Editor's Note

Making Room for One Another

Alexander Marshi, MA, AMFT, LA-CAMFT Voices Newsletter Editor

Welcome to the November edition of Voices. This month, I want to recognize the people who make a professional community feel like a place we can enter. A chapter has a name, a website, and a calendar. It also has people who answer a question, introduce someone standing alone, or remember to invite the associate who is still figuring out where they fit.

Those gestures rarely appear on a résumé. They are easy to overlook precisely because they make things easier for someone else. The meeting happens, the information arrives, and the new person has someone to talk to. Somewhere behind that ordinary experience, a colleague made time. I am grateful to the volunteers and members who keep making that time for LA-CAMFT, including the people whose names never appear at the top of an announcement.

November can bring invitations to reflect on gratitude, along with very different feelings about holidays, family, and belonging. There is room for those differences here. I would like our professional community to offer a welcome that does not depend on everyone having the same kind of month. A person can appreciate the people around them while carrying questions or disappointments that have no tidy seasonal resolution.

For me, gratitude becomes most interesting when it gets specific. Who answered the email? Who explained the process without making the question feel foolish? Who made space for a colleague with less experience or a different perspective? These are modest contributions, but recognizing them gives us a clearer picture of how a community actually works. It also gives the person doing the work a chance to hear that somebody noticed.

There are opportunities to put faces to that community in the weeks ahead. Members can meet chapter leaders at the online Meet LA-CAMFT gathering on November 21. The Annual Holiday Party follows on December 13 in Venice, welcoming members and non-members from our professional community. Details and registration: https://lacamft.org/event-6804636 and https://lacamft.org/event-6622541.

I would also like to make room for more of you in these pages. What question about the profession would you like to explore with colleagues? What has changed how you think about your work? Perhaps there is a person whose contribution deserves a Member Spotlight, or a professional experience you can discuss thoughtfully while protecting confidentiality.

If you have an idea for a future issue, I invite you to review our submission guidelines at https://lacamft.org/Newsletter-Committee and contact Newsletter@lacamft.org. An initial conversation can help clarify the direction before you develop a submission. You do not need an enormous conclusion to offer something worth reading. A specific question, honestly considered, can be a good beginning.

Thank you for reading, for contributing, and for helping someone else find a place in this community.

Alexander Marshi, MA, AMFT #159153 is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist providing psychotherapy at Integrated Therapy and Recovery under licensed supervision, with a clinical focus on couples therapy, relational communication, and family systems. He is trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples and Gottman Method Couples Therapy (Levels 1 and 2), and serves as Editor of LA-CAMFT’s Voices. Learn more at alexmarshi.com.