by Stephanie King, PsyD

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Each new year NCSPP brings on new Board members, offers new lectures, new scientific meetings, new classes, new issues of fort da, and much more. At each new event there are also new opportunities to connect with community members. As your incoming president, I would like to personally encourage you to make time for your professional community. I feel strongly that in our current political atmosphere, now more than ever, our work needs a special kind of attention. One way to pay special attention to our clinical work is to stay in close connection with our community and colleagues. In staying connected to each other, we can stay connected to the ways that our work is responding to the changing world we are living in. As our world shifts, staying relevant means adapting, and we need each other and this community to do that. In these moments we need to be sure we have trusted colleagues we consult with regularly both personally and professionally. NCSPP as an organization and a community provides multiple occasions for connection and growth. I hope you will continue to take advantage of these opportunities in 2019.

With each new year we also have to say goodbye to many committee chairs as well as our beloved Past President, Elise Geltman. Elise has been a strong presence on the NCSPP Board for many years. Her historical knowledge and calm and compassionate presence will be a huge loss for our Board. Elise, we wish you all the best in your future endeavors. All of our outgoing committee chairs will be missed and a simple thank you does not feel like nearly enough to express the gratitude that we feel for all of the hard work and the many, many hours that you have all given freely to this organization. For all of your time, thoughtfulness, hard work, and commitment, thank you, Elise Geltman, Sydney Tan, Jordan Hazzard, Rebecca Weinstein, Stefania Pifer, David Cushman, Shannon Rogers, Brenda Bloomfield, Johanna Murphy, Boyka Dimitrova, Bree McDaniel, and Joe Nickerson.

While it is hard to say goodbye, I am also very excited to introduce our new 2019 Board members! I have spent a considerable amount of time recruiting and assembling members for our 2019 Board and am delighted to introduce the new faces of NCSPP. Our Outreach and Membership Liaison Division Chair is Candice Turner; our new Impulse Editor is Danni Biondini; our new Membership Chair is Jonalyn Blaha; our new Pre-Licensed Committee Chair is Priscille Schwarz-Benson; our new Programming Division Chair is Molly Russo; our new Community Mental Health Chair is Katherine Eng; our new Education Chair is Asya Grigorieva; our new Intensive Study Group Chair is Jenessa Raddochio; our new Secretary is Willow Banks; our new Treasurer is Tanisha Stewart; and last but not least, our new President Elect for 2019 is Diane Adams. Welcome, everyone!

REFLECTIVE SPACES/MATERIAL PLACES WINS COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD

Each year we ask our members to nominate an individual or an organization that they feel has made a significant contribution to community service. NCSPP recognizes that the work of community service plays a vital role in maintaining a strong community while also paying attention to our society as a whole. The winner of this year’s award, RS/MP, is an organization that offers bi-monthly meetings for Bay Area mental health providers practicing in community mental health settings and thinking psychodynamically about their work. RS/MP has been described as the embodiment of community building and is commended for its ability to “bring people together who might never meet or speak to one another, into a place where frank and difficult dialogues can happen. Not afraid of embracing these productive tensions, RS/MP has become a growth space for the community: where development can happen for anyone open to it — whether senior seasoned clinician or beginning student — in a way that deconstructs the usual top-down hierarchies. It’s keeping psychoanalytic thinking fresh, and building mental health community by doing it.” We are honored to have RS/MP as part of our community!