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…
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…
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…
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 Or we’ve met adolescents who are silent, withdrawn, and indifferent.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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Finding the Right Fit for Clients Parts 1 & 2 Joan Borysenko As meditation practice is increasingly being integrated into psychotherapy, therapists too often see it as a one-size-fits-all remedy. But these practices actually include a range of tools that can be more effective when tailored to a client’s history, personality organization, religious or spiritualRead 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…
