Excessive anxiety in childhood is a significant predictor of eventual comorbid depression and other conditions. This presentation will identify the cognitive processes and coping strategies that help create a cycle of anxiety, psychological isolation and depression in anxious children and families. Attention will be given to the development of specific, empirically supported Ericksonian strategies which can help shift the anxious individual and family toward malleability, creativity and adaptability.
Children and their families face many challenges that, depending on how they are managed, will have long-lasting influence either for better or worse. In this presentation, we will focus on some of these challenges and will describe some helpful interventions derived from Ericksonian approaches that have been successfully applied in a multicultural school setting.
To enhance client's responsiveness to therapeutic directives, Erickson would often seed interventions in an indirect fashion and then later build upon them. This workshop aims at enhancing the practice and understanding of this brief Ericksonian solution, including: a) research results on the effectiveness and boundary conditions of seeding; b) a demonstration video; and c) a small group exercise.
This is an experimental session incorporating six demonstration participants and a larger, non-participating observing audience. It will begin with a short introductory presentation on utilization, and proceed to demonstrate the "Tools for Trance" technique. The experience will reinforce abilities of inducing trance and develop skills in utilizing verbal and non-verbal information.
Milton H. Erickson, MD understood that "the conscious (thinking) mind doesn't do much of anything of much significance . . . while the unconscious mind is an infinite storehouse of dreams, potentials and solutions . . ." This short course will teach a brief, solution-focused, strategic, hypnotic approach to anxiety related disorders. Participants will learn to employ Ericksonian interventions including solution-focused questions, strategic task assignments, and formal/conversational hypnosis via live demonstration, experiential exercise and case studies.
Homeopathic remedies can be comfortably and effectively used as an adjunct to Ericksonian hypnosis and psychotherapy. When a correct match is found between the client's emotional and psychological state and the remedy is offered, the client frequently enters an altered state of consciousness or trance which facilitates profound and lasting change. Dr. Wasserman will demonstrate his trance-following technique induced by deeply resonant homeopathic remedies, and will introduce the use of remedies through live demonstrations and clinical examples.
This workshop will give real life examples of Ericksonian brief intervention, leading not only to resolution of community conflict, but to the strengthening of local support networks. School, legal, neighborhood, religious and "new movement" conflicts will be addressed.
This workshop highlights the use of Ericksonian approaches including the use of the therapist as a facilitator of change in working with clients from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Seeding, paradoxical intervention and humor will be used to help participants find ways to join with a multicultural clientele. The presenter will use provocative video clips and activities to invite participants to consider some innovative approaches in working within a diverse and multicultural society.
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. We will see how a therapist can generate a ritual space where symptoms and other disturbing experiences can be "midwifed" into new identities.
PTSD is a clinical problem that may be a covert cause of hypnotherapy failure. Paradoxically, hypnotherapy has been proven useful for treatment, even prior to the formal description of diagnosis. The main features and case results of this program, which has been successfully applied in clinical research and practice, will be presented.