Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology core faculty member Elizabeth Wolfson, PhD, LCSW, has been selected as the Artist-in-Residence for the month of December 2017 at the Mendocino Art Center. Mendocino Art Center’s AIR program brings emerging and established artists from all over the country to a unique art center on the rural Northern California coast. During her residency, Dr. Wolfson will be working on two writing projects: a fiction novel and a layman’s guide to psychotherapy.
Dr. Wolfson comments that her work of fiction “depicts the shared condition of humans as innately attachment-seeking creatures desiring both intimacy and autonomy and what we do to protect against basic human fears of loss, rejection, entrapment, and annihilation. Among the key questions depicted through a love story spanning decades is: what are our goals, errors, and responsibilities as we yearn for and receive intermittent connection in a life which is ultimately solitary?”
How Psychotherapy Helps will be a manual for consumers of psychotherapy. “In my years of practice I have repeatedly observed how little people know about how to use the process of psychotherapy to their advantage. Foundational information such as as how to find the right therapist, what to expect in psychotherapy, and how the process itself works is missing not just for the uninitiated but also for those who may already be deeply engaged in the process,” says Dr. Wolfson. “The dearth of information available to those outside the profession impacts therapists as well, who tend to make assumptions about what the client knows or understands about therapy. This leaves both practitioner and patient stumbling forward, , uncover what is not known only as the process evolves, learning the rules of engagement as we go, with clients often not even knowing what to ask.”
How Psychotherapy Helps is a response to this gap, presented in engaging, simple yet comprehensive form, addressing the fundamentals of what to consider in seeking, beginning, engaging in and, ending psychotherapy.
