F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 V O L . 1 0 THE EPSILON BETA ALPHA REFLECTOR Official Chapter Newsletter

Say More About That... Upcoming Events: by Charles Smith, CSI PRESIDENT (cohort 12) February 10th: Winter 2020-21 quarter is officially in full swing, Telehealth Forum 7-8 pm and our chapter's upcoming schedule of events February 17th & 24th: reflects this reality! Social Justice Forum 7:30-8:30

All MAC students and faculty are welcome to ALL February 26th: Michael Theisen Social of our events, and we hope you take the Justice Award: opportunity to plug into the resources and nominations closed experiences being created for you by our chapter March 2nd: members and committees. Happy Hour 7-8:30pm

Speaking of our chapter members, we are thrilled March 3rd: to announce: We confirmed 14 NEW MEMBERS to CSI Member Meeting 8-9pm our chapter last week!! There is still time for you March 6th: to join too, so reach out today if you are NCE Prep 3-5pm interested in taking your grad school experience EVENT ZOOM LINKS BELOW to the next level. CSI Invites You to a

TELEHEALTH NETWORKING EVENT

A conversation about telehealth Come share and learn about resources and techniques

FEB. 10, 2021 | 7-9 PM Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88402146556? pwd=M21ML3hmQ3hhaFdDbzhlK2tkTlhkZz09 Meeting ID: 884 0214 6556 Passcode: 239586 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 V O L . 1 0

Non-Traditional Love by Kelly Escue (cohort 12)

February is the month of love. Valentine’s day with its traditional roses, chocolates, scented candles, and satin sheets; it’s more than likely we’ll all be celebrating things a bit differently in the midst of the pandemic. In that vein, I wanted to talk about some different relationship types and concepts:

Monogamy; this is the social standard of committed relationships in the and most, if not all, of the western world. It is illegal in the United States to be married to more than one person. can mean many different things to different people, a few of them are: classical monogamy, where two virgins are wed, spend their lives together and the widow/widower remains celibate after their partners death vs. serial monogamy where a person is wed to a single person at a time but can have multiple partners throughout their lifetimes. There’s also sexual monogamy, where one has a single at a time; and social monogamy where two partners remain sexually exclusive, cohabitate, & share resources. Neither of these last two forms of monogamy necessitate a legal in the United States.

Cheating; having multiple sexual and/or romantic partners where at least one of the partners is unaware of the other(s), actively attempting to keep partner(s) unaware of the others, and is non-consensual for those reasons.

Polyamory; sometimes confused with polygamy (see below). comes from the Greek Poly, or “many” and the Latin amour, or “love”. Polyamory is an between three or more people, all of whom are aware of the others; although, not all are necessarily in an intimate or sexual relationship with all members of the “polycule”. (A polycule is a connected network of people in non-monogamous relationships. The term is used to resemble the make-up of a molecule where atoms are connected via different pairings and groupings.) There can be a hierarchy amongst the E B A I N V I T E S Y O U T O A SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM HOSTED BY CSI MEMBER LAN LE

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partners, with a primary, secondary, and tertiary partner status, or they can all share the same standing in the relationship. Another form of polyamory is solo-poly, where a single person chooses to live what may be typically described as a “single lifestyle”, whereby the individual continues to reside on their own and remain less intertwined with the day to day lives of their partners.

Polygamy; a single person having more than one spouse. Polygyny is the term used when a man has multiple wives, polyandry where a woman has multiple husbands. This form of relationship remains illegal in the United States where bigamy can be prosecuted as a felony in all states except in Utah where a recent bill reduced it to a minor infraction as of March, 2020.

If you would like to read more about these and other kinds of non-traditional pairings and groupings, as well as about working with these clients in your practice, I invite you to take a look the following resources: Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino, The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, open relationships, & other adventures by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, and Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern. These are just a few books of which I am personally aware. Also, some other cities have started taking steps to legally recognize other forms of relationships in the last year (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/somerville-massachusetts-recognizes-polyamorous- relationships/).

I am also happy to discuss any questions or concerns you may have regarding this article and the themes in it; you can reach me at: [email protected].

MASTER OF ARTS IN COUNSELING T-SHIRTS FOR SALE

One-third of proceeds will support initiatives implemented by the Social Justice Committee and the remainder will be allocated to enrichment opportunities such as lectures by industry professionals, trainings, and other events for Master of Counseling students at City University of Seattle

To Purchase: email [email protected] F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 V O L . 1 0

What Brings You Here Today? by Mary Zeitler (cohort 12)

Dr. Nate Gardner has taught at CityU since 2017. A former school counselor, he previously ran the Professional School Counseling Program.

Do you have a favorite pop culture counselor, a counselor in TV or movies, that you found to be not a horrible example? Dr. Nate Gardner's cat, Zoey Okay, I can give you a horrible example from my perspective and a good example. This is more of a psychiatrist than a counselor... from the Sopranos. That would be my favorite one, I can't remember the character's name. The pop culture counselor who I can honestly say I loathe, and it's due to the fact that I worked at Barnes and Noble for a few years is Dr. Phil. I have no idea why Dr. Phil is allowed to continue to have a megaphone to scream at people. Very abrasive. He gets credit for counseling, but all he does is yell at people and tell them what to do, which from my perspective is the opposite of counseling.

What is your experience in practice? It's interesting because I worked for, like 11, years with the title of a counselor in two different high schools. I spent a year and a half at one school and then 10 and a half years at another school. So, you know all of my experience in terms of being a counselor is at the high school level. But the year after I graduated with my degree to be a school counselor, I spent a year working for a community health agency doing case management work, working with adults with schizophrenia who were trying to live independently. And that was a pretty eye- opening experience. But the 10 years before that, I worked at a residential High School in Maine, Maine's first charter school. And that's where I figured out that I had some kind of ability to do, I wouldn't say it was necessarily counseling, although I do a lot of it. I kind of learned things backwards. I lived with 170, roughly teenagers for 10 years in this residential high school, and I did a lot of counseling and I just had some instinctual things that worked well with me in terms of communicating and dealing with kids and parents. And then when I got to graduate school, you know, I figured out quite quickly that I had made some mistakes. Those were pretty blatantly obvious, but I kind of learned the theory after I've kind of practiced it for a while. So a lot of my counseling has not necessarily been sitting in an office. It's been more on the go, and in the moment. You know school counseling is a different skill set then if you're actually a clinical counselor, or a marriage and family counselor, or an addictions counselor because you have to use all of the foundational theories and ideas but you do it in short bursts. C S I I N V I T E S Y O U T O A Happy* Hour

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You're gonna, if there's something you can't deal with in a short order of time you're actually going to refer that out to someone who can (deal with it). You really have to know your limitations as a school counselor... The type of counseling I’ve done is usually speed counseling. You're usually juggling multiple things at a time and you don't necessarily have clients because you're dealing with people in the moment. You don't really have set times to sit down with them, most of the time. And it was definitely different living with teenagers. That's probably the best job I ever had, but you can only live with teenagers for so long before you have to not do that anymore.

How do you think that COVID is impacting school counseling? I think COVID has absolutely destroyed the identity for a lot of school counselors and put them in a position where they feel very, very helpless. You know, when schools are up and running, if the administration is not pushing counselors to do specific things and the teachers are kind of not placing counselors with a presenting problem, you can actually kind of find your own niche at a school and really create your own job and really, if you're invested in it, identify where the needs are and really work on those. But during COVID, I think that for a lot of counselors, they have no ability to do that. Especially because, you know, the teachers are trying to teach online, the administration doesn't quite know how to handle managing people because they've never done it virtually, and counselors are kind of left out there. But the difference between if you're left out there when schools are actually running and now is, they really feel detached. If you're a counselor that's difficult. The role of the school counselor is to really have your thumb on the pulse of a school; you can communicate with everyone, you can wander around you, you deal with teachers administration and parents. So you have a broad perspective, and all of a sudden that perspective has been taken away from them. And they are limited because in some school districts they're saying that counselors can't turn... If they're dealing with a student, they don't want the student to have the camera on because they don't they don't know what they might see or what might be happening in the household, so it's really odd. I think it's been very very frustrating. And you started to see a lot of counselors walk away, especially those who are close to retirement. If you're a teacher, or counselor, or administrator and you've worked in schools for 10, 15, 20 years... If you've lasted that long then you know you're doing, right? you've created a skill set that works for you, right? You have a strong professional identity. And you've done things, and you have techniques that have worked for a long time. And all of a sudden all that experience meant nothing. And you're lost and I think that for somebody who's very confident and had a really good career that can be overwhelming for some people, because all of the things that you relied on that made you a good teacher or a good counselor or a good principal are gone. And now you have to all of a sudden, figure that out again. And I think that some people make the adjustment. Some people make it and they aren't happy and some people just can't see it. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 V O L . 1 0

What do you think the future school counseling would be? I think there's been a lot of talk about social/emotional learning, and that being the focus moving forward. And that's definitely something that's implemented more in school counseling curriculums at this point. I think that the future of school counseling should, from my perspective, be really trying to focus on getting more elementary school counselors in place. From my perspective, the structure and the way that they have school counseling setup is a little backwards, because you have more high school counselors than you have elementary school counselors. You have a lot of elementary schools that have either one counselor or a halftime counselor, that's there a couple days a week. You know, if you identify a problem is it not better to try to help the problem and find solutions for the problem when it's small? When it's beginning? Instead of waiting until the problem is at a point where you're only able to hopefully manage it but not solve it? So, I would hope that there's going to be, and there has started to be in the state of Washington, a bigger push to really get more counselors in elementary schools. Because if you start providing support for students at that level in more depth, you're actually giving them a better chance developmentally and being successful later on. Then at the point when they're a teenager and becoming a young adult, you give them a better opportunity to actually develop into who they could be, instead of developing into who they have to be, because the circumstances that have affected them have not been dealt with prior to their emotional and maturity development.

Is there anything you would like to say to the students right now? It's interesting because I've spent the last four years running a program that is just about school counseling. And that was not my experience. You know when I came here, I came from a CACREP aligned program, that's where I got my master's, it's also where I got my PhD. And the mix of people from different tracks was what made the program so fun. Because you get you can get locked into what your job is going to be, or what your perspective is. And then, and you can feel really good about yourself, right? And then you're in class talking about a situation you're dealing with, and a classmate who's in a totally different track, could be an addictions track, and you're a school counseling student, and they say something that's simple in response to your presenting problem. And it's humbling because you realize, “Yeah, I got a little too caught up in what I think instead of being open to what would work for the student or the client.” So I think that the beauty of this program, which kind of mixes people up in classes and allows you to interact with people who are going to be doing a different type of counseling than you, is that you can learn so much from your peers. And that if you build that skill while you're learning to be a counselor, that's going to be something that you carry forward with you. The ability to always feel like you have something to learn is really important. And I know that I myself am very guilty of getting to a point in life where I feel really confident about my skills, and maybe getting a little too confident, and there's always something that happens that brings me back down and I have to say, “Yep. Okay, I gotta be more open to the fact that I still have learning to do”. I think you just have to be open to listening to other people and hearing other perspectives. CSI Invites You to

NCE PREP

Come study, vent, and hear tips from people who have taken the NCE

MARCH 6, 2021 | 3-5 PM Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89363938706? pwd=NWtRblFqVGdaaThYV2s5bUVkcGhyQT09

Meeting ID: 893 6393 8706 Passcode: 208045 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 V O L . 1 0 Michael Theisen Social Justice Award by Kelly Escue (cohort 12)

Please follow this link to nominate up to three City University MAC students who embody the social justice values included below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LF8YL9X *All nominations are anonymous.

Michael Theisen, MA, LMHC has had a 40 year career in human services working with many minority and impoverished families, adults, couples, and youth. This work has often demanded a need to address social justice issues which are closely connected to mental health issues. Michael Theisen’s role in laying the foundations of the City University MAC program along with his previous and ongoing pursuit of social justice is the inspiration for this award.

The Michael Theisen Social Justice Award has been created by the Epsilon Beta Alpha chapter of Chi Sigma Iota to recognize current students enrolled in the Master of Arts in Counseling program at City University of Seattle who seek to address oppression, marginalization, and privilege through their academic, professional, and/or social engagements. The recipients of this award will demonstrate knowledge, leadership, and efforts to promote social justice principles, including: Access (greater equality of access to goods and services); Equity (overcoming unfairness caused by unequal access to economic resources and power); Rights (equal effective legal, industrial, and political rights); and Participation (expanded opportunities for real participation in the decisions which govern their lives).

The recipient(s) of this award shall receive recognition at CSI’s initiation ceremony in May along with a small stipend. Requests for nominations for the Michael Theisen Social Justice Award will be sent out to the MAC students in early January. Nominations of others as well as self-nominations are accepted and encouraged; all nominations will be anonymous. The nomination process will end on February 26th and nominees will be notified of their status the following week and instructions on how to proceed will be delivered to the nominees at that time.

Questions? Please feel free to contact the Awards and Grants Chair:

Kelly Escue ([email protected]) CSI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Charles Smith, President Social Justice Principles retrieved from: Kelli Lovins, President Elect Erika Anton, Treasurer https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publi Mary Zeitler, Secretary shing.nsf/Content/drugtreat-pubs-front4-fa- Kelly Escue, Area Representative toc~drugtreat-pubs-front4-fa-secb~drugtreat-pubs- Dr. Jamey Cheek, Chapter Faculty Advisor front4-fa-secb-7~drugtreat-pubs-front4-fa-secb-7-1 Dr. Anastasia Imig, Chapter Faculty Advisor