson and AAMFT President-elect Silvia Kaminsky. Shelley and Silvia sit down with Eli to discuss their early-career influences and beginnings of their leadership journey. They also discuss the importance of systemic thinking to leadership, the benefits of having diverse people in positions of leadership, imposter syndrome, and how to look for opportunities to serve where your passion takes you. Finally, they discuss programs such as AAMFT’s Leadership Symposium, and how these programs can benefit emerging leaders.

What does it mean to be an integrative systemic therapist? This week on the podcast we’re sitting down with Douglas C. Breunlin and William P. Russell. Doug Breunlin has practiced individual, couple and family therapy. He has served as a consultant for Cook County Hospital's Departments of Pediatrics and Family Practice for 12 years, in addition to providing consultation to mental health centers, special education programs and residential facilities, and is co-author of Metaframeworks: Transcending the Models of Family Therapy. Bill Russel has practiced systemic psychotherapy, developed and administered mental health service programs, and trained and supervised therapists. He has worked in academic institutions, community agencies, a private practice, a therapeutic school and the Veterans Administration. For the past twenty-six years Mr. Russell has worked at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. Bill and David chat with Eli about the meaning of integrative systemic therapy, their early work and career influences, the importance of introducing the client to the model rather than the other way around, their work at institutions such as the Institute for Juvenile Research and The Family Institute at University of South Wales, and more.

John Rolland, MD, MPH, is Executive Co-Director and Co-Founder of the Chicago Center for Family Health and author of the book: Helping Couples and Families Navigate Illness and Disability. Dr. Rolland is an AAMFT approved clinical supervisor and serves on the Editorial Boards of several journals. In this episode Dr Rolland sits down with Eli to discuss early inspirations and what sparked his interest in family systems, the difficulty of integrating the pathology driven medical model with the strength and health model of family therapy, and his Family Systems Illness Model. Dr Rolland also discusses the need for psychoeducation to give families the beginnings of a map they can use to get through the experience of illness.