Extrapolating psychotherapy leadership private sessions into Life Focus Communities would expand therapy’s inter-relational purpose, combining the treasures of belonging with the inspirational powers of people joining together in a continuing examination of the lived life. Dr. Polster will offer some novel comparisons with religion and demonstrate through experiential exercises how such groups may be conducted.
Attunement can be considered the deepest level of rapport, a foundation of empathy. We will learn how to attune to affect,behavior, cognition, attitude, perception, and relationship patterns – even how to attune to the preconscious associations that drive behavior. A precursor to every intervention, attunement will be described from the perspective of hypnosis, psychotherapy, and social psychology. Clinical applications will be demonstrated and discussed. Includes small-group practice exercises.
Dr Houston will offer a spectrum of ways designed to evoke new capacities in yourself and your clients in at least four areas: sensory and physical, psychological, myths and symbols, as well as spiritual. She will hope to entice you into high sensory development, radical empathy, luminous intelligence, and a polyphrenic nature (enjoying and utilizing the many selves you contain within you). The hope is that the values offered in this workshop will stimulate a passion for the possible,and a capacity to take on the tasks of a world in transition.
Neuroscience implies creative activity in art, science, dreaming, meditation, therapeutic hypnosis, and psychotherapy can turn on activity-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity to facilitate positive human transformations. A variety of group processes will explore Rossi’s Novel Activity-Dependent hand Mirroring Approaches to Erickson’s General Waking Trance during brief psychotherapy.
A systemic research-based approach to assessing and treating distressed couples will be presented. Multi-method assessments using questionnaires, interviews, observations, and physiological measurement will be reviewed. Key interventions based on the Gottman Sound Relationship House Theory will be described, and video segments of in-office therapy sessions will be shown to demonstrate them.
Experiential methods enliven therapy through dynamic experiences that promote dynamic realizations. We will explore methods that make therapy a visual art, recognizing the visual realizations are neurologically encoded more robustly than words, hence more easily accessed when needed. We will explore the use of gestures, objects, and even sounds to empower change. We will learn the latest advances in therapist sculpting. Lecture, demonstration, and small group exercises will be used
The terror of death plays a larger role in our inner life and our psychological problems than is generally thought. Too often psychotherapists avoid inquiry into death anxiety; either because they do not know what they can offer patients or because they have not confronted their own anxiety about death. If we come to terms with mortality in our own personal therapy and familiarize ourselves with the topic, we can offer a great deal to patients terrorized by death. Individuals with much terror about death can be helped, not only to enjoy relief from fear, but also may find that an encounter with death will enhance their life. As wise men have pointed out through the millennia, death confrontation can awaken us to a fuller life.Awakening experiences, if we learn to recognize them, are amply available in everyday therapy. One important method of coping is to avoid large reservoirs of un-lived life.
EMDR directly addresses the physiologically stored memory networks that underlie both psychological problems and mental health. This orientation to both case conceptualization and treatment will be explored to address diverse clinical applications, including attachment issues, body image, chronic pain, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, personality disorders, and other presenting complaints. The Integration of EMDR with family therapy practices will also be discussed.
This workshop describes a 22-session couples’ group intervention and curriculum for lower and middle-class couples. Each session begins with a talk-show video showing discussions with couples in poverty on curriculum topics, e.g.’ healing from infidelity, avoiding and healing from domestic violence, etc. The video is followed by group discussion, a brief teaching,and an exercise that focuses on learning new skills. Throughout most of the curriculum,, physiological soothing is taught through biofeedback. Details of the curriculum and video samples will be shown.
Crisis, transition and transformation are three key dynamics we need to address during times of deep upheaval. It is said that things are always changing, but not always progressing. During times of dynamic change, many challenges will present themselves such as meeting the fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, dealing with loss, and a general sense of vulnerability.These can plunge us into unhelpful survival strategies: attack, escape or rigidity (fight, flight, freeze) resulting in regression, inertia and conflict. In order progress though change, it is important to cultivate qualities such as flexibility and stability, balance, connection and the ability to let go.