Engaging, Connecting, and Working with Men in Therapy

One Day Workshop

Cost:
$100 (Space strictly limited)

Date:
Friday - November 3rd, 2006

Training:
6 hours

Location:
Multicultural Family Institute Directions

Faculty:
A. J. Franklin, Ph.D., Makungu Akinyela, Ph.D., others

A one day workshop featuring Dr. A. J. Franklin, Dr. Makungu Akinyela, Ken Dolan Del Vecchio, and Dr. Matthew Mock


Engaging men in therapy can be difficult. This special conference on working with men in therapy will focus on transforming men’s resistance in therapy. How do we understand men’s “resistance” to therapy in relation to their concept of manhood, disclosure, culture, racism, oppression, gender politics and power issues. Topics to be addressed include love, communication, power, privilege, and fairness in couple and family relationships, the dynamics of strength and weakness in therapy, intergenerational relationships, money, connection vs independence, and men and friendship.


Participating Faculty

Anderson. J. Franklin, PhD

Professor of Psychology, City University of New York, Author of a new book, From Brotherhood to Manhood: How Black Men Rescue Their Relationships and Dreams from the Invisibility Syndrome (Wiley, 2004) and co-author of Boys into Men: Raising Our African American Teenage Sons. In 2007 Dr. Franklin will assume the Honorable David S. Nelson Professional Chair at Boston College in the Lynch School of Education. An internationally renowned trainer, Dr. Franklin has been involved in recent years in international consultation on global issues of ethnic diversity, racism, and developing multicultural programs. Dr. Franklin has a private practice in Brooklyn, NY.

Makungu M. Akinyela, PhD

is a family therapist and the founder of the Family Center of South Dekalb in Decatur, Georgia. He is an associate professor at Georgia State University in the Department of African American Studies and a Clinical member and Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. He has written and published articles, book chapters and monographs on family therapy, African centered and Testimony therapy and Cultural Democracy. He has lectured and presented workshops and training courses in these areas in South Africa, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Australia, the USA and Canada.

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio, LCSW, SPHR

is a family therapist and organizational consultant. Currently at work on two books, one for the mass market and another for family therapists, Ken’s writing promotes social justice as the foundation for relational healing. He is on the faculty at The Institute for Family Services in Somerset, NJ, and is a graduate of the Multicultural Family Institute.

Roberto Font, LCSW

Alumnus of the Multicultural Family Institute, is in private practice in Red Bank and Highland Park. His interests have been focused on men’s issues and the intersection of culture, class, race, gender and sexual orientation, as well as the impact of migration on families. Born in Cuba, he immigrated to the US at age 4, grew up in Englewood, and studied Social Work at Rutgers University.

Matthew Mock, PhD

Director, Family Youth Children’s and Multicultural Services, Berkeley, CA. As a psychotherapist and professor, he has written, lectured and practiced with an appreciation of cultural knowledge and social justice for almost 20 years. He is a third generation Chinese American.



Conference Schedule / Details

8:30 Registration
9:00 Working Effectively with African American MenThis presentation is designed to promote awareness, knowledge and intervention skills for working with African American men, children and youth in a variety of settings. It will focus upon messages that stereotype Black males, and examine their implications for everyday interactions. We will discuss the “invisibility syndrome,” which explains the psychological consequences of cumulative daily indignities and social marginalization across the life span of African American males. Concrete examples will be offered to empower participants to work more effectively with African American males.
10:15 Break
10:30 Roberto Font: The Myth of Machismo This presentation will explore the impact that gender role, culture, migration, and racism have on Latino Men. How has the dominant culture shaped our ideas of what machismo is? What is machismo anyway? Is it really cultural?
11:30 Matthew R. Mock: Engaging Asian Men in Therapy This presentation will focus on engaging Asian and Asian American men in therapy, potential resistances, and maintaining an ongoing mutual working relationship. We will consider cultural and ethnic identity, sex role, multi-generational issues, couple hood, becoming a family, dealing with emotional issues, identity within a familial context and themes of emerging identities and image. Utilizing the narratives of immigration, growing up, individual development and collective history, always in relation to the meaning of family are significant issues for work with these men.
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Legacies of Patriarchy The rules of white manhood are evolving, and white male therapists are uniquely positioned to act as catalysts to transform patriarchal legacies. Using personal and clinical examples, we will review the legacies of patriarchy for white men, identify more healthy patterns for men and offer suggestions for helping them get there. We will address issues of power in personal and organizational relationships, explore how gender, race, sexual orientation and social class shape power differences, and show how these issues influence our clinical work.
2:30 Makungu M. Akinyela: Rescuing and Reconstructing Community for African American Men This presentation will present a therapeutic orientation grounded in African centered cultural values and show how this orientation can guide work with Black men in therapy. Particular focus will be paid to challenging the isolation and alienation often experienced in the broader society by Black men, which gets carried over into relationships and lived experience in the African American community. This isolation and alienation is often spoken of as the experience of “invisibility.” Testimony therapy and ideas related to communitarian theory and the use of metaphors from African American oral traditions will be discussed.
3:30 Panelists Discussion: Makungu Akinyela, Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio, Roberto Font, Anderson J. Franklin, and Matthew Mock
3:50 Evaluation