May 21, 2023 Collab Salon: Stories of Resistance to Isolation

Are you feeling a sense of isolation and disenchantment in your work? Do you feel you are being recruited into stories of dominant ideas of what a “good therapist” is or stories that are pathologizing of the people who consult you? We invite you to resist these stories and ideas in this community consultation group and think together about what you would prefer your practice to embody. Rocio and Akansha will create space for conversations about preferred ethics, consultation with your insider knowledges and wisdom, and articulation of consonant practices and ways of being. They will draw on their lived experiences of working in sites of “modern power” and support you in inhabiting your narrative multilingual voice

The program supported me to:

Akansha Vaswani PhD, was introduced to narrative practices in Mumbai when she began working at Ummeed Child Development Center in Mumbai in 2010. Here she was also introduced to principles of family-centered care, early intervention, and community-based advocacy. Her interest in systemic change took her to San Diego State University where her studies in marriage and family therapy strengthened her commitment to developing clinical practice through the lens of de-colonizing, feminist, and postmodern practice. Her doctoral work at UMass Boston, focused on drivers of institutional corruption in psychiatry and solutions for reform, particularly the practice of deprescribing and rational prescribing grounded in informed consent. She is currently an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine where she works on the implementation of family-to-family support programs for families of persons managing psychosis.

Rocio Ocampo-Giancola trained at San Diego State with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy. I am a bilingual licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with experience in trauma, crisis response and substance misuse and recovery. I am experienced with a variety of mental health concerns and have past experience working with homeless individuals, refugee and immigrants and trafficked women, men and children. I have a passion working with adolescents and their families and have supervised associates and interns working with children and adolescents. In the past I have worked with UPAC, Say San Diego, Catholic Charites and McAlister Institute. Current board member of Reauthoring Teaching: An online learning Collaborative.