The “lost generation” of autistic adults—those who uncovered their Autism diagnosis in adulthood—are flooding our offices. As therapists, how can we best help them turn their lifelong barriers into breakthroughs? Say goodbye to stigma, outdated assessment methods, and what you thought you knew about Autism. In this workshop, we’ll uncover a new, innovative therapeutic approach that replaces ineffective generalist-therapy techniques with Autism-affirming strategies to create a new paradigm of care for neurodivergent clients. We’ll explore the expansive diagnostic scope of high- masking adults and equip you for the unique clinical considerations they present. You’ll discover:

• How to identify previously unrecognized markers of neurodivergence
• How to help clients soothe a nervous system “on fire” and address issues related to sensory sensitivities and comorbidities
• How to unlock therapeutic pathways to identity-based acceptance, including navigating diagnostic grief
• How to transform communication between partners in neurodivergence-affirming couples therapy

When your clients tell you they want to lose weight, how do you respond? Do you reply affirmatively? Do you ask questions? What comes up for you, personally? No matter your clinical specialization or treatment approach, you almost certainly have clients who struggle with body image and body size. How you respond to their concerns has the potential to help them heal—or to compound their shame. Yes, we therapists value inclusivity, but too often we forget to include body size in the mix of the diversity we appreciate, which has repercussions for our work and our clients’ well-being. In this workshop, you’ll explore how anti-fat bias shows up in the therapy room. As you unlearn messages rooted in diet culture, you’ll walk away with strategies to help clients feel more at peace with food and their bodies, without causing harm. You’ll also explore: 

• How weight stigma affects the well-being of clients and therapists—and plays out in the therapy room 
• How to improve client outcomes by challenging common misconceptions about the connection between trauma, binge eating, and weight  
• Strategies clients and therapists can use to unlearn internalized weight stigma  
• Resources to help clients feel more at home in—and take care of—their bodies 

Deep down, the majority of successful people spend a good amount of time questioning their professional legitimacy. The result can be debilitating self-doubt and rumination, affecting everything from their work to their relationships. You might even be one of these self-doubters! So how can we help people break free of this so-called imposter “syndrome”? In this workshop, learn Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to help clients manage their imposterism and live up to their full professional potential—without being usurped by the crippling burden of self-doubt. You’ll explore why your clients (and you!) develop imposter thoughts, fall into traps trying to outrun the imposter experience, and how to take actionable steps toward cultivating psychological flexibility—the main goal of ACT---to move confidently in the direction of your most deeply held values. You’ll also learn:  

• Which people are most vulnerable to the imposter experience—and why  
• The five imposter subtypes—and how to work with them in the therapy room 
• ACT metaphors and experiential exercises to bring your work to life for clients 

Many cross-racial interactions, inside and outside the therapy room, lead to reactivity and defensiveness that manifest in a number of ways, such as explosiveness, distancing, disengagement, and self-righteousness. But no matter what form reactivity takes, it gets in the way of meaningful and constructive conversations. These kinds of toxic interactions can ruin a friendship, work relationship, and even therapeutic relationship, leaving both parties feeling disillusioned, frustrated, and hopeless about not just current but future cross-racial encounters. In this workshop, we’ll explore:  

• The anatomy of racial reactivity in order to help enhance race-related conversations and avoid inflicting racial harm 
• How racial defensiveness can affect cross-racial engagement in the short and long-term  
• Strategies for addressing, overcoming, and regulating racial reactivity inside and outside of therapy 
• Effective ways to work with defensiveness to achieve honest and productive interactions 

Like it or not, confrontation is a necessary part of all therapy. Maybe your client comes into therapy with grand pronouncements: “I’m all in—I'll do the work!” And for a little bit, it seems like they’ll follow through. But when you bring up, even gently, the ways in which they’re undermining their goals, they deny, diffuse, or become defensive, and the work stalls. In this workshop, you’ll discover the six skills that are proven to help clients take accountability without triggering defensiveness. Using video from actual client sessions—including moments of confrontation—we’ll break down the “confrontation cycle,” walking through techniques that move clients forward, instead of causing them to regress or feel attacked. You’ll learn how to: 

• Prime clients for moments of confrontation  
• Use confrontation in individual and couples sessions 
• Recognize and process your own emotional reactions during confrontation of all sorts, including soft, empathetic, and indirect 
• Help clients confront themselves 

Many clients find themselves stuck in a loop of repeatedly being pulled back into trauma reenactments, despite their best efforts to heal. In this workshop, we'll explore why our clients stay locked in a state of threat long after the original wounding has passed, and how the subsequent perceptual, cognitive, and somatic compensations become habits that prevent them from truly healing. Using the latest research, demonstrations, and experiential practices, we'll examine how to help clients identify and break free from the distorted thoughts and bodily responses that perpetuate the trauma cycle. You'll learn practical tools for:

• Recognizing trauma reenactment patterns 
• Getting to what’s preventing the release of these patterns 
• Building a roadmap for therapy and for clients to release these painful patterns 

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a compassionate, nonpathologizing, evidence-based approach to helping clients change entrenched patterns of thinking and behavior, and heal deep, traumatic wounding. IFS honors the natural multiplicity of the mind through parts work. It takes into account the various contexts and systems within which we’re embedded that shape our psyches. This workshop invites participants to honor and befriend their own protective parts as they explore fundamental principles and assumptions of IFS theory. You’ll learn to:  

• Understand your clients' symptoms through a non-pathologizing lens 
• Introduce clients to core components of the psyche, including parts, burdens, and the Self 
• Shift clients from the “story” to guided internal parts work 
• Help clients develop trusting, connected relationships with their protective parts 

Healing from sexual trauma can be a complex journey involving struggles with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and other mental health and behavioral issues. At the cutting edge of treatment is the integration of Internal Family Systems with Integrative Relationship Therapy. In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to the benefits of viewing clients’ unwanted symptoms through an IFS lens, and you’ll explore how sex and relationship therapy can play a powerful role in integrating dismembered parts of the self. You’ll learn to apply the most effective interventions in the narrative, grief, and vision phases of treatment, and to move clients toward recovery. You’ll learn to help clients explore: 

• Common sexual problems experienced by survivors of sexual trauma 
• The three-phase recovery process for couples with trauma 
• Triggers and how to implement a powerful IFS method for emotion regulation 
• Identity, sexual integrity, and relationship assumptions  

Grieving clients are often experiencing not just loss but trauma. As practitioners, it’s important that we’re able to recognize and address both as we help them move toward healing. This requires tools and techniques for close listening, looking to the body for clues, and releasing regret, anger, and rumination. In this workshop, you’ll:  

• Learn the difference between grief and trauma, and how they intersect in traumatic grief 
• Understand when focusing on the story of the loss helps, and when it keeps clients stuck  
• Apply tools that help clients move toward healing when grief involves guilt, sudden death, lengthy illness, suicide, addiction, or old wounds  
• Lean somatic techniques to release grief that becomes stuck in their body 

For many therapists, especially those who wish to provide teletherapy, the idea of coaching holds great appeal. We dream of doing what we’re already doing now, only more freely and with fewer constraints. However, there are several misconceptions about life coaching, especially when it comes to providing services across state lines. Similarly, there are a number of misunderstandings surrounding interjurisdictional practice, interstate compacts, and working with online counseling companies. It’s critical to be up to date on the complex legal and ethical parameters involving these issues. In this workshop, you’ll learn about some of the most common misconceptions and commonly held myths pertaining to these topics and you’ll leave equipped with the tools and resources you need to make informed choices.  You’ll learn:  

• How to articulate the difference between therapy and coaching to clients looking for “coaching” services
• The ethical and legal implications of providing coaching online  
• How to know when providing services across state lines is legal (and when it’s not) 
• How interstate compacts work and how they can benefit you and your clients  
• How to weigh the risks and benefits of treating clients through online counseling companies 

The processes driving child development, primarily those embedded in the parent-child relationship, are the most striking mechanisms of human change. In fact, the parent-child relationship is so profound and its effects so long-lasting that it can help us to understand and predict how best to foster the client-therapist relationship so it can succeed in producing change. In this workshop, you’ll discover:  

• The particularly important ways therapy relationships mirror clients’ family relationships  
• Why kids’ meaning-making processes are so messy, and how that’s mirrored in therapy when they’re adults 
• Ways to think about parent-child disruption and repair, and its lasting effects on your clients 
• How to break down the ways a parent’s depression and stress have influenced a person’s social-emotional development  

Deep down, the majority of successful people spend a good amount of time questioning their professional legitimacy. The result can be debilitating self-doubt and rumination, affecting everything from their work to their relationships. You might even be one of these self-doubters! So how can we help people break free of this so-called imposter “syndrome”? In this workshop, learn Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) techniques to help clients manage their imposterism and live up to their full professional potential—without being usurped by the crippling burden of self-doubt. You’ll explore why your clients (and you!) develop imposter thoughts, fall into traps trying to outrun the imposter experience, and how to take actionable steps toward cultivating psychological flexibility—the main goal of ACT---to move confidently in the direction of your most deeply held values. You’ll also learn:  

• Which people are most vulnerable to the imposter experience—and why  
• The five imposter subtypes—and how to work with them in the therapy room 
• ACT metaphors and experiential exercises to bring your work to life for clients 

Parent-child estrangement is a deeply painful and complex issue, with latest reports indicating that as many as 1 in 4 families are affected. Understanding and addressing these relational wounds can significantly enhance not just our clients’ mental health but the health of entire family systems and communities. This workshop offers a deep dive into the emotional dynamics of parent-child estrangement and provides practical tools for transforming relational pain into opportunities for connection and growth. By mastering these techniques, you’ll be equipped to guide clients through the delicate process of repairing and strengthening parent-child relationships. You’ll discover:

• Effective communication strategies for addressing and resolving conflicts between parents and adult children
• How to confidently assess when repair is possible and what boundaries are necessary for both a client’s and a parent's mental health
• How to help clients establish and maintain healthy boundaries in parent-child relationships
• How to guide families through the emotional healing process, turning negative emotions into opportunities for growth and reconnection

The stories people tell themselves—and their therapists—are powerful. They can keep clients stuck, but they can also galvanize change. Although our culture often reinforces stories of personal deficit, rather than resilience and resourcefulness, narrative therapy effectively helps clients reauthor their stories within a broader context, revealing deeper truths about their lives and identities. In this workshop, you’ll explore a range of practical tools for engaging your clients in this work, including how to help them creatively remember empowering storylines after they leave a session. You’ll discover how to help clients:

• Re-evaluate, reimagine, and revise negative identity conclusions.
• Remember critical conversations that can shift their view of themselves and their relationships
• Engage with evocative Narrative Therapy questions that help contextualize their problems in a new, enlivening way
• Practice therapeutic letter writing to help alter disempowering, limiting narratives

It’s no surprise to anyone in our line of work: therapy is a demanding business. Recent studies show that nearly 40 percent of therapists say their workload has increased since the pandemic, and nearly half of therapists say they’re feeling burned out. But burnout doesn’t just affect us: it also affects those we help. In this workshop, you’ll learn perhaps the most vital ingredient in preventing burnout: establishing—and maintaining—proper personal and professional boundaries. You’ll learn how this optimizes your work and outcomes with clients as well as ways to implement these boundaries in multiple spheres: in creating your workload, in the moment with clients, and in establishing a healthy work-life balance. You’ll walk away with personalized, practical tools and strategies for increasing your professional longevity and maintaining overall well-being. You’ll learn how to:

• Manage feelings of activation or overwhelm when it arises in the middle of a session
• Recognize the early signs of professional burnout and boundary violations
• Use scripts for setting and enforcing professional boundaries with your clients
• Unlearn people-pleasing beliefs that keep you locked in “fix-it mode,” no matter the personal cost

Come experience mindfulness with one of the world’s leading practitioners and learn how to truly implement these practices in your life to improve your present-moment awareness as a therapist and utilize these practices with your clients. In this session you'll discover:

• How present moment awareness is actually developed in the brain, and why it’s critical for our health
• Skills for diving deeply into what is going on at subtle levels of experience to unlock stuck places in our minds
• How these practices enhance your connection to your work and your clients through the ability to deeply listen and engage in dialogue

Working with people in pain has never been easy, but recently, it’s become even more difficult. Between our country’s multiple mental health crises, a shortage of providers, and diminishing professional boundaries, many of today’s therapists are feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and under-supported. Does this sound familiar? Our repeated exposure to our clients’ anxiety, depression, anger, and loss can manifest as a type of grief. In this workshop, you’ll learn specific tools you can use to manage this grief and set boundaries in the workplace, while still remaining present, attuned, and helpful to your clients. You’ll also discover how to:

• Create and maintain boundaries with clients and coworkers in real time
• Detect and navigate systemic workplace failures that are sources of emotional overwhelm
• How to build a support system to help you manage grief when it arises
• How to temper your use of self-disclosure and empathy to prevent getting “sucked in”

Sometimes EMDR alone isn’t enough to heal entrenched traumas, particularly when clients struggle with early attachment issues. Attachment-Focused Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing (AF-EMDR) combines multiple approaches to support attachment-wounded clients through their trauma healing process. In this introductory workshop, you’ll learn about resourcing and developmental repair, including how to modify the EMDR protocol can be so that it flows more easily. You’ll be introduced to new ways of combining powerful protocols—EMDR, Resource Tapping, and talk therapy—with principles of attachment theory to provide a more client-centered, reparative treatment that support client safety, maintain the therapeutic connection, and enhance attunement. You’ll explore:

• The benefits and basic principals of AF-EMDR and Resource Tapping for specific client issues
• How to manage emotions and reduce stress by tapping in the 4 foundational resources of peaceful places, nurturing figures, protector figures, and wise figures
• How to address developmental deficits by harnessing clients’ imagination along with bilateral stimulation

Healing circles go beyond traditional therapy models to create a liberatory, decolonial practice that's especially resonant for marginalized communities. As a powerful form of psychoeducation, it reduces the stigma associated with many mental health issues, including loneliness, and fosters therapeutic cohesion. Therapists passionate about expanding their reach and exploring ways to make impact off the couch will benefit greatly from learning more about this way to facilitate healing. In this workshop, you’ll engage in reflective exercises about yourself as a healing circle facilitator, learn ways to honor the cultural experiences of marginalized groups, and explore real-world examples of healing circles that incorporate mindfulness, oral history, movement, and spirituality. Although the examples focus on meeting the needs of Black women, you’ll be invited to imagine how you can incorporate healing circles in your work.

• Uncover the unique mental health challenges faced by Black women—like racial trauma, ancestral grief, and the exhaustion of code-switching—by integrating decolonial frameworks that honor identity and lived experience.
• Unlock the power of oral history archives and collective listening to create thriving community spaces beyond talk therapy
• Experience contemplative practices like guided imagery and body mapping to help process tough historical topics in ways that feel relevant and impactful today.
• Consider what it can mean to commit to out-of-the-box, decolonial therapeutic practices that challenge the status quo

Many adult clients entering therapy don’t know they’re autistic, and often neither do their therapists. After all, they may have become experts at masking “quirky” autistic traits and they might not fit therapist stereotypes of autism. Yet, neurodivergent wiring shapes every aspect of their life, including their therapy. Working effectively with this population means understanding the implications of having felt like an outsider their whole life due to their neurodivergence, often experiencing minority stress and discrimination from being cast as “weird” or even “broken.” In this workshop, you will:

• Gain confidence in identifying autistic traits and “masking” in your adult clients.
• Understand the unique challenges and experiences of autistic adults to effectively support treatment and build therapeutic rapport.
• Support your clients in exploring and embracing their autistic identity.
• Integrate a neurodiversity-affirming mindset and strategies into your clinical practice with ease.

In AEDP, a healing-oriented therapy that holds undoing aloneness as a sine qua non of trauma work, affirmation is not a mere nicety but a robust experiential clinical intervention, activating the brain’s intrinsic capacity for healing and self-repair. Through affirmation and AEDP's dyadic experiential work, people experience profound shifts in self-concept, attachment security, and overall quality of life. In this workshop, we’ll examine pioneering developmental work on recognition, emphasizing its role in fostering secure attachment bonds and healthy emotional development. You’ll discover:

• New, neurobiologically informed ways to help traumatized clients feel deeply seen, understood, and valued from the first session
• The key elements of attunement and moment-to-moment tracking to harness affirmation
• How to use relationally attuned affirmation to work with defensive walls traumatized clients have built

Although a recent national survey found that most clients have overwhelmingly positive attitudes about integrating their religion and spirituality into treatment, most therapists report feeling ill-equipped to meet these needs, especially if a sense of spiritual disconnection or lack of faith has led to personal struggles. In this workshop, you’ll explore what it means to be a spiritually competent therapist. You’ll walk away with practical guidance and interventions to incorporate spirituality into your practice, making sure you’re equipped to address religious and spiritual issues in a way that fosters meaningful and productive therapeutic outcomes. You’ll discover:

• How to navigate clients’ spiritual crises, disconnection from faith, and existential struggles
• The ethical implications of introducing spirituality in therapy
• Practical interventions for integrating spirituality into treatment to enhance outcomes and empower clients

We now know that helping clients heal from trauma includes teaching them to tune into their bodies and be able to use it as a resource. Therapists who can translate skills for calming and regulating the body not only provide clients with relief but create embodied hope that true healing is possible. Polyvagal-inspired interventions are some of the most effective of these body-based skills, and now they can be adapted for self-help outside of sessions. In this workshop you’ll learn to teach clients to adjust the volume on their emotions and give them a variety of techniques they can use to regulate in times of overwhelm. These include how to:

• Unlock the power of polyvagal theory in therapy
• Assess vagal functioning and tone in your clients
• Create an autonomic blueprint that will also help them cue coping strategies
• Apply the BASC intervention to foster mindfulness and regulation

Working with clients experiencing suicidal ideation can bring up lots of emotions in you, especially if this isn’t your specialty area. You might feel a mix of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt. You might question your clinical abilities—thinking, should I refer out?—or feel rushed to find a solution you don’t readily have. If you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone! In this workshop, we’ll confront these worries and trepidation by learning practical, evidence-based tools that will support you and your clients through these dark moments. We’ll cover ways to create a therapeutic environment that fosters hope, resilience, and empowerment that will buoy clients as they navigate suicidal ideation and work toward building an enjoyable and fulfilling life. You’ll discover how to:

• Address roadblocks that hinder rapport-building with clients with suicidal thoughts and get to the root causes of those thoughts
• Develop crisis-management techniques and create safety plans focused on the client’s self-empowerment
• Take a more constructive, modern approach than outdated methods like contracting for safety
• Enhance client safety by using a partnership approach to assess access to lethal means