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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
What Works and What Doesn’t Jonah Paquette While the field of positive psychology emphasizes building on clients’ internal strengths rather than their “pathology,” many therapists remain unsure of how to put its emphasis on gratitude and optimism to practical use in the consulting room. In addition, they often don’t know how to present positive psychologyRead More…
How to Create a Sustainable Mindfulness Practice Plan Caroline Welch The biggest challenge to creating a sustainable mindfulness practice is changing the ingrained habits that get us off track. For many women those distractions come in the form of the nonstop, converging demands of work, clients, family, friends, etc. So how do we put limitsRead More…
