In this video clip from Sue Johnson’s 2016 Networker Symposium Keynote Speech, The Dance of Sex, she explains how emotion organizes interactions between lovers.
What We Offer More than we ever anticipated, the theme of this year’s Networker Symposium, The Courage to Connect: Shaping our Future in an Age of Uncertainty, seems to fit the mood of a good part of the country. But one thing is sure—in these divisive times, insularity is no longer an option. We allRead More…
Living Brave: From Vulnerability to Daring With millions of people having seen her TED talks and read her books, researcher and bestselling author Brené Brown is a phenomenon. But aside from her talents as a speaker, teacher, and writer, why is she such a runaway hit? Haven’t therapists been writing about her professional specialty—the malignRead More…
What’s makes the Networker Symposium such a unique and vibrant learning experience? Here’s a taste from past years.
In this video clip from Symposium 2016, Susan Johnson, originator of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), discusses “the dance of sex” and the importance of emotional presence, attunement, and sensitive responsiveness. The things that define bonding and good sex, she argues, are one in the same. Plus, in terms of teamwork, good sex is a little likeRead More…
2017 Testimonials It feels like both a mini-vacation and a time to soak up new ideas for my practice. I loved being in a caring community where people truly spoke my language. I like the vibe of the Symposium! The Symposium is just always sooo good! It’s rejuvenating to be in an atmosphere that’s warmRead More…
In this video clip from Symposium 2015, Dick Schwartz, originator of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, explains how inner parts can become wounded and exiled at the expense of our creativity and vitality—and how we can heal these parts, allowing Self to emerge. With this Self comes qualities like curiosity, compassion, calm, and confidence.
Welcome from Rich Simon This year we’re welcoming you to our 40th annual Networker Symposium! Despite this almost biblical span of time since our first gathering in a cramped chapel in suburban Washington, DC, certain themes from those early years still prevail. Above all, the Symposium remains a kind of collective pilgrimage—a time and placeRead More…
The First-Ever Networker Lifetime Achievement Award Salvador Minuchin A maverick and a visionary in the ’60s and ’70s, Salvador Minuchin transformed the very idea of what a therapist was supposed to be from the self-contained cipher sitting mostly silent behind the patient’s head into something dazzlingly different—a brash interventionist willing to make people change regardlessRead More…
My Most Unforgettable Session: An Evening of Storytelling Daniel Siegel, Michele Weiner-Davis, Kenneth Hardy, Lynn Lyons, Lisa Ferentz Last year we tried an experiment: a candid storytelling event that illuminated what really makes us tick as psychotherapists. It was such a Symposium highlight that we’re bringing it back! Join five Master Therapists as they invite youRead More…
The Doorway to Engagement: Freeing the Body and Awakening the Mind Daniel Leven & Jody Wager Prime your body and mind for the Symposium experience by taking part in this opportunity to let go of the ordinary stresses, pressures, and responsibilities we so often carry with us. This special evening event is designed for first-timeRead More…
In this video clip from Symposium 2013, William Doherty, director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project, explores what it means to embrace therapy as a “craft” and how therapists can be better “conversational healers” in today’s world. Often, this means delving into questions many of us never even thought to ask in gradRead More…
In this video clip from Symposium 2015, Dan Siegel explains how today, more than ever, the role humans play in shaping the environment and our future can be the source of a great deal of anxiety. But by following the principles of integration, therapists have the potential to be the stewards of mental well-being inRead More…
Ways to Embody Your Symposium Experience Jody Wager & Naomi Nim While at Symposium’s end you may feel exhilarated by all the new ideas you’ve been exposed to, that excitement may, despite your best intentions, dissipate once you return to your habitual routines. In this experiential workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to consolidate your SymposiumRead More…
Working with Kids and Their Parents Mitchell Greene Sports, even at the youngest developmental levels, has become a source of great stress for kids and their parents. The final results of games and kids’ individual statistics are immediately broadcast on the internet, and recruiting videos of middle school age athletes are all over YouTube. RecreationRead More…
Mastering the Neurobiological Waltz Janina Fisher Clients raised by neglectful and frightening caregivers may as adults find themselves living with an unconscious somatic legacy of early traumatic attachment, yearning for closeness but unable to tolerate or sustain intimacy. Even their nervous systems rebel against physical proximity to others, or can’t tolerate being without proximity. AsRead More…
It’s Not What You Think Martin Seif & Sally Winston Recent evidence suggests that unwanted intrusive thoughts (UITs) represent an unreported epidemic affecting as many as 6 million people in the US. People with UITs fear that they might act on their intrusive thoughts, or come to believe that their thoughts represent significant defects inRead More…
Beyond Medication Chris Aiken There’s much debate about bipolar disorder—both how to diagnose it and the role of non-pharmacological approaches in its treatment. Recently, however, there have been important advances that can help clinicians more accurately diagnose this condition as well as treatment approaches that go beyond the limited effectiveness of traditional talk therapy. ThisRead More…
Avoiding the Mistakes Therapists Often Make Patricia Papernow Although divorce and marriage rates are generally falling, they’re skyrocketing among those over 50. That’s why so many of us are seeing an influx of later-life uncouplers and recouplers in our offices. In this workshop, learn how to effectively manage the competing needs of all the players in these families: theRead More…
Exploring the Insights of Advanced Practice Jay Efran & Robert Fauber Clinicians like to believe that they’ve become more accomplished and more effective as they accumulate “clinical wisdom” over the course of their careers. But what exactly does that mean? This workshop, designed for both senior therapists and those at earlier stages of their careers,Read More…
How to Help Our Clients Heal Anita Mandley Exposing the family secret of incest is a transgression that makes everyone deeply uncomfortable, both in the families in which it occurs and for the mental health professionals who try to help them. One reflection of this discomfort is the avoidance of even using the term itselfRead More…
Advances from Brain Science and Traumatology Noel Larson Clients with personality disorders—narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, sociopathic—often have profound traumatic childhoods, which leave them without a solid inner core from which to function. Often “nudged” into treatment by others, including the law, their inability to trust and their need for power make forming a therapeutic alliance seeminglyRead More…
A Fun, Pragmatic Approach to Mindfulness Susan Kaiser Greenland While mindfulness has become a buzzword in clinics, schools, and boardrooms, many people have a hard time incorporating it into their lives. Fortunately, you can make mindfulness more accessible by using games—simple enough to share with children—to coach clients in the themes, methods, and life skillsRead More…
An Object-Relations Perspective on Depression Jon Frederickson Clients suffering from depression are often plagued with self-hatred, their self-talk a barrage of brutal attacks. Helping them heal depends on a therapist’s ability to promote positive self-regard and self-compassion by creating a bond of respect and trust. This workshop will focus on showing clients how self-attacks leadRead More…
Strategies for Generating Referrals Joe Bavonese Although the internet has become the biggest referral source for private practitioners, many therapists feel overwhelmed when trying to keep up with all the latest marketing approaches, newest mobile devices (which now account for 60 percent of searches for therapy), and other ways to promote their practices online. DesignedRead More…
When the Internalized Abuser Gets in the Way Amelio D’Onofrio A sad but basic fact of human psychology is that in the wake of trauma we can often internalize our abuser, adopting that person’s destructive voice and attitude as nonstop self-criticism. This punitive voice can instill negative expectations for relationships in general, and with theRead More…
The Key to Developing a Consistent Mindfulness Practice Terry Fralich Even though mindfulness has become ubiquitous in our profession, it often remains a challenge to motivate clients to bring practices into their everyday lives. In this workshop, you’ll explore a comprehensive, step-by-step approach to helping clients incorporate mindfulness into their daily routine to treat aRead More…
An Introduction to Attachment-Based Family Therapy Guy Diamond Most of us have faced intense parent-adolescent conflict in sessions: no one listens, everyone blames, and some walk out. Or we’ve met adolescents who are silent, withdrawn, and indifferent. Often these teens struggle with trauma, depression, and/or suicide. This workshop will demonstrate how in the first sessionRead More…
Transforming the Sexual Narrative Suzanne Iasenza When couples come to therapy with problems involving desire, arousal, and orgasm, therapists often fall into the trap of thinking of them as somehow broken and in need of fixing. Instead, this workshop offers an approach that guides couples from a state of disconnection to becoming a sexual-discovery teamRead More…
Harnessing a Broad-Based Approach to Change Deany Laliotis While EMDR is best known for its treatment of trauma, it has developed into a comprehensive psychotherapy approach that treats a broad spectrum of presenting issues across various clinical populations. This workshop is for practitioners who are interested in learning more about this highly effective, evidence-based approachRead More…
A Mindful Approach to Value-Based Action DJ Moran Despite the popularity of mindfulness, not all our clients want to embrace an Eastern philosophy and sit on a meditation cushion every day. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers a way to use the power of contemplative practice while promoting concrete and quantifiable change. In this workshop,Read More…
Strategies for Change Terry Real We’ve all met troubled men who are irresponsible, oppressive, or emotionally absent. Treating them requires a range of strategies. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to effectively work with issues of shame and grandiosity, as well as toxic engagement and disengagement. You’ll focus on how to identify and develop differentRead More…
Applications for the Consulting Room Daniel Siegel It seems that human consciousness—dominated by the automatic survival instincts of our Stone Age ancestors—must now evolve very quickly if we wish to meet the many social and ecological challenges we face on this precious planet. What role, if any, can therapists play in shaping the emergence ofRead More…
Strategies for Recognizing and Responding to Them Signe Whitson Young people who bully often master the art of blending in with the crowd, flying under an adult’s radar and wreaking havoc in subtle ways. In fact, many socially aggressive kids actually top an adult’s “what a nice kid!” list and make their way into their victims’Read More…
Using Emotionally Focused Therapy to Strengthen Sobriety Michael Barnett Even the most talented couples therapists are often unprepared to handle the explosive impasses and icy freeze-outs that present themselves when toxic addictive processes permeate already unstable relationships. The traditional “sledgehammer” approach of harsh, shame-based confrontation only tends to fuel the problem. And behavioral and insight-orientedRead More…
Enhancing Between-Session Interventions David Treadway Who ate the homework? While many couples therapists assign their clients homework, few couples comply. And too often, rather than engaging with their clients’ resistance, most therapists let the matter drop, ignoring the important insights and useful conversations homework can elicit. This workshop will demonstrate how to engage and motivateRead More…
Taking Charge of Your Practice Casey Truffo Many private practitioners think the only answer to increasing income is seeing more clients. But it takes more than marketing and good clinical work to have a financially viable practice. This workshop will offer a model for approaching your practice as a small business of which you areRead More…
How to Embrace Somatic Wisdom Daniel Leven Too often our focus as therapists is on our client’s verbal narrative. What happened? Where? When? We tend to neglect another powerful storyteller: the client’s body. In fact, the body records our emotional experience as adeptly as our mind. Our viscera, muscles, and nervous systems record trauma, whichRead More…
Deciding When It’s Really the Issue Marty Klein Pornography use is a complex topic about which almost everyone has opinions. While many people fear and misunderstand porn, it’s important for therapists and clients alike to know the facts about its actual content, how it’s made, why people use it, and what the typical effects ofRead More…
Is It Gender . . . And/Or Something Else? Margaret Nichols & Laura Jacobs Transgender identity has achieved so much cultural support and affirmation that it may be easy to overlook—or miss—the fact that some young clients may be struggling with issues other than, or in addition to, gender dysphoria. With many of these childrenRead More…
How to Revive Erotic Passion Michele Weiner-Davis One out of every three couples struggles with mismatched sexual desire—a formula for marital disaster. When one spouse is sexually dissatisfied and the other is oblivious, unconcerned, or uncaring, sex isn’t the only casualty; a sense of emotional connection can also disappear. As therapists, we’ve been taught thatRead More…
It’s a Family Affair Lynn Lyons When obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) shows up in a child, it’s likely that other family members have it, too. OCD is the ultimate cult leader, demanding acceptance of a skewed view of reality and often ruling families for generations. This workshop demonstrates how to recognize OCD, the common pitfallsRead More…
Going Beyond Acceptance to Self-Compassion Richard Schwartz Mindfulness has become a popular and useful tool in psychotherapy, but therapists too often encourage clients to adopt a passive-observer stance in therapy, as if it’s enough to just observe thoughts and emotions from a place of separation. This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of how toRead More…
A Practical Approach Christopher Willard For too many children or teens, talk and even play therapy feels unhelpful at best, and stigmatizing at worst. But when we can effectively introduce mindfulness into our sessions, we empower kids to transform themselves, allowing them to identify and regulate their emotions and attention with fun and effective exercises.Read More…
How to Match Clients with the Right Methods Amy Weintraub Have you ever had clients try a mindfulness exercise that made them more anxious, or get emotionally flooded when you asked them to breathe deeply? What about clients who are quick to tell you, “I don’t like that breathing stuff!”? If you’re applying mind-body practicesRead More…
Gratitude and Meaning in Caring for Aging Parents Barry Jacobs & Julia Mayer While caring for aging parents is often portrayed as a physical, psychological, and financial burden, there’s a growing body of research suggesting that caregivers can derive important benefits from their role, including increased life satisfaction and even improved health. In fact, caregiversRead More…
How and When to Intervene Evan Imber-Black When couples come to us, they seldom present with one simple problem. Rather, they often enter therapy with multiple and layered dilemmas, requiring that the therapist make continual therapeutic choices regarding the shape of questions, direction of the interview, length of an interaction, time-frame for exploration (past, present,Read More…
Enhancing Your Practice and Enriching Your Life Barbara Van Dahlen Most of us enter the field with a desire to help those who are struggling in life and suffering emotionally, but we may not always see the opportunities to contribute to the broader issues that affect all of our communities. This workshop offers an opportunityRead More…
How to Get Unhooked Martha Straus To work with troubled and traumatized adolescents, it’s crucial for therapists to first foster their own capacity for self-awareness and self-regulation. It’s not easy, especially when our young clients’ extreme reactions—ranging from angry arousal to frozen shutting down—can trigger our own sense of helplessness, failure, dissociation, and rejection. InRead More…
IFS and Our Relationships with Food and the Body Jeanne Catanzaro Mindful eating has become an increasingly popular antidote to dieting, seen as a helpful strategy for differentiating emotional from physical hunger and for encouraging self-acceptance. But eating mindfully by itself often isn’t enough to fully address the extreme beliefs and emotions about food andRead More…
Gentle Protocols for Rewiring the Brain Courtney Armstrong Hypnosis is making a comeback as research demonstrates its effectiveness in relieving anxiety, resolving traumatic memories, breaking habitual patterns, and reducing chronic pain. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to safely guide your clients into hypnotic states, effectively frame suggestions, clear subconscious blocks, and activate the client’sRead More…
The Path to Recovery Michele Weiner-Davis Without a concrete road map for helping couples heal from infidelity, it’s easy for therapists to get lost in the labyrinth of emotions. Using video clips, this workshop will provide a comprehensive, step-by-step plan for dealing with different phases of recovery, from the crisis of discovery through forgiveness. LearnRead More…
Harnessing an Underutilized Therapeutic Resource Joan Klagsbrun The “felt sense”—our implicit body wisdom—is a resource in each of us that typically lies at the edge of awareness but has the capacity to accelerate the healing process and make therapy more effective. When therapists welcome and encourage exploration of the felt sense, clients speak from theirRead More…
We’re Older. Are We Better? Daniel Siegel & Bessel van der Kolk On the occasion of the Symposium’s 40th anniversary, two of the most influential figures in our field reflect on the most important advances of the past four decades as well as the prospects for improving our therapeutic effectiveness in the future, with aRead More…
Applying Dyadic Mindfulness in Your Work Parts 1 & 2 Halko Weiss & Maci Daye While traditional talk therapy relies largely on conscious awareness, research shows that explicit brain functions have only limited impact on our feelings and behaviors. In this experiential workshop, we’ll explore how to use Hakomi’s mind-body approach to transform limiting beliefsRead More…
Overcoming Internal Attachment Disorder Parts 1 & 2 Janina Fisher Many therapists believe the primary antidote to clients’ feelings of self-loathing, shame, and worthlessness is total acceptance and unconditional positive regard. But unfortunately, clients alienated from traumatized, disowned, or despised parts of themselves can’t internalize that message, no matter how hard the therapist tries. ThisRead More…
Four Core Skills Parts 1 & 2 Deany Laliotis How does a therapist know how to navigate the emotional landscape with a client when the present is more about the past? How do we help the client whose motivation for change is compromised? This workshop offers a conceptual framework from contemporary models of psychotherapy andRead More…
How to Stay Steady and Sturdy Parts 1 & 2 Wendy Behary When anger enters the treatment room, whether or not it’s directed at us, it can often take us by surprise, rattle our composure, sidetrack the therapy session, and overwhelm us with fear, fury, humiliation, or other triggered emotions. If we allow our clients’Read More…
A Therapy for the 21st Century Parts 1 & 2 Eric Gentry What if there was a simple, efficient, and effective way to treat clients’ traumatic stress that didn’t involve them revisiting the painful memories of the past? Forward-Facing Trauma Therapy (FFTT) is a method of trauma treatment that combines components of CBT and brainRead More…
Clarifying Boundaries in 21st-Century Practice Parts 1 & 2 Mary Jo Barrett & Linda Stone Fish The ethical rules for therapists used to be straightforward and unambiguous: no gifts, no dual relationships, and no out-of-session contact. But the ease of digital connection and the shift in our profession’s norms have introduced new questions about professionalRead More…
Exploring Our Untold Stories Parts 1 & 2 Kenneth Hardy For all the progress we’ve made since the Civil Rights movement, racism is woven into the very fabric of our economic, social, and political institutions. And despite the progressive political attitudes of most therapists, people of color still experience special challenges in the mental healthRead More…
Memory Reconsolidation in Everyday Practice Parts 1 & 2 Bruce Ecker & Sara Bridges Neuroscientific advances in memory reconsolidation enable us to achieve therapeutic breakthroughs with previously unheard of consistency. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to engage the neural process that decommissions implicit learnings that drive PTSD, compulsive behaviors, and insecure attachment. You’ll seeRead More…
A Road Map for Complex Chronic Problems Parts 1 & 2 Lane Pederson Originally developed as a therapy to help borderline clients, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a structured model that helps streamline clinical decision-making with difficult-to-treat clients, including those with eating disorders, alcoholism, and a range of self-injurious behaviors. DBT integrates mindfulness, motivational techniques,Read More…
When Is Enough Enough? Parts 1 & 2 Terry Real We’ve all encountered couples for whom therapy is a last-ditch attempt before calling it quits. But how do we, as therapists, decide whether to throw our weight behind the relationship or let it end? This session explores the impact our own values, childhood experiences, and oldRead More…
How to make Therapy More Portable Parts 1 & 2 Chris Germer From depression and anxiety to addiction and trauma, a lack of self-compassion lies at the core of nearly every presenting problem. When therapy is effective, the therapist’s compassionate attitude seems to rub off on the client. Luckily, self-compassion exercises can also be taughtRead More…
A Dialogue with Salvador Minuchin Parts 1 & 2 Salvador Minuchin, Jeffrey Zeig & Susan Johnson At 95 years old, Salvador Minuchin is the world’s most famous living family therapist and probably the most imitated practitioner ever. In this special workshop, he’ll show a series of excerpts from some of the most memorable therapy sessionsRead More…
Processing Trauma without Talking about It Parts 1 & 2 David Grand Symptoms of unprocessed trauma—including dissociation, numbing, and chronic anxiety—are notoriously difficult to eliminate through talk therapy. The reason: the overwhelmed brain is unable to process verbal information about the events. But Brainspotting, a brain-based method for clearing trauma blockage without clients having toRead More…
How They’re Changing You and Therapy Forever Parts 1 & 2 Ron Taffel As the first generation brought up entirely in the digital age, millennials (18-35 years old) represent a sea change from previous generations of psychotherapy clients. Along with a review of the research on the distinctive lifestyle choices, diagnostic patterns, and self-regulatory issuesRead More…
How We Can Help Our Clients and the World at the Same Time Parts 1 & 2 William Doherty Let’s face it: we therapists have had an ambivalent relationship with commitment, often opting for Polonius’s individualistic admonition “to thine own self be true.” But now that we’re coming out of an historic era where weRead More…
How to Go Beyond Technique Mary Jo Barrett When it comes to working with complex developmental trauma, it seems like therapists can’t get enough tools for their tool bag. And yet what determines effectiveness in this challenging arena of practice are crucial dimensions of the therapeutic relationship that go beyond any technical intervention. In thisRead More…
Exploring an Alternative Career Path Leslie Austin Despite all the parallels between therapy and coaching, relatively few therapists have been able to launch successful coaching practices. This workshop will focus on three key elements in becoming a successful coach: establishing a solid business model, understanding how the goals and boundaries of coaching differ from therapy,Read More…
Understanding Sensory Processing and Sensory Strategies in Treatment Tara Delaney More than 90 percent of children diagnosed with autism suffer from sensory processing difficulties that underlie their extreme, reactive behaviors. But typically, even in therapy, there’s not enough attention paid to these difficulties play in the academic struggles, behavioral problems, and coordination challenges that theseRead More…
The Changing Face of Committed Relationships Tammy Nelson More couples today than ever before are negotiating their monogamy in new and creative ways, including open marriage, polyamory, group marriages, transgender relationships, and a variety of intentional partnerships. As therapists, we need to understand these new developments, the challenges they bring, and the skills required ofRead More…
Busting the Common Myths Sally Winston & Martin Seif Almost everything we learned about OCD in graduate school prior to 2000 was just plain wrong: it’s not rare, obvious, hard to treat, or a manifestation of deep underlying conflict. We now know it’s common, often unrecognized, and that it’s far more helpful to treat whatRead More…
How Brain Science Can Inform Interventions Frank Anderson Therapists often get shaken and lose confidence in their approach when a client’s trauma response edges into seemingly uncontrollable extremes of rage, panic, or suicidal desperation. This workshop provides an essential road map for treating difficult trauma cases through a detailed exploration of the neurobiological processes ofRead More…
Creating the “Good Enough” Ending Christine Courtois All therapy must eventually end, but endings can come about for any number of reasons: from the positive (successful treatment of a specific issue) to the negative (treatment stalling or insurance running out) to outside factors (relocation, retirement, illness, death). Whatever the case, endings can evoke many issues,Read More…
Treating Clients Who Challenge Our Capacity for Compassion Noel Larson How do you encourage clients who’ve been perpetrators to take responsibility for the pain and suffering they’ve caused? It can be a daunting task, especially since such clients can’t develop the capacity to accept responsibility for having done harm without first having had the experienceRead More…
Overcoming the Challenges in Therapy Sandra Wartski Most therapists know that treating eating disorders (EDs) can be a very rocky journey. They also know that a culture awash with unrealistic ideals of body perfection can further exacerbate clients’ distorted relationships with food and body image. This workshop will provide therapists with a step-by-step approach to navigating these clientsRead More…
Strategies for Rewiring the Brain Linda Graham The more we apply the discoveries of neuroscience to our clinical work, the more skilled we can become at tailoring interventions to match clients’ specific difficulties and guide them through the changes in brain functioning that best catalyze their growth. Whether clients are stuck in repetitive defensive patterns, strugglingRead More…
Succeeding with Our Most Reluctant Clients Janet Sasson Edgette Most teens are only in therapy because their parents, their teachers, the juvenile court judge, or some other authority has told them they must see a therapist—or else. Consequently, they often find standard therapeutic bromides and shrink-wrapped attempts to “engage” them artificial, even infuriating. This workshopRead More…
Special Issues in Working with Marginalized Clients Anita Mandley If you work with African Americans, Native Americans, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, or any other disenfranchised clients, you’re often working with the legacies of cultural and historical trauma. This workshop will open a path toward addressing wounds and issues that too often go ignored andRead More…
A Family Approach Jean Malpas Therapists working with the families of transgender and gender-expansive youth (TGEY) are facing questions for which there are no easy answers. What’s the best way to respond when parents of a transgender teenager refuse to give access to hormone therapy? Or when the parents of an 8-year-old gender nonconforming childRead More…
Helping Clients Rediscover Real Life Linda Graham We’re used to exploring how addictions can lead to broken relationships with family and friends, but what about ways in which our digital addictions can negatively affect those same things? Think about it: on average, American adults check their cell phones every 6.5 minutes. American teenagers spend almostRead More…
Strategies for Surviving and Thriving Patricia Papernow Stepfamilies begin with such high hopes, but all too often they find themselves stuck in toxic cycles of tension and conflict. Although 42 percent of Americans have a close stepfamily relationship, few therapists ever receive solid training in helping their clients in stepfamilies to meet their intense challenges.Read More…
The Brave New World of Relationship Dilemmas Alexandra Solomon Today’s emerging adults are navigating a brave new dating world of hookups, friends with benefits, and other ambiguous relationships, facilitated and amplified by new technologies and digital platforms. Often these digital natives crave connection and foresee marriage and children in their future, even if their currentRead More…
Collective Trauma as a Clinical Issue Patrick Dougherty While we know the regular eruptions of violence from mass shootings, police brutality, and acts of terrorism that dominate the news cycle often trigger anxiety, anger, and genuine despair in many of our clients, most of us have no training in how to bring up the impactRead More…
A Radical Approach to Healing Interpersonal Wounds Janis Abrahms Spring Forgiveness has been held up as the gold standard of recovery from interpersonal injuries, but in real life, hurt parties often find that they can’t or won’t forgive, particularly when the offender is unrepentant or dead. In this workshop, you’ll learn to reframe the healingRead More…
Strategies to Enhance Mood and Well-Being Leslie Korn If we are what we eat, then beyond the mind-body connection there’s also a food-mind-body connection. This workshop will explore the latest nutritional research to inform psychotherapeutic practice and how diet can affect mood, as well as the links between depression, inflammation, and cognitive function. You’ll exploreRead More…
Separating Myths from Reality Frank Anderson With so much controversy and contradictory research about the effectiveness of psychopharmacological interventions, it’s hard to know how to best work with your clients around the issue of meds. What are the new most promising medications on the market? Are antidepressants really any better than placebos? Why are so manyRead More…
Changing the Family Dance Lynn Lyons Anxiety can be a very persistent master. When it moves into families, it takes over daily routines, schoolwork, and recreation. To make matters worse, the things adults (including many therapists and school staff) do to help anxious children can actually make the anxiety stronger. Fortunately, research shows that what weRead More…
Virtual Reality in Therapy Michael Greene Long touted as a potentially powerful and disruptive technology, virtual reality (VR) has moved into the mainstream, with low-cost consumer products becoming readily available. Some people believe that VR has vast implications for therapists, both as a tool to be used with specific types of issues and more broadlyRead More…
Adventures in the Physics of Vulnerability Brené Brown Research has shown that fully owning our stories of our most significant stumbles and falls can help us take our life narratives in empowering new directions. This workshop will introduce you to The Rising Strong Process, an approach to turning toward the pain of our setbacks, ratherRead More…
An Emotionally Focused Approach Parts 1 & 2 Kathryn Rheem Volatile, emotionally escalated clients can be among the most challenging cases couples therapists regularly work with. Such clients can often be set off by seemingly negligible events, making sessions difficult for both partners and their therapist. Typically, core issues of attachment distress are at theRead More…
Enhancing Your Therapeutic Impact Parts 1 & 2 Jeffrey Zeig There’s something both inspirational and humbling about watching the clinical work of master therapists like Virginia Satir, Carl Whitaker, Salvador Minuchin, and Milton Erickson. While it’s tempting to think they have a unique therapeutic gift, it’s even more helpful to ask: “How do they doRead More…
Challenging Some Common Myths Parts 1 & 2 Marty Klein If you ask clients what they want from sex, they’ll usually tell you pleasure and closeness. But that’s typically not what they actually focus on during sex. Instead, they’re thinking about how they look, what they sound or smell like, what their partner is thinking,Read More…
How Therapists Can Help Parts 1 & 2 Phyllis Booth & Dafna Lender Unlike teens, young children can’t readily talk about feelings, don’t sit in one place, and often can’t follow rules and directions, even when you’re playing a game. So how can you incorporate these crucial family members into your sessions in a wayRead More…
How to Set Limits and Hold Them Accountable Parts 1 & 2 Wendy Behary Narcissists are notoriously difficult to work with. They can be arrogant, condescending, lacking in empathy, and so self-absorbed they seem incapable of forming genuine relationships with anyone, including their therapist. Since being nice is usually ineffective with such clients, in orderRead More…
Turning “Resistance” into Opportunity Parts 1 & 2 Clifton Mitchell The key to navigating through therapeutic standstills is to use them as valuable clues for steering the therapeutic conversation more skillfully, rather than seeing them as obstacles to be overcome. In this highly practical workshop, you’ll explore how to use critical junctures in a sessionRead More…
One Step Forward and Two Steps Back Parts 1 & 2 Lisa Ferentz While every therapist understands that treatment is most effective when it unfolds within the context of a safe therapeutic relationship, it’s often challenging to build a meaningful alliance with traumatized clients who turn therapy into an emotional roller coaster. This isRead More…
New Perspectives on Gender Diversity Parts 1 & 2 Margaret Nichols & Laura Jacobs Transgender and gender-expansive people are more visible today than they were in the past, and there’s been a corresponding acceptance of gender diversity as normal and varying along a continuum. Indeed, you’ve probably seen or heard of clients who describe themselvesRead More…
