Information About My Professional Training & Experience

 A Personal Statement

My Training, Theoretical Orientation & Experience 

I  entered a 2 year master’s program in Marriage & Family Therapy at the California Family Study Center after graduating from college and taking 2 years to travel and decide what I wanted to do for a career.  I had graduated from UC Santa Barbara where I majored in English and minored in Sociology. When I began my professional studies, it was very unusual to be trained as a family therapist at such a young age, This is why I have much more in common with family therapists who are 10 to 20 years beyond my age as we had the same style of training and exposure to the founders of therapy schools and approaches.

The curriculum at CFSC (or CAL FAM) was innovative and thorough. We studied, learned and practiced all the psychotherapy theories as well as all the family therapy theories and the emerging couple therapies at the time including Richard Stuart’s marital therapy and the early marriage education and enrichment programs which are so well known today.

At CAL FAM all the first year students were enrolled in the same courses. As a student we had our classes on a single day, our class day each week from 8-4pm. The courses were divided into classes that were taught by the core faculty and the best experts and practicing therapists within a 100 mile radius. The therapists and other allied professionals taught the students about their areas of expertise in the curriculum. The courses were specifically designed in this way so students would have up to date knowledge and expertise.

In addition, since the founder knew and was friendly with many of the early pioneers of family and couple therapy, they came and gave 1 or 2 day workshops for the students as part of the curriculum with an additional day for the faculty and another for the interns. Some returned each year.

In the 4 years before I received my license I took training with Minuchin, Bowen, Satir, Whitaker, Haley, Framo, Pomeroy, Watzlawick, Weakland, Barbach, Broderick, Borzemenagy, Madanes as well as others. In addition to classroom time where we were instructed regarding theoretical, clinical and personal aspects of the subjects, each class was designed to have us leave with an experiential learning or skill. This separated the CAL FAM training from the other mental healt training and graduated fine clinicians. During our first year other classes students experienced included a case conference where we watched therapy being done behind a one way mirror, a growth group for couple or individual therapy and a study group to further our knowledge and to practice our skills and learnings.

During my second year I was selected as a co-therapist by an intern and spent 6 months doing  co-therapy with clients one day each week while I also was in an internship 2 days a week at a community counseling center. At the end of my second year I became an intern at CAL FAM's Counseling Center and had a full caseload of 15 to 20 clients, referrals generated by me, not the center. I was the highest earning intern while at CAL FAM through the time I became licensed and started my own practice.

Upon licensure I was asked to do some contract work at CalFam as a growth group leader along with other duties.   At that time I turned the opportunity down because I was too busy counseling  clients and co-teaching a class elsewhere.

A few months later I was invited to become a faculty member at Cal Fam and to teach Satir Family Therapy, Group Therapy, run a growth group and manage their satellite building of 2 classrooms and 5 counseling offices. This time I said yes.  It was a great opportunity for me, especially at my young age.  I knew it was the opportunity of a lifetime and not just because there were 200+ students each year who wanted to be on the faculty. I was the youngest faculty member for many years. As a faculty member my responsibilities grew each year. Along with my faculty position, II managed CAL FAM's North Hollywood Office for 8 years until CAL FAM moved into a larger building and merged the operations of the satellite office.

Faculty members at Cal Fam were expected to be proficient in all the psychotherapy theories as well as couple and family therapy theories. We were expected to teach, train, supervise, and demonstrate therapy in each of these modalities in multiple settings—1st year, 2nd year, intern, faculty, post graduate, etc.. In my words, each of the therapies was a language and we were expected to be multilingual. I am still multi-lingual and I prefer it that way.

Cal Fam students were encouraged to learn all the theories and to develop their own theoretical orientation as a result of their studies and experience. Students were expected to integrate both interpersonal and intrapersonal theories with a multigenerational perspective and to think about things in systems theory terms as well as family dynamics. Multi-faceted and multi-level assessments and treatments were the norm. This represents my education, training and supervision experience; it remains my preference.

Throughout my 15 years at CalFam we continued to have the pioneers and cutting edge experts come and give 2 day workshops to the students and alumni. Michael White, David Epston, Tom Anderson, Harlene Anderson, Ed Friedman, Alan Jenkins, Richard Schwartz, Marion Solomon, Marilyn Mason, Peter Steinman, Claudia Black, Stephanie Brown, and many many others came and trained the students, interns and faculty on more than one occasion.

In my 15 years at CAL FAM/PGI I held many positions and taught many different classes. I enjoyed this diversity and it contributed greatly to my learning. The administrative positions in addition to being a core faculty member and clinical supervisor were: Director of the North Hollywood Center, Director of External Family Therapy Training, Director of the School Counseling Program. Director of Post Degree Academic Training—Intern Curriculum, Director of Interns, and Director of Experiential Family Therapy Training. Classes I taught were Family Therapy, Structural Family Therapy, Satir Family Therapy, Task Oriented Groups, Process Oriented Group Therapy, Couple Therapy, Research Methods, Thesis Research, Developing a Workshop from Your Thesis, Writing the Thesis, Practicum, Case Conference, Growth Group-Individual and Couple, Developing Your Theoretical Methods, Experiential Family Therapy Methods and others. I developed many curriculum programs for specialized training contracts for therapists, businesses, schools and agencies that needed specific therapy skill training.

My therapeutic work has always been results oriented and a blend of coaching and therapy, long before it was popular. I believe this resulted from my personality and the skill oriented training that was emphasized and taught at CAL FAM. It also probably stemmed from my 15 year association with Virginia Satir and her practical, pragmatic and infinitely useful methods of working and empowering people. While I am one of the top Satir trainers in the world and enjoy greatly doing that style of work, it is not the only theory or method that I utilize in my work.

I am very comfortable working with couples and families as well as three or four generation family groups, a rare preference for therapists in California. I have also done several multiple family groups. I always work with clients integrating the intrapersonal, interpersonal, systemic and multigenerational perspectives. I enjoy working with clients and helping them to discover themselves and their talents and how to utilize themselves, their talents and abilities in innovative and creative ways to meet their current goals and objectives.

Lynne Azpeitia

Individual Psychotherapy with Gifted Adults

Counseling & Therapy for Couples

Coaching & Psychotherapy with Gifted Adults

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