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.
Verbal conversations alone cannot produce sustainable change: somatic intelligence must be an integral part of sustainable change; verbal conversations are not sufficient. This workshop will experientially explore how to creatively use the related methods of Gendlen's "felt sense" and Gilligan's "relational trance".
This workshop will teach the application of the EFT Tango - and show its use across three modalities - Individual, couple and family therapy. How the Tango process impacts depression and anxiety will be explicated. Clinical sessions will be viewed and experiential exercises offered.
Dr. McWilliams will review ten different psychological lenses through which individual differences have been viewed (temperament, attachment style, observed clinical pattern, defensive structure, affective organization, implicit cognition, motivational tendencies, individual and cultural location on the self-definition versus self-in-relation polarity, central relational theme, level of severity of problem), emphasizing with clinical vignettes the practical value of appreciating each perspective. Intended to be directly relevant to participants' clinical work irrespective of their theoretical orientation or level of experience, this workshop welcomes case material and collaborative problem-solving.
Every therapist needs a method to work with post-traumatic stress disorder. Fundamental techniques will be discussed. Neurological considerations will be offered.
Clients coming for Couples Therapy have often been impacted by early developmental trauma, systemic or intergenerational trauma, or acute interpersonal trauma. Partners with early developmental trauma or acute trauma at young ages are complex to work with and take patience, and persistence from the therapist to recognize moments of exposure and self-expression in order to develop a stronger sense of self. Yet, couples therapy can be a very powerful form of therapy for alleviating shame and developing a much stronger and more integrated sense of self.
"This workshop deals with the challenges of treating clients with personality disorders, clients who, for example, fail to engage in treatment, miss sessions, feel hopeless and stuck, become angry in session, engage in self-harm, use substances, blame others, avoid homework, experience continual crises, and so on. Special attention will be paid to how to help clients get out of the ""personality disorder mode"" and into the ""adaptive mode.""
Through discussion and demonstration roleplays, we'll cover identifying clients' values and aspirations, creating positive experiences and helping clients draw positive conclusions about them, engaging clients in treatment, repairing ruptures in the therapeutic relationship, applying lessons learned from the therapeutic relationship to relationships outside of therapy, learning and using adaptive coping strategies, and developing positive (i.e., more realistic) beliefs about themselves, other people, their worlds, and the future.