For Providers

Illinois Social Workers and Counselors: Our CE Renewal Bundle is Here!

Bundle and save 35% on three CE courses

If you’re a Social Worker or Professional Counselor in Illinois, 2023 is the license renewal year. And this year there are some new requirements. Specifically:  We’re here to help! Now for only $29, you can get all three of our CE courses plus access to our free (non-CE) sexual harassment prevention training for Chicago/Illinois.  What makes…

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An Interview with Clinical Director Alexandra Backis of Chicago Compass Counseling

Spotlight on Alexandra Backis, Therapist and Clinical Director in Chicago, IL What does anti-racist practice look like in psychotherapy? Today, we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Backis, LCSW. As Clinical Director, Alexandra draws on over a decade of experience incorporating anti-oppressive practice in her work as a therapist and supervisor in how she guides…

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PRESS RELEASE: CCC Announces New Executive Director

Chicago, Illinois, October 10, 2020 – Chicago Compass Counseling (“CCC”) welcomes Dennis Nguyen as its new executive director. Nguyen succeeds founder and owner Sarah Suzuki, who served in this capacity since 2017. Nguyen first joined CCC – a Chicago-based group counseling practice dedicated to helping people break free from self-destructive behaviors – in 2018 as…

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Rising Suicides Among Black Residents of Cook County

The Chicago Sun-Times interviewed Matt Lawson on the alarming increase in suicides among Black residents of Cook County. (Check out the full interview here): “Within the first month of George Floyd happening, that conversation became very front and center,” says Matt Lawson, a counselor at Chicago Compass Counseling. “That conversation has led into a lot…

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Farewell, Strategic Accommodation: An Elegy to White Supremacy

What does it mean to live in survival mode, to survive as an Asian American in a racist country? As a child growing up in a white suburb during the 90s “colorblindness” era, I wasted many years strategically accommodating White Supremacy. Wasting energy. Wasting time. Diminishing myself to uphold White Supremacy. Again. And again. While…

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Why Therapists are in Denial About Denial

Ah, denial: the hallmark of addiction. “He’s in denial,” a therapist will say to me, usually with a raised eyebrow and heavy sigh. The field of substance abuse was built on a professional foundation of breaking through denial. “Therapeutic communities” like Synanon in California (basically a treatment cult) would break through the denial of their…

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