Dr. Magardechian trains/supervises her students all in accordance to the Collaborative Language Systems Approach. Here is more research on her philosophy that she compiled in graduate school:
Self of the Therapist
My reason for choosing the CLS model is because I whole heartedly love taking on the philosophical stance of being curious and non-judgmental with people. Growing up with not a lot of money to keep up with technology, materials and resources, I was constantly bullied and judged because I didn’t fit in with the dominant discourse. At times I hated being a Persian Armenian, who had an accent, and spoke English as a second language. However, I grew to love myself the way I was and the circumstances I grew up in because of my positive parents. My parents were always pushing me to see the beauty in everything even though they had gone through many struggles. They had no support from their parents or siblings when they wanted to migrate from Iran, to Germany (i.e., my birthplace), then to the United States of America. Not only did my ancestors have to flee Armenia due to the Armenian Genocide to come to Iran, but my parents had to flee from Iran due to the oppression that was happening to the Christians by the Muslim government. They had to learn English by pushing themselves to interact with locals and did not have any kind of support system when they moved to the states. In spite of all these hardships, they managed to raise my siblings and I with love and constant honesty. They would always preach to us to never assume we knew everything and to not judge people who were different from us. For this reason, I have a passion to learn about other cultures and the ways in which they live life. That was my reason for going to the India Immersion Program with Alliant in the year of 2009. I am accustomed to being open to new experiences and also embracing that there is beauty in differences. I believe that is why I can relate to and conduct CLS therapy so well, since I have grown up with similar ways of thinking.
I also enjoy the idea of letting the client take the expert role, because I have been to therapy myself and I did not like it when the therapist would tell me what to discuss or do. So for that reason I also enjoy giving my clients the space and time to express what they feel is important and worth talking about. In addition, I love working with couples and helping them reach their goals. Therefore this was a perfect opportunity for me to really think about the steps in conducting CLS couples therapy. I hope to present more on CLS and even one day teach students about the concepts and philosophy. I personally feel like it has helped me grow as a professional and I have even used CLS thinking in my own life and have found it to be useful and helpful.
Empirical Support
When considering postmodern family therapy research, it is mainly conducted with the qualitative methodology (Hertlein, Lambert-Shute, & Benson, 2004). According to Hertlein, Lambert-Shute, and Benson (2004) qualitative methodology is a highly respected and good fit for post-modern approaches (i.e., Collaborative Language Systems Therapy). Hertlein et al. (2004) also suggests that when conducting postmodern research that qualitative approaches allows room for multiple realities instead of understanding a family in one particular way. In addition, postmodern research is on the rise in many highly known fields such as, medicine, education, and social work (Hertlein, Lambert-Shute, & Benson, 2004).
WAC 