by Candice Turner, Psy.D.

I hope your 2024 is off to a great start!

I want to start by thanking everyone who made it to the New Year party on February 2nd. It was wonderful to meet so many new people, hear about your interests and thriving practices, and connect on ideas for NCSPP’s future. The conversations were very energizing, so thank you. Also, I can’t not comment on how beautiful Ramsess Art Garden (plant heaven) was; I hope you all felt as well taken care of there as I did! 

Out of those conversations, a new idea has been born, but first, some context. Since 2020, the Board of NCSPP has been looking deeply at internal change and restructuring. We’ve been through several phases of change while not all being in the same phase at the same time. For me, and I believe the Board agrees, it has been a pretty special experience working through this important and transformative time together. Many of us have stayed on the Board longer than we thought we would because we believe in the potential of NCSPP, want to be a part of that growth, and have enjoyed doing this together. We have tried to fold you into this process through our statements and writings in Impulse and fort da, and we continue to be committed to transparency.

As such, I am excited to announce a new and budding project within NCSPP: Affinity Groups! What is an Affinity Group? How would this be different than joining a committee? Great questions and the answer is still evolving. However, we are thinking of them as small groups of people within our community who are linked by a common interest, purpose, or goal and who have the freedom to meet and plan how and when they want. The freedom and flexibility of these groups would be a departure from our established and more formal Committees that meet regularly and plan programming.

NCSPP is interested in offering space, support, and resources for these groups, of your choosing, to form. As a Board, we are open to what our members would like to do, so you tell us! Some ideas that we thought could be great are groups related to: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Psychoanalysis and Somatic Therapy; Supervision; Assessment; Analytically Oriented Couples/Child/Family Therapy; Neurodiversity; Race; LGBTQ+; New, Not so New, and Experienced Clinicians; Clinicians Having an Existential Crisis; Starting a Practice; Thinking Beyond Private Practice; How to Make More Money/Business and Brand Development; Psychoanalysis and Tech; Book Club; Clinicians Feeling the Private Practice Burnout and Just Need Some Social Time; Analysts Art and Music Club. This is a project in the idea phase, so please contact me at cturner@ncspp.org to share ideas, interests, and suggestions!

We hope you find these ideas as exciting as we do, and we look forward to seeing what emerges!