Change is a three-part rite of passage: separation from the known; wandering in the wilderness; and the return transformed. The second stage is hardest to navigate, often interrupted by the premature need for closure. A specific skill set including inquiry, mindfulness, curiosity and stillness provides essential competencies for moving through change.
In this workshop, we will explore the unique emotional development of boys and men, the different ways men and women respond to psychotherapy, and the special psychological challenges men face, including their preoccupation with money, power, and competition, as well as their use of work, anger, isolation, substance abuse and sexuality to mask troubling symptoms like depression. Attendees will learn how to engage even the most therapy-resistant men through a highly active approach that normalizes, rather than pathologizes, their feelings, attitudes, and behavior. Videotapes examples of actual sessions will be used to understand how to work with men in therapy.
Research shows that brief treatments paired with hypnosis is more effective than treatments alone for many types of problems. The science and art of hypnosis is now widely recognized as a component tool for psychotherapy and has been employed successfully as a comfortable part of private practice and agency practice for years. As hypnosis spreads throughout the mainstream of psychotherapy, it is important to get competent information regarding its use. This workshop is intended to correct any lack of understanding and training in this important area. The rationale, indications and basic use will be explained and demonstrated with practical exercises to help convey the key language skills that are requisite.
Thanks to a number of recent studies, there is now solid empirical evidence for what distinguishes highly effective therapists. In this workshop, participants will learn in detail the qualities and practices that separate the great from the good. Participants also will find out about a system of feedback procedures that can be used to develop a profile of their most and least effective moments in therapy - what works and what doesn't. Not only will attendees get a far more exact idea of their clinical strengths and weaknesses and how to use the findings to improve their own practice, but they will also come away with concrete tools that will immediately boost clinical abilities and effectiveness.
Conducting brief therapy places additional and special burdens on the person of the therapist. This workshop puts the Socratic dicta of "know thyself" and "heal thyself" into practice. We shall focus on 12 self-care strategies that are clinician-recommended, research-based and practitioner-tested. Come join us for focused lectures, copious handouts, group demonstrations, thought experiments, interactive discussions and participants' own material.
Obsessions persist despite the application of logic or reason, and compulsions are so successful at briefly relieving anxiety that they take on a life of their own. The therapist can reframe the nature of the problem and incorporate all interventions within four simple but provocative guidelines that challenge the dysfunctional beliefs of the client.
In this "hands-on" practice-oriented workshop, participants will learn effective engagement strategies with children, empirically-based parent management skills, and several family play and art therapy strategies that tap the inventiveness of the child and his/her family members to generate new ideas and co-construct solutions.
Overcoming Chronic Problems involves progress through six stages of change: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and termination. Therapeutic principles and processes need to be matched to each stage of change. Innovative interventions for applying these principles and processes will be presented along with evidence and examples of how stage-matched therapy can outperform brief action-oriented therapies.
The notion of a relational or transpersonal "field" is an important emerging concept in Brief Therapy. A "field" is a type of space or energy produced by relationships and interactions in a system that often holds deeper, more archetypal information. It is similar to what Gregory Bateson referred to as a "larger mind" and "the pattern which connects." This workshop will explore methods to recognize and work with such fields as part of a Brief Therapy session.
This is an entirely experiential workshop where you can learn how to facilitate the classical four-stage creative process with three easy-tolearn activity-dependent approaches to therapeutic hypnosis and psychotherapy. How you as a psychotherapist can relax with a bemused smile while your clients do all the work in resolving their issues.