Enhancing Your Therapeutic Presence

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Dafna Lender, LCSW Related seminars and products

The Theraplay Institute

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Dafna Lender, LCSW, is an international trainer and supervisor for practitioners who work with children and families. She is a certified trainer and supervisor/consultant in both Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and an EMDR therapist. Dafna’s expertise is drawn from 25 years of working with families with attachment in many settings: at-risk after school programs, therapeutic foster care, in-home crisis stabilization, residential care and private practice. Dafna’s style, whether as a therapist or teacher, is combining the light-hearted with the profound by bringing a playful, intense and passionate presence to every encounter. Dafna is the author of Integrative Attachment Family Therapy (2023) and co-author of Theraplay® - The Practitioner’s Guide (2020).

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dafna Lender maintains a private practice. She is a published author and receives royalties. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dafna Lender is an author for Psychotherapy Networker.

Objectives

1. Implement voice, rhythm, facial expressions and touch to elicit openness and a sense of calm in clients.
2. Apply three methods for sending safety messages to the brains of deeply mistrusting clients and improving their therapeutic engagement.
3. Utilize techniques to surprise the brain of a guarded client with novel responses that will interrupt their automatic defensiveness and generate curiosity.
4. Articulate exercises and activities to help angry clients feel more relaxed, open and ready to connect in a clinical setting.
5. Determine what the social engagement system is, its basis in polyvagal theory, and its treatment implications.

Outline

Therapeutic presence-What is it?

• Underlying biology
• The social engagement system
• How interacting with others can help

Developing and communicating safety and connection

• Voice Prosidy
• Resonance
• Facial expressions
• Eye contact
• Touch

Play as a neural exercise in create safety and connection

• Interventions to help client decrease defensiveness/increase sense of connection 
• Interventions for reducing anger and producing feelings of calm

Target Audience

• Psychologists
• Physicians
• Addiction Counselors
• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Nurses
• Other Behavioral Health Professionals

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