Eastern spiritual teachings tell us that “suffering” goes away when we dissolve the ego. But what is the ‘ego’ and how does one dissolve it? You’ll be introduced to a new and practical way of doing inner work that offers a precise way of dissolving the everyday sense of the ego. It can be used both to heal and resolve problems, and as a gentle personal practice. Typical results include *deep relaxation of the nervous system, *a greater capacity to deal with stress with grace and humor, *resolves sleep issues. The session will include group experience, demonstration, and practice of the first Wholeness Process.
BT12 Workshop 30 – Changing the Doing, Viewing and Context: The Essence of All Brief Therapy – Bill O’Hanlon, MS
After making a connection with and establishing a relationship with the client, I contend that all brief therapy relies on some variation or combination of three interventions: Changing the doing (actions/interactions), changing the viewing (focus of attention and meaning attribution/interpretation) and changing the context (the social or physical environment) involved in or around the problem. The session will give details about how to conceptualize and implement these shifts in brief clinical work.
IC01 Workshop 21 - Strategic Treatment of Panic Disorder - R. Reid Wilson, PhD
Participants will learn the most direct therapeutic strategies for treatment of panic disorder. Topics will
include patterns of psycho-social development, the panic prone personality, reframing the benevolent
purpose of symptoms, eight attitude shifts, brief calming and focusing skills, responding to worries,
paradoxical management of physical symptoms, pattern disruption, imagery practice and interceptive
exposure.
Despite the common framing of depression as a medical illness, there is much more hard evidence pointing to social factors leading to the large and still growing population of depression sufferers. In this presentation, the focus will be on the social factors that lead to and exacerbate depression. How therapy, itself a social process, can make use of hypnotic and strategic approaches to experientially teach skills known to reduce and even prevent depression will be explored.
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 can be transformed into resources by skillful human connection. This process operates at two levels: (1) developing a generative state (in the therapist, client, and relationship field) and then (2) using specific methods of transforming negative experiences and behaviors.
This three-hour workshop is designed to give an overview of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and is intended for mental health professionals who wish to acquaint themselves with the treatment or who are considering further training in DBT. DBT balances change-based technology (behavior therapy) with acceptance-based principals (validation). Both of these strategies will be introduced along with dialectical strategies (those that provide the balance of acceptance and change). The frame of DBT will be highlighted and the modes and functions of comprehensive DBT will be defined. Methods of instruction include lecture and videotapes of treatment to demonstrate the principles and strategies of DBT.
A key idea in Milton Erickson's work was that a person's problematic experiences and behaviors can be skillfully accepted and utilized as the basis for therapeutic change. Self-relations psychotherapy develops this idea further, emphasizing symptoms as indicating the death of an old identity and the impending birth of a new identity. Thus, we don't try to "get rid of" depression, anxiety, or other "acting out/acting in" expressions, but instead invite them into a human relationship of "sponsorship", where their healing and helpful nature may be realized. In this workshop, we will see how a therapist can generate a ritual space where symptoms and other disturbing experiences can be "midwifed" into new identities.
Gestalt therapy and Ericksonian hypnotherapy are experiential methods of change. In combination they can be synergistic. Psychotherapy is best when clients have first-hand experience of an alive therapeutic process. Such dynamic empowering experiences pave the way for dynamic understandings. Drs. Polster and Zeig will engage with each other and participants to examine commonalities and differences in their work in this engaging all-day workshop.
Ericksonian hypnotherapy and the Self-Relations approach are experiential methods of change. In combination they can be synergistic. Psychotherapy is best when clients have a first hand experience of an alive therapeutic process. Such dynamic empowering experiences pave the way for dynamic understandings. Drs. Gilligan and Zeig will engage with each other and the participants to examine commonalities and differences in their work.