Adlerian psychotherapy is an effective brief therapy model that integrates strategies from many other approaches. Adler's ideas highlight the importance of not only understanding the individual but the social context. This approach emphasizes working from a multi-cultural orientation and highlights personal responsibility. The approach uses a four-step process: Engagement, Assessment, Insight, and Reorientation. The focus of treatment is positive as the therapist uses encouragement strategies to help the client identify their assets and strengths. Videotape examples of actual sessions will be used to highlight the process and demonstrate how effective short-term change is possible with this approach.
This workshop examines the nature of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and presents an integrated model of treatment of specific issues in brief, solution-focused episodes. Core elements of a safety plan and development of a community resource network are described. Careful management of the therapeutic relationship is a critical part of this approach. Some specific protocols for common BPD issues, such as suicidal ideation and self-injurious behaviors are elaborated.
Adolescent self-harming behavior is on the rise and is one of the most challenging presenting problems school professionals, healthcare providers, and therapists will face in their clinical practice settings. In this "hands-on" practice-oriented workshop, participants will learn several distress management tools and strategies to strengthen the adolescent's self-soothing and coping capacities and family connection building rituals and therapeutic experiments to foster closer and stronger parent-adolescent relationships. Parent management skills for constructively responding to their adolescents' inevitable self-harming slips will be presented.
Three specific techniques are universally valuable in brief therapy: utilization, experience resource retrieval, experiential-based imagery rehearsal. This workshop provides an exposure to these concepts and techniques with clear examples and demonstrations. Participants should find numerous ways to enhance their brief therapy practice in any setting and with all populations of clients.To list the essential aspects of the utilization approach for reducing resistance across multiple settings.
Difficult relationships are often confusing. This disorder, rather than the content differences, often keeps us from finding resolution. Learn a simple, yet detailed, content-free process to sort out this unconscious confusion, reach clarity, understand other's experience, and spontaneously change perceptions and responses to become more resourceful. A demonstration will be given.
The experience of being a therapist can often seem routine, dealing with similar issues, telling well-worn stories, and applying favored methods. Yet occasionally there are moments, even whole sessions, that appear miraculous in their innovation. This workshop explores the process and mechanisms of creative breakthroughs, based on interviews with the world's most innovative clinicians.
Personal identity is a crucial guide to the way people live their lives. Dr. Polster will examine how therapy may accentuate and empower familiar identities and how to resuscitate those which are dimmed. Conceptual elaboration will be joined with live therapy sessions, showing how concepts connect with therapeutic work.
As the rate of depression increases around the world, it is apparent that depression is about more than just "bad chemistry." The evidence is clear that social factors play a huge role in depression's onset and course, and these can be better addressed through psychotherapy than with medications. Key aspects of effective treatment will be described in this workshop.
Cognitive-Behavioral treatment is now pushing further into the confrontational. Participants will learn how to divide and conquer: to interrupt anticipatory anxiety and then to manage physical symptoms using cognitive strategies, paradox, pattern disruption, exposure and interceptive exposure, peeling away their ever-present safety crutches and, the second order change of perceiving panic disorder as a mental game.
Mindfulness and acceptance methods are powerful methods in clinical practice that greatly simplify the therapeutic tasks at hand. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) will be described as an example of these methods and specific techniques will be shown. ACT targets common core processes that research are the basis for much psychopathology or restrictions on psychological health.