This program focuses more closely on the needs of clinicians who fall into particularly high risk groups. Topics include confidentiality and privilege for children, coping with high-conflict divorce/custody families, the regressive impact of the regulatory environment on family therapy in particular, supervision/consultation issues that arise for professionals whose agency positions may include functions that conflict with ethical codes.
This workshop will explore trauma along a child's developmental continuum. We will investigate how the effects of trauma can result not only from catastrophic events, but from commonplace events. At the core of this understanding is the unique way that trauma is imprinted on the body, brain and spirit. This workshop will demonstrate how trauma can be both prevented and resolved through play, art and sensory-motor activities. Participants will learn through combination of lectures, videos, case presentations and experiential activities.
The evidence that the relationship matters in psychotherapy is vast, but that knowledge is of limited usefulness until it is known how to create powerful therapeutic relationships. The relevance of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) model to this issue is described, and specific methods are described and shown that can increase the potency of the therapeutic relationship.
"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it." - Kurt Lewin. Change is one of the most challenging aspects of life. Yet there are identifiable ways we all change. In this short session, you will learn the seven major ways people change and how to identify and tap into people's natural motivational styles to create change.
It is common to see clients who present with complex arrays of symptoms. These symptoms can be persistent or "mutate" unexpectedly, leaving patient and therapist feeling confused, frustrated and helpless. In this presentation, we will see how states of unresolved stress and trauma can be the underlying force that drives multiple elusive symptoms. These include panic, depression, insomnia, migraines, severe PMS, chronic pain, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
One in three couples experience a sexual desire gap, a difference leads to infidelity or divorce. Additionally, the compelling statistic that one out of ten couples has a sexless marriage makes it apparent why so many couples are losing touch. Learn how to help couples bring passion back into marriage. Also, learn how to help couples heal from infidelity.
The experience of being a therapist can often seem routine, dealing with similar issues, telling well-worn stories, and applying favored methods. Yet occasionally there are moments, even whole sessions, that appear miraculous in their innovation. This workshop explores the process and mechanisms of creative breakthroughs, based on interviews with the world's most innovative clinicians.
Change is a three-part rite of passage: separation from the known; wandering in the wilderness; and the return transformed. The second stage is hardest to navigate, often interrupted by the premature need for closure. A specific skill set including inquiry, mindfulness, curiosity and stillness provides essential competencies for moving through change.
In this workshop, we will explore the unique emotional development of boys and men, the different ways men and women respond to psychotherapy, and the special psychological challenges men face, including their preoccupation with money, power, and competition, as well as their use of work, anger, isolation, substance abuse and sexuality to mask troubling symptoms like depression. Attendees will learn how to engage even the most therapy-resistant men through a highly active approach that normalizes, rather than pathologizes, their feelings, attitudes, and behavior. Videotapes examples of actual sessions will be used to understand how to work with men in therapy.
Changing mood and perspective is central in brief therapy. Experiential methods can be more immediately effective than traditional didactic approaches. All art is, by definition, "experiential." Altering mood and perspective is the point of it - whether drama, painting, literature, dance or music. Movies use multilayered methods for change. The viewer is often unaware of the intricate dramatic, experiential techniques that filmmakers use to exert influence. Social psychology studies the way in which people are influenced outside of awareness.