Therapists can use themselves with artistry as exquisite barometers of the moment-to-moment shifts of consciousness flowing between their own unconscious and the unconscious of the client. Using Erickson's focused attention, Satir's parts model and Feldenkreis' awareness through movement we will practice six strategies to refine our use of these connections. Didactic, video, experiential.
There is widespread professional discomfort about entering into a therapeutic relationship with a Borderline patient. This workshop addresses suggested treatment strategies for reducing affective arousal and distress, helping to build tolerance skills and creating a collaborative non- threatening atmosphere in which the patient can learn to problem-solve and take healthy risks. A beginner's overview of Ericksonian hypnosis will be included.
The main root cause of mental illness is relationships which are not working effectively. Violence, abuse, injustice, neglect and power struggles lead to most individuals' symptoms. This workshop will teach how to change and heal individuals by using their families, no matter how family is defined, to achieve a successful therapy in a brief time period. Attendees will learn specific Ericksonian strategies and healing rituals to which Dr. Erickson would give a "thumbs-up."
We are often of many minds as we approach the interactions, decisions and crisis of our daily lives. By utilizing the intriguing language of the computer world, we will learn how to identify and enhance awareness of the many selves we inhabit and to recognize their internal relationships with each other. We will also learn strategies for using these concepts to activate and facilitate. This workshop will be experiential with a didactic introduction and discussion.
Mourning the loss of a loved one is a normal and natural progress. Unfinished business often exists which holds the individual back from healthy resolution of the loss. Lack of closure may result from a sudden death with no opportunity to say goodbye or unresolved issues. Using hypnosis, we can revisit the deceased and address unfinished business, thus facilitating a resolution and healing of the relationship and allowing the mourner to move on to recovery.
A "double bind" is a special type of conflict which creates a "no-win" situation. According to anthropologist Gregory Bateson, such conflicts are at the root of both creativity and psychosis. The difference is whether or not one is able to identify and transcend the bind in an appropriate way. The most emotionally intense double binds occur in the context of significant interpersonal relationships. Such a struggle can also occur between the inner parts of a person. These types of unsolvable struggles are often at the root of both mental and physical illness. They can also arise during a person's attempts to heal and thwart progress towards wellness. This workshop will cover ways to identify double binds, the underlying conditions which create them, and some of the ways in which double binds can be resolved or transcended.
People slip in and out of trance every day. Couples evoke each other into positive trances (falling in love) and negative trances (reenacting family-of-origin, unresolved issues and identifications). In this workshop we will work with five hypnotic tools to help couples transform their relationship.
Specific direct and indirect techniques are required to activate family resources and to induce a deep and meaningful change of the most rigid family patterns. A family hypnotic session reveals the powerful and subtle resistances a family may develop in the course of the hypnotic treatment as well as of the many different solutions a therapist may adopt to overcome these resistances. Special focus will be on how to properly combine direct and indirect in the different phases of the therapeutic process.
This presentation addresses the issues of teen anger and "acting out" from Erickson's utilization approach to treatment. Interventions psychotherapists can integrate into family therapy enhancing parent capabilities and encouraging improved relating to their teens will be presented. An experiential exercise will be provided helping attendees integrate hypnotic and strategic approaches into their treatments.
Bateson's Research Team and the Palo Alto Group (Jackson, Haley, Weakland, Fry, and Watzlawick) developed Communication Theory. Grounded in 65 years of research, Interactional Focused Clinical Approaches, derived form Communication Theory offer a radically alternative paradigm for understanding human behavior and evoking change. These essential premises and practical interventions techniques will be described.