During this seminar, Dr. Erickson describes essential skills for working with resistant patients, the use of permissive language, ordeal therapy, geometric progression, and therapeutic double binds. Erickson conducts a demonstration, answers questions from the audience, and elaborates on his thinking with case illustrations that include: sexual dysfunction, stuttering, bed wetting, childhood eating disorders, compulsive habits, phobias and self-defeating behavior.
Heuristic (hyoo' ristik) Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves. A "hands on" approach to learning. What would it look like if the primary goal of therapy were to enable clients to discover, experience for themselves the goals they set in therapy. A simple model for heuristic helping will be presented.
Now that you understand the neuropsychology of attachment, how are you going to use it in a session where one partner is yelling at the other for abandoning him/her who is in turn trying to take refuge under the coach? Learn how to put theory into practice using an experiential approach to explore old neural circuitry around attachment and build new pathways. We will be using the present moment and mindfulness integrated into therapy to slow things down and rewire the brain.
Two particularly challenging issues that surface in couples therapy are addiction and self absorption. Through the lens of the Developmental Model of Couples Therapy, Sue and Ellyn will describe how to make strategic treatment decisions that propel couples toward sobriety and more collaborative functioning. They will review the troublesome traits of the self-absorbed partner and illuminate ways to increase other-differentiation and increase caring and compassion.
Engaging withdrawn men in therapy is often challenging, particularly when the man is engaged in compulsive sexual behaviors such as affairs and pornography. Therapists will learn to how to engage withdrawers both with their own internal experience and disowned aspects of the self and with their partner. Therapy video will be used to demonstrate the process.
Gay men face unique challenges regarding intimacy, communication and personal autonomy. Hiding due to being gay along with being raised male, creates a dynamic of distancing as the norm. The goal of psychotherapy is to accept and verbalize vulnerabilities in a context of safety, encourage revealing oneself for the sake of self-acceptance, and to learn how to receive nurturance from others. This workshop will define the art of how to gain connection while maintaining autonomy. There will also be an emphasis on sexuality and how specific attachment styles effects choices related to safety, security and risky sexual practices.
In this set, Erickson communicates the timeless principles of hypnosis that he observed, discovered and utilized. He emphasizes the paramount importance of protecting the patient and establishing trust as the very foundation of the cooperative relationship characteristic of hypnosis. He stresses the importance of understanding the meaningful need of the patient and reviews, with many examples, the techniques of rehearsal, uncovering, dissociation, regression, time-distortion, revivification, visualization, orientation to the past and to the future, trusting the unconscious mind, and post-hypnotic suggestion.