Glendale Area Mental Health Professionals Association (GAMHPA)
Presents Our Fourth Annual
Virtual Continuing Education Conference
Friday, May 16, 2025, 9:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
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OFFERING CEs FOR BBS RELICENSURE
AND FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS
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Conference Schedule
9:30-10 a.m. Check-In
10-11 Breaking the People-Pleasing Cycle: Helping Clients Set Boundaries and Reclaim Their Lives, Natalie Moore, LMFT
11-12 noon Transforming Addiction Through Attachment and ETF, Michael Barnett, LPCC
12-12:30 Lunch Break
12:30-1:30 Tools, Tips & Strategies To Easily & Confidently Take Charge of Money Conversations with Clients In Therapy & Pre-Therapy Interactions, Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT [CE not available for this hour]
1:30-2:30 Autism 101, Grace Malonai, PhD, LPCC
2:30-3 p.m. Closing
Cost
GAMHPA Member attendance is FREE. Non-member attendance is $30 (includes free introductory membership through the end of 2025.) Registrants who do not attend or fail to request a refund one week prior to the event will forfeit fees paid.
Location
Zoom video conferencing login will be provided two days prior to the event and only after registration and receipt of payment.
Registration
Registration closes by the end of Monday, May 12. Registration is required online at www.GAMHPA.org.
Continuing Education Credit
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CEs for this event are provided by The Affirmative Couch. The Affirmative Couch, LLC, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Affirmative Couch, LLC, maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
This course is intended for beginning to advanced mental health professionals. You may attend any or all of the four presentations; CEs will be credited based on attendance. Course meets the qualifications for 3.0 hours of continuing education credit for Psychologists, LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs required by the California Board of Psychology or the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. CE completion certificates will be awarded when participants complete the course evaluation after speaker presentations.
Thank you to Cadyn Cathers, PsyD, and The Affirmative Couch, LLC, for sponsoring our continuing education credits. Please contact our sponsor at melissa@affirmativecouch.com with any questions or accommodation requests.
Further Program Information and Questions
Contact GAMHPA Board Member Mary Ann Aronsohn, LMFT, Continuing Education Chair at (626) 441-5131, m.aronsohn@protonmail.com.
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Our Presentations
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Presentation 1: Breaking the People-Pleasing Cycle: Helping Clients Set Boundaries and Reclaim Their Lives, Natalie Moore, LMFT
10-11 a.m.
Description
People-pleasing isn’t just about being “too nice”—it’s a deeply ingrained behavioral cycle driven by guilt, fear of rejection, and external validation. Left unchecked, it can lead to chronic stress, burnout, and one-sided relationships. In this engaging and practical presentation, we’ll explore the people-pleasing cycle and identify key exit points that help clients regain autonomy. You’ll walk away with concrete therapeutic interventions, including cognitive reframing, emotional regulation tools, and assertive communication strategies to help clients break free. We’ll also introduce a step-by-step boundary-setting framework designed for people-pleasers in recovery, equipping them with the skills to confidently advocate for their needs.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify at least three traits of chronic people-pleasing and explain how they contribute to self-sacrificing behaviors in clients.
2. Describe at least three stages of the people-pleasing cycle and highlight key exit points that help clients disrupt the cycle.
3. Utilize a five-step boundary-setting framework to help clients assert their needs and preferences.
Presentation 2: Transforming Addiction Through Attachment and ETF, Michael Barnett, LPCC
11-12 noon
Description
As clinicians working with addiction, we face significant challenges assisting our clients in both stabilizing recovery and healing the underlying emotional distress that drives addictive processes to begin with. Although skill-based interventions are essential for stabilizing addiction, they are literally not designed to access the neural networks that hold the underlying traumatic distress frequently associated with addictive disorders. Through didactic information and video clips of client sessions, this workshop offers a demonstration of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), an attachment-based, trauma-informed model of psychotherapy, as a powerful adjunct to existing treatment protocols that that accesses, processes, and ultimately releases the dormant emotional pain that our clients have been attempting to self-medicate through addiction.
Learning Objectives
1. Describe addiction from an attachment framework
2. Describe addiction from a trauma-informed perspective
Presentation 3: Tools, Tips & Strategies To Easily & Confidently Take Charge of Money Conversations with Clients In Therapy & Pre-Therapy Interactions, Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Description
Whether you are newly licensed, just getting started or are an experienced therapist, this presentation will increase your confidence & success in handling client money matters your way. It will address your needs & concerns, answer your questions, and give you practical tools & advice you can use right away in therapy & pre-therapy interactions and communications with clients. Add to your skills. Find out the secrets to more effectively using your clinical skills & abilities in money conversations—to keep your practice as full as you want & your income where you like it, without compromising your values.
Learning Objectives:
1. Describe how to talk money & fees & not sell yourself (the therapist) or the therapy short.
2. List the 5 Money Personalities and how to effectively interact with them.
3. Detail 3 things to do to have productive clinical money conversations that take care of you (the therapist), your clients & practice.
Presentation 4: Autism 101, Grace Malonai, PhD, LPCC
1:30-2:30 p.m.
Description
This training is geared toward clinicians who support autistic clients. Included in the discussion will be the benefits of neuroaffirming care, while recognizing, reframing and understanding autistic clients’ needs and how these impact the therapeutic relationship. The presenters’ own modified interventions will be described, and how these have been used successfully in therapeutic work with autistic clients will be discussed.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify at least three neurotypes.
2. Name three reasons why therapy of autistic clients is different from therapy of neurotypical clients.
3. Identify three commonly comorbid diagnoses in autistic clients.
4. Identify three therapeutic postures that are valuable in working with autistic clients.
5. Identify three adjunct therapies and understand how they can be helpful in an integrated therapeutic approach.
6. Describe an overview of known therapeutic techniques that can be modified for the treatment of autistic individuals.
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Our Speakers
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Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT
Lynne Azpeitia, LMFT, AAMFT Approved Supervisor, Clinical Practice Coach, supports, coaches, trains, mentors & provides workshops for licensed & pre-licensed therapists, and students in how to create, develop, and maintain a financially successful clinical practice and career. Based in Santa Monica, Lynne’s worked with gifted, talented & creative adults, couples, & families locally & internationally for more than 20 years—and provided supervision, consultation & training to licensed and pre-licensed therapists & supervisors. She’s a Professor Emeritus, Phillips Graduate Institute & a popular speaker & workshop leader known for her practical, useful, cutting-edge advice. Lynne is nationally recognized, also, for her skillful, innovative training & extensive knowledge of Virginia Satir’s work. Websites: LAPracticeDevelopment.com and Gifted-Adults.com.
Michael Barnett, LPCC
Michael Barnett is a licensed psychotherapist with over 30 years of clinical experience, and an ICEEFT certified trainer in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). He founded the Atlanta Center for EFT in 2007 and is the cofounder and codirector of the EFT Center of Los Angeles. Prior to beginning private practice in 1993, Michael worked for 8 years in inpatient, dual diagnosis units, and IOPs for addictive disorders. He began his training in EFT in 2005. Since 2008 Michael has facilitated over 100 EFT certification trainings, workshops and speaking engagements throughout North America and abroad. Throughout his career Michael has worked ardently toward integrating traditional and experiential processes in his approach to working with addictive disorders. He contributed to the existing EFT canon through tailoring EFT to effectively treat couples struggling with trauma and addiction. In 2017, he completed a 3-year research project implementing EFT into the treatment regimen of an inpatient addiction facility in Atlanta. Michael presented with Dr. Gabor Mate on working with addiction from a trauma-informed, attachment perspective at the 2017 EFT Summit. Michael is the author of The Emotionally Focused Therapy Workbook for Addiction: How to Heal the Loneliness and Shame that Trigger Addictive Behaviors.
Grace Malonai, PhD, LPCC
Grace Malonai, PhD, LPCC (LPCC252), has been providing psychotherapy and assessment services since 1998. She is Executive Director at TheraThrive in Lafayette, CA and Burbank, CA, and for the last 18 years has specialized in autism, ADHD, giftedness/2e, learning disabilities, and traumatic brain injury. She has contributed to various books, magazines, newsletters and blogs, and as a regular presenter at local and national conferences, Grace is able to share her knowledge and passion on various topics that focus on neurodivergent populations.
Natalie Moore, LMFT
Natalie is a licensed therapist, speaker and consultant based in Los Angeles, CA with over a decade of clinical experience. She runs a successful private practice called Space for Growth Therapy and Coaching where she sees therapy clients and consults therapists in building their own practices. Natalie has spoken at conferences such as South by Southwest and The Yoga Expo on topics including mental health and holistic wellness. She is regularly featured in Huffington Post and other major media outlets for her expertise on people-pleasing, psychology and relationships.
