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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
Working with Avoidant and Disorganized Clients Parts 1 & 2 Diane Poole Heller Many clients bring to therapy the remnants of attachment wounds experienced before they learned to speak, so talk therapy is often ineffective at getting to the root of early memories that can continue to roil emotions and disturb relationships. This workshop presentsRead More…
An Internal Family Systems (IFS) Approach Parts 1 & 2 Richard Schwartz One of the chief obstacles to effective trauma treatment can be the therapist’s view of trauma symptoms like dissociation, rage, and suicidal thoughts as frightening evidence of deep pathology, rather than an expression of the natural human impulse toward self-protection. This workshop willRead More…
When Talk Isn’t Enough Parts 1 & 2 Bessel van der Kolk The last 20 years have provided us with great advances in understanding the impact of trauma on developing brains and how it interferes with the capacity to concentrate and filter out irrelevant information. In this workshop, you’ll review the latest research and interventionsRead More…
A Rapid Transformative Approach Robert Schwarz Increasingly, therapists are discovering that when clients are immobilized by trauma or overwhelming affect, there’s a method that can help resolve the problem. Energy Psychology (EP) techniques are easy to learn. With ongoing research that includes over 70 published studies and three meta-analyses, EP approaches have proven to beRead More…
What to Do When Things Get Messy and Uncomfortable Mary Jo Barrett & Linda Stone Fish When working with trauma cases do you see clients go into flight, fight, and/or freeze? Do they yell at you, insult you, or leave the session? Are there times you find yourself getting angry at your clients? Do youRead More…
Who Says It’s Always Toxic? George Faller As a society, we often appear to be waging a war on stress, but it’s time to reconsider our one-sided view. We have a choice about whether to view stressful situations as being invariably toxic or as opportunities to face a healthy challenge. This experiential workshop will presentRead More…
A Day of Exploration through Writing, Vocalizing, and Movement Licia Sky Vocalizing and physical synchrony are the earliest forms of communication. This workshop will explore ways of finding your own authentic voice and becoming a more active agent in your life. Spend the day engaging in wide-ranging vocal and mind-body exercises designed to free up yourRead More…
A Pathway to Fuller Awareness Jessica Dibb We live, therefore we breathe—yet few of us are aware of the profound implications of how the way we breathe shapes our daily experience. In this session, we’ll explore how to use conscious breathing to regulate our emotional state, relax our overstimulated brains, increase our energy, improve ourRead More…
Learning to Live from the Self Amy Weintraub This day of LifeForce Yoga practices will nourish your physical, emotional, and mental body, and prepare you to take full advantage of your Symposium experience. You’ll learn unique breathing, meditation, and movement practices, adapted for clinical settings, that will enhance your capacity for openness and authentic connection.Read More…
Learning to Balance Your Life Energies Patrick Dougherty You’ve no doubt heard about Qigong, but how much do you really know about the benefits of this simple practice? Here’s your chance to directly experience its positive effects. Qigong opens up any blocked energy channels in the body and offers greater engagement and more profound connectionRead More…
A Day of Movement, Meditation, and Dance Daniel Leven The heart is our core, our vital energy center. In this full-day experiential workshop, awaken your heart to new energy through a balanced blend of movement, meditation, and dance. You’ll discover a sense of aliveness and compassion that’s the source of healing joy, well-being, and deepRead More…
Discovering Inner Peace and Freedom Elana Rosenbaum No other method has had more influence on bringing self-care and awareness training into the mainstream of healthcare today than Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Originally developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and now taught at more than 250 medical centers around the world, it offers simple and powerful practices such as bodyRead More…
The Keys to Transforming Habitual Patterns Betsy Polatin Expand the capacity to express yourself by using a unique approach that combines the Alexander Technique for neuromuscular reeducation, breathing coordination, and somatic experiencing. This workshop will offer hands-on guidance and simple exercises to enhance sensory skills by exploring the musculoskeletal, respiratory, and nervous systems. While manyRead More…
Learning to Let Yourself Move Baba Richard Gonzalez We all admire the grace, fluidity, and freedom dancers express, and their ability to step out of ordinary life into the realm of pure, rhythmic movement. But few of us feel we have the ability—or the nerve—to do much dancing ourselves. In this workshop, you’ll learn the practicalRead More…
