https://www.semel.ucla.edu/pcfa
In the continuing plea for a psychiatry of days gone by, I have accepted the job as Editor of the above Newsletter. I have been a member of the board of this organization since 1995 serving in various capacities including child psychiatry liaison, member of the retreat committee, member of the diversity committee, secretary and now Editor of this newsletter. This organization is a support to the psychiatry trainees in UCLA affiliated programs including the San Fernando Valley Program and the UCLA-Harbor program. We provide low-cost psychotherapy to trainees, along with supervision of trainees. In addition we provide many didactics. For example, in addition to my work on the board of the PCFA, I do individual supervision to four adult psychiatry residents, a shift for me, as I used to provide supervision for child psychiatry fellows. In addition, I give the adult psychiatry residents lectures on childhood assessment, and in the past, I gave the child psychiatry fellows a class on child psychotherapy. Now, I am adding on by helping this newsletter publicize our work, as I feel the strong pull to remind psychiatrists, at all levels in their careers, that listening is an important art, which could sadly be lost, if we are focused on fifteen or thirty minute appointments, with infrequent follow-up. It is my hope that by carrying the torch of listening, both by teaching this art and by doing this art with trainees, then psychiatry will maintain one of its major therapeutic tools, that is, the talking cure.
Shirah Vollmer MD 