Alumni Spotlight: Caitlin Crum

“Psychology has intrigued me since childhood, and I’ve always been curious to look at people’s identities, interpersonal relatedness, and the challenges that we experience from multiple vantage points,” shared Caitlin Crum, who graduated from the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology Program in 2010.

Caiti was born in New York and grew up in southeastern Wisconsin. “We lived in a rural community and I spent a lot of time running around outside,” she recalled. “We didn’t have any neighbors close by and I had miles of beach and woods to explore.” Caiti was an only child, but developed very close friendships in her childhood with people she now considers her “chosen siblings.” From first through twelfth grade, she attended a rigorous college preparatory school. “The autonomy I developed early on and deep trust and connection with the earth around me were foundational to informing my values and identity,” she shared.

Instituto Familiar de la Raza’s Clinical Internship Program Receives Grant from Kaiser Permanente4>

"IFR recently received a $75,000 grant from a Kaiser Permanente fund at the East Bay Community Foundation to help increase the clinical trainees’ stipends, provide resources for more clinician supervision, and support culturally based trainings in various modalities and venues...The interns come from institutions including San Francisco State University, U.C. Berkeley, and The Wright Institute for 2 semesters of classes and supervised on-the-job training. Competition is steep to intern at IFR."

Read more here.

Obituary: Dr. Madeline McGinley

Madeline McGinley, a 2001 graduate of the Wright Institute's Clinical Psychology Program, passed away on Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at her home.

"She worked for The Permanente Medical Group in various locations in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 years. Madeline had a love of animals, adopting rescues and participating in many events benefiting various charities."

View her complete obituary here.

Obituary: Dr. Karen Postal

Karen Spangenberg Postal, a 1996 graduate of the Wright Institute's Clinical Psychology Program, passed away on March 20th, 2023 due to ovarian cancer.

"Dr. Postal was an exceptional clinical neuropsychologist, who valued and refined the art of communicating neuropsychology in clinical practice with her patients and in the forensic arena as an expert witness."

View her complete obituary here.

Alex Del Prete in the News

Alex Del Prete, a doctoral student in the Wright Institute's Clinical Psychology Program, was recently featured in Newswires. Del Prete led a Q&A with author Dorothy E. Roberts sponsored by San Francisco CASA, Homeless Prenatal Program and The Bar Association of San Francisco.

The Q&A explored "how racial bias in the U.S. welfare system leads to a disproportionate number of Black and Native American children taken from their families. In San Francisco County, nearly 46% of foster kids are Black while less than 5% of the city's child population is Black. Meanwhile, the high cost of living in San Francisco means 65% of foster youth are placed outside the Bay Area where more adults can afford to foster, but far from the childrens’ home communities, their schools, and their parents."

Read the full article here.

“Something that I feel really resonates with me at the Wright Institute is the power of community,” shared Erin McQueen, a second year student in the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology Program. “To be in one place with one group of people for a period of time, and to move through that experience together can be really supportive.”

“I have many reasons to be grateful for the work I do,” reflected Dr. Kristin Dempsey, full-time core faculty member in the Wright Institute’s Counseling Psychology Program. “I mostly think about how this work has given me meaning and has allowed me to participate in powerful work throughout my life. Good days or bad, I have always felt anchored in the fact that what I do matters.”

Dr. Dempsey grew up as the youngest of six children in a working class family in Mendocino County, California. Her father, a WWII veteran, worked in the logging industry and her mother stayed home with the children then later worked as a teacher. Dr. Dempsey attended rural public schools in Mendocino County, which suffered from a lack of resources. “I have really good memories,” she shared, “of being in touch with the natural world and going out and playing all day long with friends.”

New Book Co-Authored by Three Wright Alumni

Drs. Adam Blum, Peter Goldberg, and Michael Levin, all Wright Institute Clinical Program Alumni, have published a book called Here I'm Alive: The Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis.

"Here I’m Alive explores the musical foundation of being human from a psychoanalytic perspective. Writing in collaboration, three psychoanalytic clinicians develop a fresh vision of the essential role of music in psychical life. Through an interdisciplinary exploration, Here I’m Alive shows how music is fundamental to becoming human, establishing our embodied sense of membership and participation in a shared world through the fabric of culture. With one authorial voice, these pages resonate with the musical forms of living that make possible any individual style of conduct or shape of desire and without which we are forever lost in the noise."

Order the book here.

Dr. O'Connor in Psychology Today

Dr. O'Connor recently published an article in Psychology Today entitled "Are Productive Habits the Result of Social Status?"

"Many believe that small habits lead to productivity, but the truth may be the opposite—that high status leads to productive habits."

Read the full article here.

Wright Institute Alumna Amalia Mesa-Bains featured in Berkeleyside

"Despite having a MacArthur “genius” grant, among other accolades, Amalia Mesa-Bains, like many Chicana artists of her generation, has always had to work harder than most for attention from the mainstream art world. Now, the 79-year-old Bay Area artist is receiving her first museum retrospective, opening Feb. 4 at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive."

Read the full article here.