Description:
Despite all the earnest efforts of researchers, therapy remains at least as much an art as a science. Seasoned practitioners know that when the therapeutic process becomes too cautious and mechanical, drained of risk and creativity, clinical effectiveness suffers. But how do we avoid being paralyzed by our clients' chronic difficulties and resistant clients? How can we step outside the box and bring more of our creative and playful selves to our work? This workshop will present several guidelines for developing a creative partnership with clients that taps both therapist and client inventiveness. Through the use of videotape examples and skill-building exercises, participants will discover their own signature strengths as therapists and how best to mobilize them in session. We will discover how to use humor, stories, drama and imaginative family play and art experiments to create a therapeutic climate ripe for change in your clinical practices.
Educational Objectives:
*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*
Family therapist in private practice and the co-director of Partners for Collaborative Solutions, an international family therapy training and consulting practice in Evanston, Illinois. Selekman received the Walter S. Rosenberry Award in 2006, 2000 and 1999 from The Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, for having made significant contributions to the fields of psychology and behavioral sciences.
Author of four professional practice-oriented books: Working with Self- Harming Adolescents: A Collaborative, Strengths-Based Therapy Approach; Pathways to Change: Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents (Second Edition); Solution-Focused Therapy with Children: Harnessing Family Strengths for Systemic Change; and Family Therapy Approaches with Adolescent Substance Abusers. Selekman has presented workshops on his collaborative strengths-based therapy approach with challenging children and adoles- cents extensively throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Australia. He is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor and Clinical Member.