Open Paths Counseling Center

09/10/2025

Mental Health Pioneer Spotlight: Dr. Carolyn Attneave

Dr. Carolyn Attneave’s Lenni-Lannape grandfather taught her that the key to surviving in any culture was to understand it. Carrying her grandfather’s lessons into her professional work, Dr. Attneave developed therapeutic approaches that placed a patient’s cultural identity, relationships, and community networks at the heart of healing.

Throughout her academic and clinical career, Dr. Carolyn Attneave remained devoted to approaches honoring tribal sovereignty and community definitions of well-being. Her enduring contributions continue to guide community-centered care models, and her impact is commemorated by the prestigious Carolyn Attneave Diversity Award recognizing excellence in multicultural family psychology.

09/09/2025

Three questions to tell if you're helping someone by empowering them or hindering then by enabling :

1. Is this a pattern? Helping once = support. Helping with the same issue repeatedly = enabling.
2. Who's more invested in solving this? If you care more about their problem than they do, that's enabling.
3. Are you removing consequences? Supporting someone through job loss = empowering. Calling in sick for them because they're hungover for the fifth time= enabling.

Genuine crises deserve genuine help. But when you’re constantly stepping in, it might be time for all parties to have a boundaries check.

09/08/2025

09/06/2025

Everyone struggles at some point in their life. Most of us will experience depression, anxiety, trauma, anger, grief or loneliness, for a variety of reasons. Along with individual counseling, Open Paths offers a variety of support, psychoeducational and process groups - most in Spanish and English.

Call (310) 258-9677 or email inquiry@openpaths.org

09/03/2025

From migrant farm worker to Vietnam veteran to respected psychologist, Dr. Duran recognized that conventional Western therapy often failed Indigenous communities. His revolutionary concept of "soul wounding" describes how historical trauma from colonization and genocide affects not just individuals' minds and bodies, but their spirits and communities across generations—requiring holistic, culturally-appropriate healing approaches.

09/02/2025

You are a complex person and effective therapy takes that into account. This week's Tuesday Terms explore the different ways you and your therapist might look at your life. Understanding that your cultural experiences, multiple identities, and background all intersect to shape who you are helps to hone in on the best paths towards effective and sustainable healing.

08/27/2025

Dr. Martha E. Bernal was a lauded psychologist who innovated treatment modalities for children, advocated for integrating multicultural perspectives into psychological training, and expanded the numbers of BIPOC clinicians ready to serve.

Growing up in 1930s Texas wasn't fertile ground for seeding a Latina psychologist. As a Mexican American, she navigated structurally embedded racism. As a woman, higher education was considered “wasteful” and after entering higher education, she discovered female students faced exclusion from research opportunities and sexual harassment from professors. These early encounters with systemic barriers became the foundation for her life's work.

After becoming the first Latina to earn her doctorate in psychology, Bernal took skills honed navigating around racist and sexist barriers and began putting them to use to achieve further goals. When she couldn't find funding for multicultural research, she repositioned her approach as studying professional training gaps, securing a 1979 National Research Service Award from NIMH. Her subsequent national survey documenting the virtual absence of students and faculty of color in psychology programs resulted in other funding solutions, policy changes, and ongoing research infrastructure that continues to impact psychology training today.

Dr. Bernal was instrumental in the development of many groundbreaking methods for improving lives, but her greatest contribution was in creating pathways. Dr. Bernal helped establish APA's Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs and mentored countless students of color. Her insistence that "I rose because of my Mexican heritage" continues to inspire therapists who understand that cultural identity is a source of strength, not something to overcome.

08/25/2025

This posted today🥰: a Voyage LA interview with our Executive Director, Sierra Smith.

Thank you, Voyage LA

Today we'd like to introduce you to Sierra Smith. Hi Sierra, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?I was born and raised in Northern California, spending my early ye

08/20/2025

This week’s Tuesday Terms center around being a better listener:
🔹 Reflective Listening— mirror back words and feelings.
🔹 Empathic Listening — connect heart to heart.
🔹 Attuned Listening — notice tone, pace, and body language.
Whether you’re in therapy, chatting with a friend, or on a first date, these skills are the secret sauce to feeling really heard — and making others feel the same.