First half of life is about adaptation to gender and social norms and expectations at which a person succeeds or fails. Midlife raises the question: is this all there is? What now? What next/ A time for questions about the meaning and purpose of life, about responses to suffering and loss, creative expression, spiritual insights.
Working with the young adult with addictive disorders most frequently involves addressing the experience of bullying, physical and sexual abuse, emotional abandonment and loss. These dynamics are significant in addressing the more frequent co-occurring disorders of anxiety and depression. This presentation will also offer a framework for treatment strategies.
When the Space-Between rather than the Space-Within becomes the source of experience, by implication it is the location of therapeutic intervention. This speech will discuss the shift from the individual to the relational paradigm as the new domain of therapeutic intervention.
The acronym ACA or ACoA has been a part of the therapy community for several decades now. As the pioneer in the framework for its meaning and influence in the recovery field , Claudia Black will discuss her history with the meaning and the value this terms offers the client. She will also offer a framework for healing the family of origin issues that often contribute to depression, anxiety, relationship conflict and addiction relapse.
Dr Zeig will discuss and answer questions about some of the psychotherapy masters he has encountered, including Viktor Frankl, Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir.
After a detailed description of emotional abandonment, Claudia will discuss a variety of behavioral responses to the internalized shame. The need for control, perfectionism, procrastination, the dynamics of victimization and compartmentalized depression are many such examples that she will describe.
What can mental health professionals do to enhance their performance? Available evidence makes clear that attending a typical continuing education workshop, specializing in the treatment of a particular problem, or learning a new treatment model does little to improve effectiveness. In fact, studies to date indicate clinical effectiveness actually declines with time and experience in the field. The key to improved performance is engaging in deliberate practice. At this workshop, the latest research on deliberate practice will be translated into concrete steps all clinicians can immediately apply in their efforts to achieve better results.
Gestalt therapy envisions a radical conception of the self as temporal and emergent. This means it is a fluid self, continually changing through creative adjustment to its changing contacts with the world. One could think of the self in Gestalt therapy as an unending aesthetic project: Like all experience, it has to be made and remade as it navigates the passing of time. And it is reflexive, being both creator and created.