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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Breaking Eggshells Parts 1 & 2 Kenneth Hardy Rather than signaling an end to racism, the Obama presidency has revealed how much stereotypes and tensions about race still pervade much of American society. But even though we may want to broach the issue of race openly, honestly, and respectfully, too often, we typically feel constrainedRead More…
Uplifting Interventions to Heal the Heart and Rewire the Brain Parts 1 & 2 Courtney Armstrong Research from brain science and positive psychology shows that activating positive emotional states is the fastest route to instilling hope, stimulating creativity, spurring motivation, and empowering our clients. But how do you help clients access resourceful states when they’reRead 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…
From Devastation to Hope Lisa Ferentz Although it’s important for therapists to help clients process the painful and often demoralizing effects of trauma, it’s also crucial to nurture their potential for new possibilities of healing through post-traumatic growth (PTG). In fact, learning respectful ways to plant seeds of hope and resilience can make all theRead 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 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…
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…
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…
Bringing More of Your Hidden Potential to Life David Grand All too often performance, especially in sports, is undermined by developmental trauma and the accompanying dissociation. Brainspotting is an approach for going deep into the subcortical brain that can zero in on performance-blocking dissociation and enhance performance in sports, creative activities, school, and business. InRead 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…
