Psych Media Discussion Group – This Is How It Always Is

We’ll discuss the novel This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. I’m thrilled to announce that the author herself will be joining us! Psychologist Stephanie Adams Mendez, PhD and CalPsychiatry’s Nancy Wu, MD will also join as an expert discussants.

About the speakers:
Laurie Frankel
Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of four novels, including her most recent One Two Three and This Is How It Always Is. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Publisher’s Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and been optioned for film and TV. A former college professor, she now writes full-time in Seattle, Washington where she lives with her family and makes good soup.

Dr. Stephanie Adams Mendez
Dr. Stephanie Adams Mendez is a licensed clinical psychologist and Nationally Certified School Psychologist. She currently works as a school psychologist for Bright Star Schools, an independent charter of Los Angeles Unified, and provides therapy and assessment for children and adults through her private practice, Empowered Together Psychological Services (www.empoweredtogetherla.com). She emphasizes providing services that help clients better understand themselves and how to advocate for their needs in an ableist, difficult world. Much of her research and clinical work focuses on promoting family and school-based support for LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent youth. She trains professionals in clinics, hospitals, schools, and universities on how to provide culturally responsive neurodiversity- and gender-affirming care.

Dr. Adams Mendez earned a combined Ph.D. in Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology and two Master’s degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara and completed a two-year APA accredited postdoctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She has provided behavioral health services to children and their families across school, community mental health, and hospital settings for over a decade.

Dr. Nancy Wu
Dr. Wu is a board-certified Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist with over twenty years of clinical experience treating a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses. She specializes in childhood/adolescent developmental struggles, ADHD, and mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders. Dr. Wu earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her adult psychiatry residency at University of California, San Francisco, and her child/adolescent fellowship at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.