Earn 3 CEUs!*
Dr. Sunitha Chandy, Psy.D., a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Founder of Artesian Collaborative, has worked with diverse individuals and communities for over 20 years. She aims to equip people with skills to tap into their resources during painful and tense situations. Her commitment to community-based and systemic thinking has led her to bring skills beyond the therapy room into diverse environments, including Fortune 100 companies, Small Businesses, NGOs, Nonprofits, community organizations, hospital systems, and private practice. Her expertise in developmental psychology, trauma-informed care, cross-cultural engagement, and working with high-risk populations in her clinical work has equipped her to aid teams, even those with intense conflict, in reaching a place of shared understanding and engagement.
Sithara Stohr is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and licensed yoga and meditation instructor. They have experience in organizing and supporting restorative justice and social justice initiatives with a passion for bridging gaps in communication within communities in need of support. Throughout their career, they have had the opportunity to provide mental health services directly to a wide variety of communities. Their experiences have provided them with the needed facilitation skills to lead large group training events, small groups, and community-based interventions. Sithara utilizes a somatic-focused, strengths-based, and person-centered approach within all facets of their work. In a training or community setting, they excel at fostering safe spaces for teams to work through tension together. Their work focuses on creating connection and providing sustainable skills to maintain the work outside of sessions. They value community and believe that healing and growth often happen in these supported group spaces.
Mel Burbules, M.Ed, individual, couple and family therapist with Artesian Collaborative, believes in the power of authentic, collaborative relationships to foster personal growth. Drawing on her background as a professional opera singer, she helps clients connect with their true “voice.” Her work is grounded in Person-Centered Therapy, feminist theory, and advocacy, with a focus on anxiety, identity, trauma, and the impact of systemic injustice—especially for women of color and LGBTQIA+ clients. Melanie’s compassionate, curiosity-driven approach supports clients in aligning with their most authentic selves.
Description
Core Concepts
Understanding Yourself
Your perspective of the world is shaped by the identities you see and focus on. This section provides the foundation for how we see the world and how our experiences are shaped by identity factors we are and are not exposed to in development. This section creates the foundation for normalizing blindspots and ways we can increase awareness to address them.
Tension of Bias
This section explores the progression from blindspots to unconscious bias, to microaggression. The environmental and personal impact of unconscious bias and microaggressions on the person committing a microaggression, the person receiving it, and those observing it are discussed.
Tension of Privilege
Through activity and discussion, participants explore the concept of privilege and how it impacts social interactions. The tension around historic and situational aspects of privilege is discussed along with the different perspectives those with and without privilege may have.
Approaching Differences
There are many ways to approach uncomfortable and new experiences. This section provides a framework that focuses on normalizing the tension inherent in cross-cultural interactions and values and behaviors that enable people to stay open to diverse experiences.
Skills to Engage
Preparing for Tension
We will review skills focused on preparing yourself for situations that you expect may lead to tension. These skills will also assist you in reflecting on your own identity and experiences and understanding how this affects your interactions with others. The goal of these skills is to help you develop an internal awareness of how you respond in moments of tension in order to care for yourself and engage with others.
Approaching Differences
Our training will explore the approaching differences model. This skill allows you to reflect on what kind of internal space you are engaging from. We then process together how to shift toward interactions that follow a pathway of openness and empathy.
Key Takeaways
Engaging the tension of diversity provides foundational skills to interact in ways that align with a pathway of openness in moments of tension. We all have moments when we fall off this pathway, for many reasons. The key goal of this training is to help you recognize when this is happening so that you can reflect and intervene in order to work your way back to an open pathway to support the vital work you do as a mental health professional.
Objectives:
1. Examine tension's purpose and its positive impact on individual and team growth and engagement.
2. Analyze how individual identity influences perspectives and group interactions.
3. Define microaggressions and discuss their impact on the aggressor, victim, and observer.
4. Explore different experiences of privilege based on different aspects of identity.
5. Recognize the two responses to differences in conflict situations and evaluate actions to foster a culture of belonging.
* This CE activity offered by Minnesota Association of Marriage and Family is approved by the Minnesota Board of Social Work as an approved CE Provider (approval valid through July 25, 2026).
This CE activity is pending CE approval with Minnesota Board of Behavioral Health and Board of Marriage and Family Therapy.
