WNFAST Newsletter
September 2015
Creativity Contest: And the winner is…
We had an upsurge of people looking at the entries, but the number of votes were still low. Technically, Rick Whiteside had the most votes for his Client-Focused Therapy, but since Rick is one of the founders of WNFAST it didn’t seem right to give him a prize.
Instead, he’s authorized us to give WNFAST members free access to his online work, The FLEX-ible Therapist, for one month. So if you’d like an opportunity to learn how to use this overlay to make your own work more Client-Focused, go to http://flex-ible.com/FLEX
Serious Issues regarding AAMFT:
Earlier this year, Frank Dattilio asked our members to participate in a poll for the keynote talk he was delivering at the annual AAMFT Conference. The poll results included mostly negative feedback, with our members indicating that while they valued collaboration, they did not want AAMFT to impose their values or structure on other family therapy practitioners or associations around the world. I was then asked by Frank to create a short video that could be shown during his keynote which explained how family therapy functioned in New Zealand and to explain WNFAST (the video can be seen by clicking here). Shortly before the conference, AAMFT censored the video from the talk, saying that it was “promotional”.
We felt that given the time our members had spent on the poll, they should be acknowledged. We wrote AAMFT to make the case that the piece was informational, rather than promotional. We received a very negative email in response, citing us as aggressive and offensive; what’s more, they have now started a campaign to undermine our association, in part by challenging the copyright of many of the materials on our resources page. Given that nothing is posted except at the direction of the author/creator, we have not violated any rules, although dealing with the queries from publisher’s legal teams has been annoying and time-wasting.
We fear that AAMFT has taken this non-collaborative position toward WNFAST because they see us as a threat to their 10 year plan, which states in detail how they want to spread their influence globally. We are asking our members to boycott AAMFT global events until they can work more collaboratively with WNFAST and other international associations.
Training Page:
Several new training opportunities posted including the A Bitter Pill to Swallow conference and a Contextual Family Therapy Course: “The Many Faces of Destructive Entitlement”, featuring Contextual Family Therapy Authors, Pioneers and Colleagues of CFT founder Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy.
Remember, WNFAST is YOUR network. Please let us know what you’d like to see developing or how we can better connect. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your ideas, stories, news, resources, or comments.
Frances Steinberg, PhD
Communications Coordinator
