by Candice Turner, Psy.D.

Dear NCSPP community,

Happy New Year!

I am so excited to be your President for 2024. So, let me introduce myself. My name is Candice Turner, and I’m a psychologist in private practice in Sacramento, CA. I’ve been involved with NCSPP for the past six years as the Outreach and Membership Division Chair and more recently, the Division 39 and CE Chair. Last year, I attended the Division 39 Spring conference in New York (I highly recommend these conferences; let me know if you’ll be going to DC in April and we will plan a gathering!) which was centered around “Destruction, Creation, and Psychoanalysis.” There, I was inspired to bring some of the excitement and thinking back to NCSPP through the role of President for this year.

If you can’t tell already, I am a fairly social person who loves to bring people together. Only fitting that this year, I will be primarily focused on rebuilding our greater community and connection to one another and the field. I, too, need this as I continue to recover from COVID isolation and moving away from my known community in the Bay Area.

My experience on the board during these last four years has been a life and throughline; thank you Zoom! Some years have been harder than others, but what has kept me coming back is definitely the people. We have been a strong working team who genuinely care about each other and what we are doing here. So, it was sad to say goodbye to Cassidy Smith, our beloved Secretary at the close of 2023. She will be sincerely missed on the board, but we wish her well in her new role on the fort da Committee. Filling her shoes is an old friend and colleague of mine from graduate school, Catherine McGovern; I look forward to working with her once again. I also would like to thank Willow Banks for her gentle, but strong and consistent leadership last year; I am so grateful to have you to lean on as I step into this important role.

Each January, we announce the Community Services Award, and this year NCSPP is pleased to celebrate A Home Within (AHW). Together, NCSPP and AHW specifically acknowledge the work of three Alameda County Chapter consultation group leaders: Eileen Keller, Ph.D., Amy Friedman, LCSW, Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., for their decades of AHW service. These local clinical leaders have made a radically enduring commitment to bringing psychoanalytic thinking to the healing journeys of current and former foster youth. A Home Within demonstrates and sustains a relentless commitment to psychoanalytically informed practice as a means of advancing social justice. We will will use this award to both recognize these individuals and acquaint our community with the amazing opportunity A Home Within offers to clients and clinicians.

Throughout this year, I am excited to continue to share what I have come to love about NCSPP with all of you. If you see me, please say hi, and I hope to see you at our events this year!