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Kathy Cregan
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Kathy
joined the fledgling PSI as a partner in the winter of 1982 and worked
part-time until 1989 when she finally quit her “day job”!
Her interest in therapy germinated while she was in college in the
early 70’s. Although she
started out as a biology major, her viewpoint shifted from the microscopic
to the human level. She
changed her major to human development and worked with children in
residential settings as part of an internship.
Finding the work challenging, she continued as an employee of the
Sacramento Children’s Home for two years.
This position helped finance her B.S. in human development (UC
Davis, 1976). Unfortunately,
she found the therapeutic models and approaches she’d been taught didn’t
do a very good job of explaining how people really work. |
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Hoping
for better answers, she entered San Diego State University in 1977 to
pursue a Master’s degree in social work , with a specialization in
children, youth, and families. Her
fieldwork also included experience with the elderly, and terminally ill.
She supported herself by working evenings and weekends at the San
Diego Center for Children. While
in graduate school, Kathy was exposed to systems theory and family therapy
as an alternative treatment for children and adults. Family work made sense to her and she continued to pursue
experience in this area. After
earning her MSW in 1979, she moved to the Puget Sound area, working as a
social worker for Saint Ann’s Home in Tacoma, which subsequently
reinforced her belief in family treatment and that children should be
raised in family environments, not institutions.
In 1980 Kathy became program supervisor for the then new Tacoma
Crisis Residential Center (CRC), working with runaways and adolescents
experiencing family problems. She
also did contract family therapy for Catholic Community Services and
continued both positions for three years. |
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Beginning
in 1981 Kathy began seeing couples and families privately, as a
co-therapist with Dr. Jerry Rose and Scott Aton.
The experience of seeing clients outside of an agency setting was
much more challenging as well as stimulating, and started her on the track
toward a career as a private therapist.
But she would first need a lot more training before committing to
that path and she still had a passion to make a difference in the
treatment of Puget Sound’s children.
To that end she left the CRC in 1983 to establish and direct the
CHANCE Program. CHANCE provided foster care and therapeutic services for
severely troubled children (the “last chance kids”). The program was built around
family treatment and became quite successful in returning children
to their own families.
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Kathy
felt she had fulfilled her original commitment to children and families
and in 1989 turned to the second part of career—full time at PSI.
During those years she had broadened her scope to include
individual depth psychotherapy. Her expertise in Systems Theory has been enhanced by her
study of Jungian psychology and dream interpretation.
Kathy
is married and a step-mom to three kids and a cat! Her other love is gardening, which
she does whenever she can get outdoors.
She is also a recent convert to baseball, surprising everyone
including herself!
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