President's Message — Nazila Amighi, LMFT

It has been a great privilege to serve you!

Okay, my friends and colleagues, it is getting close to the end of my term as the President of our Chapter. This opportunity has provided me with the honor of getting to know, and deeply connect, with so many of you. At every networking meeting, I would wait close to the door of the Woodland Hills Country Club for the possibility of seeing each and every one of your kind faces walking through that door. My year of guiding this enthusiastic group of professionals has invited me to appreciate our SFV-CAMFT community, strengthen my leadership skills, and live in the land of possibilities. Thank you all for spending your Sunday mornings with us and for brining your positive energies with you. You have contributed to our chapter with your valued presence.

I have felt the presence and dedication of all of our Board Members this year. I have had the honor to work with such committed, talented, and enthusiastic individuals. With their help, we have achieved many of our goals. We have developed partnerships with other mental health and allied professional organizations to create additional networking opportunities for members. We have increased our membership from 196 to 256 therapists. We restructured our sponsorship committee. We changed our membership levels to create more opportunities for people outside of our profession to join us. We adopted many new systems for our chapter administration. We created new or improved policies and more reciprocity with other chapters, including an appreciation-dinner event, and we will continue to working toward other improvements until the end of the year, and my term as President.

There are some people who I want to thank in particular. First, and foremost, is Barbara Calvi. Barbara met with me every Friday last year in order to prepare me for my role as president. She was always present and interested in helping me learn how best to serve our community. I truly felt unconditional, positive regard from her, and knew that I did, and would have her full support at all times during this past year and a half. The second person is Nikki Gabriel, for agreeing to be the president next year. I truly appreciate that Nikki has always shown up willing to accept responsibilities and work toward bettering our chapter. She is kind, caring, and supportive. I am certain that next year is going to be a great year for our chapter with Nikki as our president.

Lastly, I want to thank all the members for attending our meetings, all the Board members for their extra time and commitment, all the people who volunteered to help us, and Mike Johnsen our editor.

I wish you all a Happy Holiday and a Happy, successful and prosperous 2019! I hope this upcoming year is full of joy, happiness, good health, and even more success for you all and your families.

Nazila Amighi is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in Sherman Oaks. She applies her skills in Narrative Therapy, Encounter-centered Couples Therapy, Trauma Resiliency Model, Attachment theory, a certified premarital counselor through Prepare/Enrich, and Clinical Aggression Replacement Training. She also Co-facilitated court-referred anger management groups. Her expertise is working with couples, premarital counseling, and the problems that is common with cultural differences in relationships. Nazila came to the United States 36 years ago from Iran. That experience gives her unique insight into her client's challenges as they assimilate in terms of both language and culture. She is fluent in English and Farsi and provides clinical consultation to other therapists navigating cross-cultural issues. Learn more about Nazila Amighi by visiting her website at www.nazilaamighi.com. She can be reached at 310.927.0194 or email her at nazilaamighi@gmail.com.