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Massomeh Namavar, Ed.D.
On August 22nd, I left Boston to attend and present a poster at the 15th International Congress of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy in Istanbul, Turkey (August 23-29, 2003). After much hard work and intense library research in July and August, I had finally prepared my poster for presentation. The topic of my poster presentation was "Treatment of Schizophrenic Patients Through Group Therapy." This presentation was based on my own clinical experiences at Columbus States Psychiatric Hospital many years before joining Cambridge College as a core faculty member. The approach described in the poster, which grew out of my clinical experiences, is quite innovative and effective with severely mentally ill patients. In fact, for the last twelve years at the College, I have been presenting this topic in four-hour workshops on the Saturday Workshops for students in the Counseling Psychology Department.
The presentation was successful and I had an opportunity to meet and talk with therapists from different parts of the world-- Norway, Australia, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Israel, etc. At times, we had heated conversations on different theoretical frameworks and their respective effectiveness with different cliental populations.
One of the presentations that impressed me the most was entitled "Working with Victims of Human Rights Abuse: Words are not enough." It was presented in Spanish, but was translated in three languages via headphones. Laura Bonapart, the speaker, who is originally from Argentina, now lives in exile in Mexico. She was wearing a scarf as a sign of protest and mourning for her missing family members. In her presentation, she described how she had treated groups of refugees from Guatemala as a therapist. She said: "Heal the body firstﾅ.the body has gone through torture, missing family members etc. When Guatemalans, who had walked miles on foot and were tired, arrived, we placed them in a circle and put their feet in the warm water, and massaged their feet. Then, they gradually started to talk and even to laugh and joke. She also shared how she treated family members of victims of human right violations. She said: 'we put them in a group together and passed tea - Mata around; as Indians do when passing the smoking pipe. This gives them a sense of community and closeness".
I found the trip to Istanbul both educational and a great venue for exposure of Cambridge College to an international audience. I thank the College and President Sharma for supporting this trip and look forward to sharing with students and the community more of my experiences.
Meeting a Cambridge College Alum in Turkey
Massomeh Namavar, Ed.D. One of my professional seminar students, Ceyda Tekin, a native of Turkey, who knew I would be presenting a poster at the conference in Istanbul, contacted me. Ceyda graduated from Counseling Psychology 36 credit program in the Spring of 2003. It was a pleasure to talk to a Cambridge College student in another part of the world, and to hear how well she has done professionally after her training at the college. She is presently working with a prominent psychiatrist in Istanbul, seeing clients individually in private practice. She plans to run group therapy in the near future. Since I was curious about the field of counseling in Turkey, Ceyda offered to set up a meeting with her boss and show me her office. Her office was located on the second floor of a nice building in a very upscale neighborhood in Istanbul. I asked how much she charges for a one hour session. She smiled and said "$80 an hour, but I might change it to S100 an hour." For Turkey, this is a lot of money. We met with her boss, Dr. Karem Doksat, a prominent psychiatrist, a professor at the University and a member of APA. Dr. Doksat is very much interested in new approaches in treatment, such as the ones prevalent in the U.S.A. I shared with them my impression of counseling and psychology in Europe and Turkey. In particular, I told them that I thought that Europe was still utilizing Psychoanalysis as the main therapeutic approach for treatment of many disorders, whereas in the U.S. we adapt to the needs of people and try to be more practical. And finally, I indicated that I view a therapist's role as advocating for a therapeutic approach that is short term, effective and accessible to many. At the end, we concluded that more effective and updated training is required in individual and group therapy.
Although the conversation was interesting, I had to rush to another meeting. I asked Ceyda if she had any messages for her friends or the Cambridge College community. She said " Hi "to everybody and said: "I love Cambridge College, I miss the College a lotﾅI'd like to come back and get my Doctoral degree someday". I assured her that we are working on her dream and her wish may soon come true.
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