The Gottman Connection: Exploring the Ultimate Clinical Assistant
Program Information
Objectives
Apply a thorough tele-therapy assessment of a relationship’s strengths and challenges in a complete written report and treatment recommendations to improve outcomes.
Investigate the actual moment-by-moment dynamics in the complete written report and treatment recommendations to improve outcomes.
Employ into your couples therapy a set of new online tele-therapeutic tools called the “Relationship Builder” that can be used with couples living together or apart.
Assess how to help couples deal with conflicts and difficulties between sessions by using the “Relationship Builder” to access appropriate tools and exercises.
Outline
Tele-therapy assessment of a relationship’s strengths and challenges.
Tele-therapy session review and discussion
Moment-By-Moment Dynamics
Overview and how to understand and explain these dynamics
How to describe the couple’s interactions during conflict and events discussions
Written report and treatment recommendations
How to explain them to clients
Improve treatment outcomes
“Relationship Builder”
Overview
How these tools can be integrated into your couples therapy
How this tool can be used with couples living together or apart.
How to help couples deal with conflicts and difficulties between sessions by using the “Relationship Builder” to access appropriate tools and exercises.
Copyright :20/03/2021
The Biology of Loss: How to Foster Resilience When Attachments Are Impaired
Program Information
Objectives
Measure the impacts of childhood trauma on psychological functioning and well-being in adulthood.
Differentiate how to uncover early traumatic events of childhood and unconscious feeling states.
Devise how to cultivate deeper therapeutic presence by bringing awareness to unconscious patterns and processes that may be exacerbating client symptoms.
Demonstrate how to keep clients engaged in present-moment experiences using a mind-body framework.
Evaluate recent developments in attachment research and trauma.
Extrapolate how early loss can translate into maladaptive behaviours in adulthood.
Propose 3 examples of skills for building resilience in the face of loss.
Outline
Defining the impacts of trauma and hidden emotional stressors
Understand the role of stress in the development of disease
Review the stress reaction from the perspective of systems theory
Understanding the nature of resilience as adaptation
The ways in which we can overcome stress and foster resilience
The social context of stress and problematic behaviours
Moving past reaction to understanding origins as adaptations
The attachment drive as a biological necessity
A paradigm for developing resilience in the face of attachment loss
Copyright :19/03/2021
Psychotherapy and Neurobiology: Understanding the Science and Impact
Program Information
Objectives
Determine the neurobiological underpinnings of the arousal system that create dysregulation that is necessary for the development of PTSD
Appraise the three brain systems important for the understanding of psychotherapy
Determine the role of the default mode network in trauma recovery
Appraise the clinical research surrounding the effectiveness of various modalities in healing traumatic stress responses.
Propose several evidence-based methods that foster re-regulation of mind and body that can aid in reduction of symptomology that leads to continued trauma
Outline
The Neurobiology of Trauma
The body’s arousal system in the face of trauma
Three brain systems
Relationship between mind, brain, body, and relationships
The Interplay of Trauma and the Brain
The effects of abuse on the human brain
The Default Mode Network’s role in trauma and recovery
The Recovery from Traumatic Stress
Evidence-based methods that can foster re-regulation of the mind and body
The importance of developing regulation strategies
The use of touch in therapy
The use of psychedelics in treatment
Copyright :11/01/2021
Couples Therapy Meets Sex Therapy: Toward an Integrated Approach
Program Information
Objectives
Determine how to integrate sexuality issues into EFT couple therapy.
Evaluate attachment issues that can impact a couple’s sexuality.
Determine how to help couples develop a sexual life with or without sexual desire.
Outline
Explore how to integrate sexuality issues into EFT couple therapy.
Discussion of how to increase couple communication and connection as safe context to integrate sexuality issues.
Identify attachment issues that can impact a couple’s sexuality
Presentation about how to conduct a relational sexual history including identification of attachment wounds associated with adult sexuality.
Describe how to help couples develop a sexual life with or without sexual desire
Discussion of expansive models of sexual response that do not require sexual desire as a necessary component.
Copyright :19/03/2021
Finding Meaning in Loss: The Sixth Stage of Grief
Program Information
Objectives
Analyze four strategies to address guilt, shame, and stigma in special circumstances, such as child loss, sibling loss, parental loss, and death by suicide or addiction.
Assess and evaluate the strengths and limitations of the Kubler-Ross’s stage model as well as how a new stage can enhance posttraumatic growth and resiliency.
Evaluate three techniques for using grounded positive psychology to assist clients who are grieving.
Outline
Identify strategies to address guilt, shame, and stigma in special circumstances, such as child loss, sibling loss, parental loss, and death by suicide or addiction.
Understand how shame needs secrecy to survive.
Identify the relationship between guilt and helplessness.
Develop a better understanding of the strength and limitations of the Kubler-Ross’s stage model as well as how a new stage can enhance posttraumatic growth and resiliency.
Be able to explain to clients Kubler Ross’s directions for helpful vs non helpful applications for the clients grief experience.
Understand myths around acceptance.
Explore powerful techniques for using grounded positive psychology to help witness vs. “fixing” grief.
Learn how friends and family can interfere with support by pointing out silver linings.
Become aware of how the family, friends and even professionals can let their own uncomfortably interfere with a client’s grief.
Copyright :21/03/2021
Polyvagal Theory in Action: Harnessing the Healing Potential of the Autonomic Nervous System
Program Information
Objectives
Employ exercises designed to engage the neural circuits of your client’s Social Engagement System to improve clinical outcomes.
Evaluate and track moments of autonomic disconnection to optimize repair in sessions.
Create an environment of autonomic safety using the “inside, outside, and between” guide.
Use your own Social Engagement System to effectively coregulate with clients.
Outline
Employ exercises designed to engage the neural circuits of your client’s Social Engagement System to improve clinical outcomes.
Present the architecture of the Social Engagement System with an overview of the function of cranial nerves V, VII, IX, X, XI describing the impact on relationships and autonomic regulation
Teach specific exercises to activate each cranial nerve and ways to track the response
Identify actions of the Social Engagement System in specific clinical issues and ways to engage the system to shape specific clinical outcomes
Identify and track moments of autonomic disconnection and find the right repair in sessions.
Present ways to map clinician autonomic response patterns
Learn what constitutes an autonomic rupture and an effective autonomic repair
Present ways to track levels of attunement and provide guided exercises to practice the repair process
Create an environment of autonomic safety using the “inside, outside, and between” guide.
Teach the organizing principle of neuroception
Present ways to track visceral, environmental, and relational cues of safety and danger within the autonomic response system
Practice ways to reduce cues of danger and create cues of safety using the autonomic experience of neuroception
Use your own Social Engagement System to effectively coregulate with clients.
Present a live demo to illustrate application of skills in a clinical session
Offer guided dyadic practice
Create personalized ways to use the five elements of the Social Engagement System as co-regulating resources
Copyright :18/03/2021
Accelerating Therapy with DBT Interventions: Breakthrough Techniques with Your Toughest Clients
Program Information
Objectives
Assess how to create discrepancy with values, goals, and behaviours to move therapy forward.
Appraise specific evidence-based tools to quickly engage clients in therapy and determine how best to target symptoms.
Determine how to develop skill with behaviour chain analysis to understand the function of behaviour and apply it to therapy to improve outcomes.
Demonstrate how to create movement and flow in therapy using both acceptance-based and change-based strategies.
Outline
Learn how to create discrepancy with values, goals, and behaviours to move therapy forward.
Learn to quickly identify meaningful value-driven goals with clients.
Identify behaviours that clients engage in that get them stuck.
Effectively highlight conflict between behaviours and goals to jumpstart motivation to change.
Describe specific evidence-based tools to quickly engage clients in therapy and determine how best to target symptoms.
Establish appetitive long-term goals that resonate with clients and pull them towards meaningful change.
Translate long term goals into specific therapy tasks to bring about change.
Create a relationship between equals that engages client in the therapy process.
Develop an organized plan for targeting symptoms to maximize therapy effectiveness.
Recognize how to develop skill with behaviour chain analysis to understand the function of behaviour and apply it to therapy to improve outcomes.
Learn when to use a behaviour chain analysis to collaboratively assess factors that reinforce problematic behaviours.
Increase willingness to target challenging behaviours by effectively and accurately identifying problematic behaviours and teaching effective replacement behaviours.
Describe how to create movement and flow in therapy using both acceptance-based and change-based strategies.
Apply acceptance-based strategies including validation and mindfulness in an effective manner to soothe clients and manage intense emotion dysregulation.
Aggressively target change using problem-solving, contingencies, skills training, exposure, and cognitive modification.
Artfully use dialectical treatment strategies to break through power struggles, resistance, and treatment interfering behaviours.
Copyright :20/03/2021
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Individuals: Expanding the Self
Program Information
Objectives
Analyze the key elements of the attachment perspective on personality and its significance for clinical intervention.
Demonstrate the process of change and the elements of the EFT Tango.
Analyze the micro-interventions used by the EFT therapist.
Evaluate the applicability of EFIT for different clients with different symptomatology.
Outline
Describe the key elements of the attachment perspective on personality and its significance for clinical intervention.
The attachment perspective on personality – health and dysfunction.
Outline the process of change and the elements of the EFT Tango.
The EFT Tango and micro-interventions.
Presentation and viewing of an EFIT session.
Describe the micro-interventions used by the EFT therapist.
Viewing and analysis of EFIT sessions and experiential exercises – assembling emotion.
Outline the applicability of EFIT for different clients with different symptomatology.
Exercises – the EFT Tango.
Copyright :20/03/2021
Treating Collective Trauma with Hakomi: Listening to the Body
Program Information
Objectives
Use the key Hakomi concepts of applied mindfulness and somatic awareness to improve outcomes when treating trauma.
Apply attachment- and compassion-based skills that facilitate the experiential process into the body-mind.
Develop an experiential mindset to hold the multilayered complexity of trauma in sessions.
Demonstrate the essential Hakomi personhood skills that help therapists stay grounded and self-regulated while in therapeutic engagement.
Outline
Implement the key Hakomi concepts of applied mindfulness and somatic awareness to improve outcomes when treating trauma.
Applied mindfulness is an integrated skills set by the Hakomi therapist to facilitate an in-depth process
Learning to ask targeted questions to facilitate a safe somatic awareness for clients
Not all somatic or mindfulness interventions are suitable for trauma clients, learning to differentiate what tool fits which client is essential for treatment success
Apply attachment- and compassion-based skills that facilitate the experiential process into the body-mind.
Hakomi holds the value of loving presence of the therapist as essential to convey compassion to the clients traumatic experience
Applying attachment theory informed interventions to regulate clients internal somatic states
Develop an experiential mindset to hold the multilayered complexity of trauma in sessions.
Learn what it means to be an experiential therapist by trying out present moment and safe experiments that include play, breath and movement
Recognize that trauma clients don’t fit one treatment approach size fits all
Explain the essential Hakomi personhood skills that help therapists stay grounded and self-regulated while in therapeutic engagement.
The role of the therapist is not just about a skill set but how they embody themselves and stay curious about their own process
Developing a somatic repertoire to stay grounded in the body when clients trauma feels overwhelming or triggering
Copyright :16/02/2021
Young Adults and the Addictive Cycle: What Lies Beneath
Program Information
Objectives
Analyze five critical experiences that fuel the mental health and addiction problems of young people.
Distinguish two practical tools to aid in the disruption of the addictive process.
Apply the core elements to a healthy treatment process.
Measure the interplay of various forms of trauma with use of technology.
Outline
Identify five critical experiences that fuel the mental health and addiction problems of young people.
Physical Abuse
Sexual Assault
Emotional Abandonment
Loss and Grief
Apply the core elements to a healthy treatment process.
Community
Gender-Specific Programming
Experiential Modalities
Describe the interplay of various forms of trauma with use of technology.
FOMO (fear of missing out)
Cyber Bullying
Describe practical tools for clinical use
Addiction Interaction Template
Behavioural Acting-out Framework
Copyright :10/02/2021
IFS in Action: Leading Clients to Self-Leadership
Program Information
Objectives
Apply strategies used in IFS to contact the core Self.
Practice shifting the role of therapist from the primary attachment figure to a container who opens the way for the client’s Self to emerge.
Use methods for transparently handling situations in which you get emotionally triggered by your client.
Employ strategies to get clients’ polarized, deeply conflicted parts to negotiate with each other.
Outline
Apply strategies used in IFS to contact the core Self.
The assumptions of IFS
The naturally valuable state of inner parts
Understanding exiles and managers
Specify how to shift the role of therapist from the primary attachment figure to a container who opens the way for the client’s Self to emerge.
Creating a safe and self-compassionate relationship of self to parts
How parts change in this healing relationship
Use methods for transparently handling situations in which you get emotionally triggered by your client.
The importance of contacting your own core Self in session
Describe how to get clients’ polarized, deeply conflicted parts to negotiate with each other.
Avoiding the need for extensive grounding techniques and instead communicating with parts to meet their needs
Copyright :18/03/2021
Guilt, Shame, and the Traumatized Client: Finding Release from Toxic Emotions
Program Information
Objectives
Determine the difference between guilt and shame for clients, and why shame is so difficult to resolve.
Determine the specific dynamics of trauma and early childhood coping strategies that promote and sustain shame.
Evaluate how secondary gain and “protective parts” impact clients’ willingness to let go of shame.
Assess the role the therapeutic relationship plays in helping clients process shame.
Determine how to cognitively, somatically, and creatively enhance clients’ self-compassion and curiosity to help them let go of shame.
Outline
Explain the difference between guilt and shame for clients, and why shame is so difficult to resolve.
Guilt as a byproduct of an interpersonal exchange or a behavioural choice versus core feelings of worthlessness or being inherently damaged or “bad.”
Apologizing and making amends versus fundamentally changing one’s sense of self
Determine the specific dynamics of trauma and early childhood coping strategies that promote and sustain shame.
Witnessing abuse, survivor guilt, the shame of keeping silent, the shame of “participating” in sexual trauma, misunderstanding the freeze response
Taking ownership of trauma to preserve familial loyalty
Explore how secondary gain and “protective parts” impact clients’ willingness to let go of shame.
Reducing expectations, the risk of failing or disappointing others
Rationalizing self-destructive and addictive behaviours
Inner critics using shame to “motivate” and prevent abandonment
Consider the role the therapeutic relationship plays in helping clients process shame.
Modelling self-compassion and positive self-talk
Using psychoeducation and curiosity to release clients from self-blame
The healing impact of attunement
Describe how to cognitively, somatically, and creatively enhance clients’ self-compassion and curiosity to help them let go of shame.
Using the “crossroad of a thought” and “double standard” cognitive strategies to let go of shame
Using “remembered resource,” sand tray work, art strategies, two-handed writing, and spirituality to creatively enhance compassion
Using “focusing,” body map, and somatic resourcing to understand the somatic impact of shame and bring comfort to the debilitating emotion
Copyright :18/03/2021
The Neurobiology of Healing Relationships: Trauma Work Meets Couples Therapy
Program Information
Objectives
Assess the states of your client's brain that impede emotional connections.
Create a working relationship with your client’s brain on multiple levels to promote trauma recovery and healthy relationships simultaneously.
Apply memory reconsolidation principles to couples therapy.
Outline
Identify the states of your client's brain
Define the locations and functions of the subcortical and cortical systems
Identify integrated and disintegrated states in the brain
Define the relationships between these systems and why working with a subcortically lead brain state (disintegrated) is so difficult
Assess disintegration vs integration.
Use tools that work with the brain to end this state and come back to regulation and connection
2nd consciousness
Time outs
Relational jujitsu
Create a working relationship with your client’s brain on multiple levels to promote trauma recovery and healthy relationships simultaneously
Your client’s ability to choose an integrated brain state is essential to them utilizing skills that will help them to heal.
Using inner child work in couples’ sessions
Use the witnessing of personal work to shift relational dynamics
Apply memory reconsolidation principles to couples therapy
Define and explain memory reconsolidation
Identify emotional schemas that are problematic
Learn couples interventions that bring the ability to rewire these emotional schemas home with your couples.
Core negative image
Dead stop contracts
Copyright :21/03/2021
Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health: Strategies to Enhance Mood and Well-Being
Program Information
Objectives
Prepare clients with a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of good nutrition, food preparation, and mindful eating to improve symptoms and well-being.
Assess the conflicting research and differing recommendations about nutritional practices and alternatives to medicines that foster mental health.
Determine the benefits, risks, and deficits of a variety of popular diet types, from carnivore to vegan, depending on the needs of a given client.
Demonstrate to clients the latest research on how diets can affect mood.
Analyze with clients the links between depression, inflammation, and cognitive function.
Evaluate foundation protocols for specific DSM categories of Mental Illness
Outline
Provide clients with a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of good nutrition, food preparation, and mindful eating to improve symptoms and well-being.
Discuss the role of proteins, carbohydrates and fats on brain mind function
Assess the conflicting research and differing recommendations about nutritional practices and alternatives to medicines that foster mental health.
Provide a range of research and explore its application and value to clinical practice
Determine the benefits, risks, and deficits of a variety of popular diet types, from carnivore to vegan, depending on the needs of a given client.
Identify bioindividuality concepts and the importance of non-ideological approaches
Explain to clients the latest research on how diets can affect mood.
Identify and how foods and herbs are precursors to amino acids and neurotransmitters
Discuss with clients the links between depression, inflammation, and cognitive function.
Explore the research on pro inflammatory foods and inflammatory and mitochondrial dysfunction in depression and memory.
Provide foundation protocols for specific DSM categories of Mental Illness
Identify specific nutrient protocols that can be applied to depression, anxiety and sleep maintenance insomnia
Copyright :12/01/2021
The Ethical Dilemmas in Today’s Therapy: Clarifying Boundaries
Program Information
Objectives
Assess how to set the ground rules that establish norms for transparency and client empowerment.
Explain the do’s and don’ts of therapist self-disclosure.
Assess how to maintain our energy to ensure we make wise ethical decisions.
Explain how to handle ever-shifting online and social media boundaries with clients.
Apply best methods for dealing with safety and ethical decisions when considering virtual vs in-person support.
Outline
Assess how to set the ground rules that establish norms for transparency and client empowerment.
Stage 1- creating create the context for ethics with the client in the beginning of therapy
Explain the do’s and don’ts of therapist self-disclosure.
Participant will learn specific guidelines for how and when to use self-disclosure as an intervention
Assess how to maintain our energy to ensure we make wise ethical decisions.
Securing effective and ethical job performance by learning how to manage our energy in 6 domains
Explain how to handle ever-shifting online and social media boundaries with clients.
Each break out room will discuss how to create and maintain social media and internet access
Apply best methods for dealing with safety and ethical decisions when considering virtual vs in-person support
Designing best practice protocol for virtual and in person. Also designing consultation and supervision protocol
Copyright :18/03/2021
Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Ailments: Connecting the Body, Mind, and Spirit
Program Information
Objectives
Evaluate the connection between trauma, stress, and chronic illness.
Apply three writing and drawing practices in a clinical setting to heal the effects of stress.
Use the genogram as a clinical tool to deepen work with clients around health, resilience, and hope.
Demonstrate guided imagery practices to use with clients in therapy and in community settings to help heal the body and heighten experiences personal growth.
Assess how to help clients access inner strengths through creative processes that tap into the imagination.
Outline
Explain the connection between trauma, stress, and chronic illness.
Participants will increase their understanding of the current chronic illness incidences in the US population, and their understanding of the physiology of the stress response.
The didactic portion of this objective will include a review of the current research on intergenerational trauma, stress perception, and health
Apply three writing and drawing practices in a clinical setting to heal the effects of stress.
Participants will explore the current research on the impact of journaling on stress perception and chronic illness.
They will engage in writing exercises to address their own health challenges, along with those of their patient population.
Use the genogram as a clinical tool to deepen work with clients around health, resilience, and hope.
Participants will create a "theme-focused" genogram around a current symptom or challenge in their lives
The research from this module of the training is based on the work of McGoldrick and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
Use music and movement in sessions to get around emotional blocks without spoken words.
Participants will deepen their understanding of the use of music as a tool for parasympathetic dominance and creativity.
Assess how to help clients access inner strengths through creative processes that tap into the imagination.
Participants will be guided in the appropriate application of personal and professional use of imagery, music, chanting, and journaling as tools for accessing innate wisdom.
Describe guided imagery practices to use with clients in therapy and in community settings to help heal the body and heighten experiences personal growth.
Participants will deepen their understanding of the use of imagery for trauma healing, managing stress, and understanding their own physiology.