BT12 Workshop 36 – Transforming Negative States: A Workshop in Generative Psychotherapy – Stephen Gilligan, PhD
This workshop presents the Ericksonian and Self-Relations Psychotherapy approach to human states of suffering: depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, etc. This practical and positive approach assumes that each core human experience has equivalent potential to be positive or negative, depending on the human relationship to it; and thus focuses on how problems may be transformed to resources by skillful human connection. Multiple techniques and examples for will be given, along with an exercise and demonstration.
BT12 Workshop 39 – The Art of Persuasion: Changing the Mind on OCD – Reid Wilson, PhD
Persuading OCD clients to adopt a new frame of reference is the therapist’s primary task. Altering perception– not adding technique–helps them change directions, because belief always trumps exposure practice. Participants will learn a persuasive strategy–built out of whole cloth within the first session–that will frame the entire treatment protocol.
The purpose is to transpose office therapy into communal application. Personal change is fundamental to psychotherapy but life focus is its instrumentality, often overshadowed. These groups will prioritize it, seeking to portray life. The groups may be large and life-long. Dr Polster will provide conceptual innovations, representative exercises and live communal illustration.
BT12 Workshop 41 – Mating in Captivity: Reconciling Attachment, Security and Erotic Desire in Couples – Esther Perel, MA, LMFT
Based on Perel’s bestseller, Mating in Captivity, this bold take on intimacy and sex grapples with the obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion. We will tackle eroticism as a quality of aliveness and vitality in relationships extending far beyond mere sexuality, and consider how the need for secure attachment and closeness can co-exist with the quest for individuality and freedom.
BT12 Workshop 42 – Treating Anxious Children and Families: Brief, Successful and Fun – Lynn Lyons, MSW
Families dealing with anxiety are often locked into cognitive and behavioral patterns that are rigid, overwhelming, and controlling. This workshop provides tools and interventions to interrupt the predictable elements of anxiety, help parents shift out of their anxious behavior, and teach families a plan to handle the process of worry.
BT12 Workshop 43 – Stages of Change: Tailoring the Treatment Method and the Therapy Relationship to the Individual Client – John Norcross, PhD, ABPP
Backed by 30 years of research, this workshop provides demonstrably effective methods for adapting the treatment method and the therapy relationship to the patient’s stage of change. You will learn to rapidly assess the stages of change (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance) and then to match processes of change specific to that stage. “Doing the right thing at the right time” is the key to efficient change. This workshop features focused lectures, clinical examples, practice exercises, interactive discussions, and participants’ own case material.
BT12 Workshop 44 – Betrayed: Helping Couples to Heal from Infidelity – Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW, LCSW
If you work with couples, you’re no stranger to infidelity. And because healing from infidelity is challenging, it behooves us to have a clear roadmap of the territory. In this workshop, we’ll go over an array of post-affair issues, including ways to deal with intense emotions, whether to discuss the details of the betrayal, how to begin rebuilding trust in the aftermath of the discovery, whether to have clinical ultimatums about ending affairs, how to handle setbacks, and how to deal with residual feelings for the affair partner.
BT12 Keynote 03 – Remarkable Acts of Change: From Theory to Practice – Harriet Lerner, PhD
Dr. Lerner will offer clinical examples of how she uses straightforward “coaching” that invites clients, in relatively few sessions, to experiment with bold acts of change that can change everything. She will outline the theoretical perspective that guides this work, and share her personal experience with systems- based remarkable acts of change.