Cal Domingue, MFT

03/05/2025

At a Mardi Gras Tableau (presentation of the court) & formal ball, to close out the festivities. Brother Dave is ushering & running the show tech from backstage

01/30/2025

As a licensed mental health professional, I feel ethically bound to call out our so-called president's lies in referring to transgender people. His latest executive order includes a shift in language which labels all transgender people as liars, dishonorable, and unstable. He has used more shielded language previously, but this latest fiat is clearly and explicitly inaccurate, intentionally bigoted, and dangerous.

It is also 100% counter to the prevalent view of all organizations of mental health & medical professionals, both in the U.S & international. The fascist enrobed as our President believes that his perspective is superior to that of educated, trained, and licensed professionals who have studied this issue in depth for decades.

There is nothing else to call this except extreme narcissism.

Check for more details on his executive order, which will hopefully face some legal challenges; a great source is Erin Reed. Their commentary can be found here

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-chilling-line-trump-just-crossed?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

A few key lines of summary are these:



"I don’t know where we’re heading as a country, nor what further attacks await transgender people. Even as I write this, Trump has issued yet another executive order—this time, attempting to ban transgender care for youth nationwide by executive fiat. The rapid escalation of these assaults on the trans community, in just over a week of his presidency, paints a grim picture of what lies ahead. Many transgender people I know have already fled to safer states, or even left the country entirely. Some have urged me to do the same—a decision I cannot bring myself to make, though I cannot fault anyone who does. What I do know is that a line has been crossed, one that feels impossible to uncross. The question now is not just where we go from here, but how, or if, we can walk back."

With the latest trans military executive order, the administration has given up all pretense of "evidence-based care," and has moved to the kind of dehumanization meant to justify atrocity.

03/01/2022

I was talking with a client today who is a person of color. He reported his extreme frustration, hurt, outrage, and many other emotions at the lip service being paid by the all-white upper management of the organization he works for. At one point he described the excuses they were making for their lack of equity employment and said "they say those things that white people always say" I was so honored that he felt the safety & freedom to say this in my presence.

Later I had a spontaneous moment of clarity & pointed out that for these administrators, it was a choice (born out by their privilege) to not feel the pain that their decisions are inflicting. If they are persons of empathy, they can't help but feel (to some diminished degree) the impact of their decisions on their employees of color.

Yet, instead of acknowledging that impact & pain, they choose to become defensive around their choices to not prioritize DEi more and to not learn how to do it better.

A lot of this dynamic I have seen many times, and have been sadly aware of it for a long time. And for a long time I've been aware of how some ignore the impact of their choices in favor of ease or profit.

However, today for the 1st time, the cruelty of choosing to ignore someone else's pain struck me almost physically. If we profess to care for someone, how can we ignore the pain caused by our choices?

I don't know if I'm being clear about the subtleties here; it is proving to be very thought-provoking for me

07/30/2021

I know we're all eager to re-engage, and craving contact. But please reference the latest CDC news as reported by the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/health/covid-cdc-delta-masks.html
When folks ask, I'm recommending a return to masks even outdoors when around folks. The Delta variant is even more virulent & transmissible than previously believed. I know masking & more isolation is a bummer, but please err on the side of caution!

Infections in vaccinated Americans are rare, compared with those in unvaccinated people, the document said. But when they occur, vaccinated people may spread the virus just as easily.

05/29/2020

You may or may not be aware that there is a Bill proposed in the CA State Senate which could radically impact the solvency of our psychotherapy businesses (SB939). It would prevent eviction of commercial tenants for a period of time during the pandemic, and would allow commercial lessors to renegotiate or potentially terminate their leases if they are suffering economic hardships because of the pandemic.

The current text of the Bill can be found here:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB939

If you're interested in getting the Bill passed, I urge you to write your senator(s) in support of it. I've uploaded a sample letter to my website, which you can find here:
http://caltherapy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Wiener-SB939.pdf

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

04/22/2020

The healing power of choral music....

by Roy Zimmerman and The ReZisters, featuring Sandy Riccardi. Made in collaboration with the Raging Grannies of Mendocino. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” words an...

03/16/2020

In the face of the COVID-19 coronavirus, my colleagues and I decided over the weekend to go with a teletherapy-only approach to seeing clients. This allows us to continue providing health care services during the San Francisco "shelter in place" mandate that begins tonight. We were able to quickly implement this approach as we began triaging about this possibility 3 weeks back. Hopefully this will help our clients manage their concerns and anxiety in this extra-ordinary time.

06/08/2018