expert witness

Psychotherapists, have you been asked to testify in court as an expert witness?

Testifying in court is an adversarial process and not for the faint of heart. Before committing to appear as an expert witness get informed!

Attorney Jim Carr, CAP’s legal advisor to the board, graciously provided these resources to prepare you to testify in court.

Jim responded to questions about appearing as an expert witness in CAP’s Sep 2021 Town Hall Meeting. To see Jim’s response, click on the link to the video recording of the meeting and skip to the time 1:11:33.

Jim Carr serves on the Advisory Board of CAP and is an attorney handling practice issues and cases with DORA. He can be contacted at:

Business Email:

jimcarrlaw@live.com

Business Phone: 

(303) 513-0026
Debbie Marielle Elzea

By Debbie Marielle Elzea 

As a pleasurable, loving, and s ex ual romantic partnership is wonderful for well-being, health, happiness, and family stability, there is certainly overlap in end goals between therapy, marriage counseling, and life/relationship/embodied coaching. 

In therapy, a clinician generally treats a mental or psychological disorder or illness, thus treatment is often covered by health insurance.  Therapists are highly trained to treat trauma, heal past wounding, and help a client process why she feels the way she does; a responsible coach refers these situations out.  Yet healing the past and emotional distress does not necessarily create a robust, enjoyable s ex life. Many women have worked on their issues for years, and still have a mediocre sex life! 

Coaching does not focus not on the past or disorders, but provides support, guidance, and accountability for a mentally healthy client to set and achieve her vision for the future. Beyond talk, it uses life coaching methods, and somatic, embodied practices to help women shift mindsets, attitudes and behaviors about their bodies, se xuality, and relationships.  While therapy is often about “healing,” in coaching it is “empowering” to achieve one’s goals, gain confidence, skills, and be cherished by her partner! 

There are many “blocks” to female sexual pleasure, such as boredom, not knowing what she likes, or the inability to get “out of her head” of judgment, body shame, and other distractions, and into the present moment, body and senses, where se xual pleasure takes place. Talk-based and cognitive methods only go so far; “of the body” mindful coaching practices are proven to calm and rewire the brain for greater focus and pleasure, enabling her to overcome the most common female s  ex ual challenges: low desire, low pleasure and even pain.

A coach often specializes; and so my focus is not only s ex uality, but also what I know best: women in committed relationships with a man! So in addition to overcoming se xual blocks, as the ‘Romantic Sex and Intimacy Coach” I also help women get the emotional connection they crave through time-proven gratitude, respect, and communication practices.

My philosophy is it only takes one partner to change the loving dynamic of the relationship!  So while approaches are different, they can be very complimentary, and both therapists and coaches provide great benefit to their clients in healing, empowerment, happiness and self-growth!

or if your love life could be better, I invite you to contact me for a complimentary one-on-one talk!Book a talk

Telehealth Resources For Psychotherapists

The pandemic has dramatically accelerated the adoption of telehealth in medicine and in psychotherapy. What are the best practices for telehealth in psychotherapy?

On Jan 15, 2021,  Dr. Reo Leslie, Ph.D., presented these resources for practicing teletherapy to a Town Hall meeting of the Colorado Association of Psychotherapists.

 

 

planning

CAP plans for 2021 include:

  • Quarterly Town Hall Meetings — if you have a topic you want addressed, please contact Chair of CAP’s Education Committee:  Dr. Betty Cannon, Ex. Director, Boulder Psychotherapy Institute via www.boulderpsych.com Watch your email.
  • Monthly Education/Network Events —  discounted for CAP Members. Watch your email for invitations to attend education programs with popular speakers followed by networking opportunities to promote your practice.
  • Legislative Monitoring — If you have questions about how new administrative rules or legislation impacts your practice,  contact CAP Legislative Committee Chair, Dr. Reo Leslie at leslieinstitute@cs.com
  • Compiling the credentials of the 4,000+ unlicensed psychotherapists.  If you have not received a survey, contact CAP Board Member Seth Geer, LPC seth@sethgeerpsychotherapy.com 

How to maintain a PRactice as an Unlicensed Psychotherapists Under the New Laws in Colorado

On July 14, 2020, the Governor of Colorado signed into law HB20-1206, a bill that impacts the right to practice by those previously titled Registered Psychotherapists who are now titled, Unlicensed Psychotherapists. 

  • Title Change: The title “Registered Psychotherapist” is changed to “Unlicensed Psychotherapist“. All Unlicensed Psychotherapists registered with DORA in Colorado need to update their Mandatory Disclosure Statement to indicate they are Unlicensed Psychotherapists.
  • Registration Closed: New registrations are prohibited in the DORA database for the title Unlicensed Psychotherapists (formerly Registered Psychotherapists.) Anyone who did not apply for or have current registration as an Unlicensed Psychotherapist in the DORA database as of July 14, 2020, cannot become one.
  • Lapsed Registrations: Unlike the past, there is no grace period for lapsed registrations, so plan ahead.
  • Grandfathering: Unlicensed Psychotherapists with current DORA registration can continue to practice psychotherapy provided your registration never lapses. 
  • Mandatory Disclosure Statement: The new Colorado statute requires Unlicensed Psychotherapists to replace the term “Registered Psychotherapist” with “Unlicensed Psychotherapist” in their Mandatory Disclosure Statement. Please update your forms ASAP. For information from DORA, the link to their website page for Unlicensed Psychotherapists here. [updated Aug 9, 2020]

CAP Membership Supports Your Right To Practice

CAP continues to represent the interests of Unlicensed Psychotherapists in Colorado. CAP’s mission, ‘protecting the right to practice’ is more important now than ever. We suffered a major setback in HB20-1206 and must continue to fight for the right for Unlicensed Psychotherapists to continue practicing. The lobbyists for the organizations that lobbied successfully to close the registration for Unlicensed Psychotherapists are not satisfied. They have voiced an intent to eliminate Unlicensed Psychotherapists entirely in the next legislative session. CAP membership supports our legislative effort to protect the right to practice in order to maintain public access to diverse mental health professionals.

CAP uses membership dues to pay a professional lobbyist to represent the interests of Unlicensed Psychotherapists. Our focus this coming session will be protecting the right to practice psychotherapy.

We believe in the public’s right to choose from a diversity of mental health treatment options. Please join CAP. Maintain your right to practice and help expand access to diverse mental health care during this pandemic not reduce and eliminate mental health services.

We will update this post as we learn more about the new law. Thanks for your continued support!

 

Announcing the new CAP YouTube Channel

In response to the pandemic, CAP is in the process of creating its own YouTube Channel to support our mission to educate the public and members about mental health issues in Colorado. Additionally, Professional Members can upload short video introductions for inclusion in their business profiles on the CAP website.

YouTube Being Viewed On A Laptop

Educational Videos

Members are welcome to submit their own videos for inclusion on the YouTube Channel. Videos must be directly relevant to the CAP mission, be educational in nature, and be of sufficient quality to reflect well on CAP, CAP’s members, and Unlicensed Psychotherapists in general. The member must own the rights to the video content and be willing to make the content freely available to view to the public.

To view an example of the type of educational video we are seeking, check out “Free without Excuses: Betty Cannon Talks about Applied Existential Psychotherapy (AEP)” from Boulder Psychotherapy Institute on Vimeo.

The video is available for your viewing pleasure at https://vimeo.com/46856569

Video Introductions For Your Psychotherapy Business

Professional Members are encouraged to create a brief, quality video to introduce themselves and their practice to the public. These introduction videos can be linked to your business profile on the CAP directory. Videos are recommended to be 30 seconds to 3 minutes in length. While you don’t need to hire a professional videographer to create your video, the video quality should be sufficient to reflect well on your business.

Video Creation

CAP will be creating and recommending resources to help you create a simple, professional introduction video. If you need additional help creating your videos, CAP will be partnering with video production experts that can help. Stay tuned!

Next Steps

If you have one or more videos you wish to publish on the CAP YouTube Channel, please email the title, speaker, description, and a link to the video to webmaster@coloradopsychotherapists.org.

If you have questions about the suitability of a topic or have technical questions, email them to webmaster@coloradopsychotherapists.org.