Awards

2012 Storyville Winter Story Contest - Finalist for "Warblers"

2010 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition - Honorable Mention for "Suburbia"

2008 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition - Honorable Mention for "Wizzy-wig"

Anthologies

"Something Always Knows" in Tell Me Again: Poetry and Prose from The Healing Art of Writing, 2012
Editor: Joan Baranow
An account of my near death experience, and coma following the birth of my son.

 

Columns
Huffington Post

Splat

Posted May 16, 2012 |

Well, so much for my wisdom and clarity, my hopes and faith. I'm deep in depression, because after my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I reached a fair-ish settlement, by a fluke I found out that he'd been lying to me the whole time regarding his pension. The amount of his pension that...

Limbo, A Musical Interlude

| Posted March 12, 2012

Sitting here in limbo, but I know it won't be long.
Sitting here in limbo, like a bird without a song.

The soft Reggae tones of Jimmy Cliff weave through my thoughts, a lovely interlude in the otherwise angst-ridden landscape of my brain. I'm pierced with quills from the...

Occupy Valentine's Day

| Posted February 13, 2012 |

I feel assaulted whenever I encounter clichéd images of romance -- advertisements to buy flowers, candy, diamonds, sexy underwear, even cell phones -- all to show love. Buy, buy, buy! Love, love, love! I say Bah Humbug!

News flash: a lot of us are single and are not going to...

Four Stages Of Divorce: Break-up, Breakdown, Breakthrough and Breakover

| Posted December 29, 2011 |

From my professional and personal experience, I have observed four phases to a divorce or the ending of an intimate relationship. Mine started with the:

n break-up
1. a separation or disintegration

I can't forget that Tuesday night call, even though we spoke every night. I was in Hawaii,...

 

Activated!
http://www.leftcoastwriters.com/activated/
Read what it's like to be activated by a federal Disaster Medical Action Team.

 

Podcasts

Deployment to Disaster and the Difficult Return to Society
February 19, 2015 - The Disaster Podcast

Semper Gumby – Staying Flexible on Disaster Deployments
February 12, 2015 - The Disaster Podcast

 

DVDs

A Video Series For Disaster Responders:
Psychological First Aid
Calvalcade Productions

 

Chapters


Somatic consciousness in adult sandplay therapy
http://books.google.com/books?id=yFaOsNkWTvsC&pg=PA233&lpg=PA233&dq=Somatic+consciousness+in+adult+sandplay+therapy&source=web&ots=Ki3CMp3DMR&sig=4Y812y5PNFfMHbXz8CsXxCIJQPM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=resultA chapter in Play Therapy with Adults Edited by Charles E. Schaefer, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN:0471264946

Reflections on Sandplay Supervision: As Above, So Below.
http://books.google.com/books?id=2hPr8hNoLM0C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=Amatruda,+Reflections+on+Sandplay+Supervision:+As+Above,+So+Below.+As+Inside,+So+Outside.&source=bl&ots=mWUFUuNcOt&sig=2-KrteSVB8VZXiRAavhN489j08Q&hl=en&ei=t-e4TPXDHoeqsAPb3KHiDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Amatruda%2C%20Reflections%20on%20Sandplay%20Supervision%3A%20As%20Above%2C%20So%20Below.%20As%20Inside%2C%20So%20Outside.&f=falseA Chapter in Supervision of Sandplay Therapy Edited by Harriet S. Friedman, Rie Rogers Mitchell, Routledge, ISBN: 978-0-415-410908

(note: Excerpt begins on p.73)

Journal Articles:

Haiti: Deploying with a Disaster Medical Assistance Team,” in THE THERAPIST, Volume 22, Issue 4, July/August 2010.

Want to go to exotic (and sometimes not so exotic) places? Become a Disaster Mental Health Volunteer with the Red Cross!” PLAY THERAPY MAGAZINE, Volume 5, Issue 3, September 2010.

"Bearing Witness" in THE THERAPIST, Volume 20, Issue 3, May/June 2008

"Reflections on September 11" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume XI, No. 1, Spring 2002.

"Kaspar Kiepenheuer: In Memory, 1942 - 2001" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume X, No. 2, Fall 2001.

"The Haunted Boy" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume IX, No. 1, Fall 2000.

"Glimpsing Sacred Mountain: A Brief Sandplay Process of a Boy with Cancer" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume VII, No. 2, Fall 1998.

"The World Where Worlds Meet" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume VI, No. 2, Fall 1997.
.
"The Sacred Journey" in JOURNAL OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume III, No. 1, Fall 1993.

"Brief Sandplay Therapy with Child Trauma Victims: A Psycho-Spiritual Somatic Treatment Model," in ARCHIVES OF SANDPLAY THERAPY, Volume 2, NO. 1, 1989.

"The Dying Child and the Family," "The Family After the Child Dies," and "Resource List: Bay Area Services for Families and Children with Life Threatening Illnesses, "in HOSPICE REPORT, Issues 14-16, February - April, 1981.

 

Books & Online Courses


A Field Guide to Disaster Mental Health
http://www.psychceu.com/disasterresponse/field_guide_index.asp
A Field Guide to Disaster Mental Health: The Very Big Wave and the Mean Old Storm

A Supervisor's Journal I: Clinical Supervision, Law and Ethics

http://www.psychceu.com/super/superindex.asp
Faster than a speeding bullet
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
Look! Up in the sky!
It's a bird! It's a plane!
It's Super...visor!
(You are kidding, right? No one can live up to that!)


A Supervisor's Journal II: Advanced Clinical Supervision
http://www.psychceu.com/super/superindex2.asp
I sat down, dreading my new student. (DSM-S (The DSM for Supervisors) 367.46S-D (The Supervisor's own stuff: Dreading the upcoming supervision session) She was an advanced intern, and was no doubt in that awful place where she didn't know how much she didn't know!

A Therapist's Oath
http://www.psychceu.com/ethics/goodtherapy_index.asp
As a licensed therapist, I took no oath when I received my license to practice. Professional mental health therapists swear nothing. It's time that we do...

As Above, So Below: Clinical Supervision, Law and Ethics
http://www.psychceu.com/super/super15index.asp
The Journal of an anonymous supervisor, including raw and unedited countertransference material, as well as examples of Parallel Process in action
Featuring excerpts from DSM-S - The DSM-Supervisors, with a special examination of DSM-S 004.78 -Engaging in an Act of Desperation by Desperate Supervisor

HIV: The Storm
http://psychceu.com/hivindex.asp
Follow the compelling journey of Sarah, a 33 year old woman, who discovers she has HIV. Learn about HIV and AIDS as you explore clinical issues, spiritual, ethical and legal questions, countertransference, passion and compassion.

Psyche & Soma: Psychotherapy and the Body
http://www.psychceu.com/psyche&somaintro.asp
This groundbreaking work explores the mysterious world of the mind/body connection. Play therapy and sandplay therapy provide a keyhole through which we glimpse the inner world of healing.

RED flags for Intimate Partner Violence - Spousal and Partner Abuse
http://www.psychceu.com/DV/DV3/dv3_index.asp

Sandplay, The Sacred Healing: A Guide to Symbolic Process
http://psychceu.com/sandplaybookpage1.asp
How does sandplay therapy heal and how do you do it? How does it differ with children and adults? How do you recognize and pass transference tests? How do you follow symbolic process? ISBN 0966579909

School Shootings
http://www.psychceu.com/school_violence/schoolviolence_index.asp
'Red flags' for assessment, detection, and signs of school violence

Stop Child Abuse
http://www.psychceu.com/child_abuse/childabuseindex.asp
Includes Hansel and Gretel - A story of Child neglect and abuse
Snow White - A story of multiple child murder attempts
Sedna - A story of a murdered child
The Girl without Hands - A story of child prostitution and mutilation

Stop Partner & Spousal Abuse
http://www.psychceu.com/DV/dvindex.asp
If you are in danger call 911 or
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800 799 SAFE or
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800 656 HOPE

The Witch and the Queen
http://psychceu.com/witchandqueen/1.index.asp
The Witch and the Queen: Psychotherapy with Women at Midlife and Beyond

TLC: Tender Loving Care for our Elders
http://www.psychceu.com/TLC/tlcindex.asp
It was Edith's daughter, Meredith, who realized that there was something wrong with her mother. Meredith kept calling her mother on the phone, and was concerned when there was no answer. She left work in a panic, and drove over to her mother's house. Edith had fallen down her stairs, and gashed her head.

Trauma, Terror and Treatment: PTSD in children and adults
http://psychceu.com/trauma.asp
Who did this? Why did this happen? What will happen next? Every sense is impacted..the sounds of screams and sirens. The sensation of horror, in the gut.

Trauma Treatment - September 11 - One Year Later
http://psychceu.com/trauma_dvd/disaster.asp
A Frontiers.TV produced interview with Kate Amatruda on the treatment of trauma. DVD.

Tsunami Journal
http://www.psychceu.com/tsunami/tsunamijournal.html
I have not slept through the night since I returned from Sri Lanka five days ago. It is the eyes that haunt me; the eyes of the father whose daughter was ripped out of his arms, the eyes of the ...