This course will take a deep dive into intersubjectivity theory as developed by Robert Stolorow with a focus on leading edge/trailing edge experiences in therapy. We will include how a cultural context is crucial to understanding and working with subjective experience.
Offering 3 Diversity CEs ~ This workshop we will review the research on Black-White interpersonal dynamics and how they relate to our therapeutic work. Along with reviewing the research on psychotherapy process between Black therapists and their White clients. We will review research on various types of anti-Black racism exhibited by White Americans in their interactions with Black Americans in general and in the psychotherapy context.
Offering 2 CEs ~ In this short course, we will describe the observable links between an insecure attachment presentation in the nursery and the differences/similarities in adult treatment. We will also illustrate the way knowledge of attachment research can support therapists during moments in which intense and potentially disruptive affects take center stage in the clinical encounter. These are often the times that developmental trauma powerfully enters the room, affecting the dyad’s shared experience.
Offering 3 Diversity + LGBTQ CEs ~ Many of us are so accustomed in our work to accepting uncertainty and ambiguity, but when it comes to gender, there is a strong urge to categorize. Male or female? Can we think about what creates the urge to rely on binary anchors of male and female? What is it about trans or gender fluidity that creates dis-ease? What gives rise to such a strong sense of Other that many of us think that we must refer gender-fluid patients to “experts?”
Offering 2 Diversity CEs, we will begin by exploring how participants think about transference and countertransference. What importance does a focus on these phenomena play in their clinical work? Although both concepts are considered to be foundational aspects of a psychodynamic approach, therapists may feel uncertain about how to apply them clinically as psychoanalytic theory has evolved and changed...
This short course will feature discussion of neurodiversity, psychotherapy, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The course will begin with a brief background on ASD and neurodiversity. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own experiences with neurodiversity and neurotypical privilege. Therapeutic work is illustrated in the treatment of a moderately-functioning 10 year old boy.
America is in the midst of a suicide crisis. Last year, the Center for Disease Control released statistics showing that the rate of suicide increased by 33% between 1999 and 2017. Since 2008, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death for all ages. That rate only increases when there is a history of childhood abuse and neglect. Most therapists received little, if any training, about how to manage a suicidal crisis. Most of the training that is available focuses on ‘fixing’ the problem of suicide through prediction and prevention techniques.
Traumatic stress can evoke emotional extremes in survivors who are often described as feeling “too much” (flooding) or feeling “too little” (shut down). This workshop introduces participants to a range of neurobiologically-informed therapeutic tools and techniques that can be utilized in clinical practice with dysregulated clients. Keeping the body in mind, we will experiment with a range of body-based, “bottom up” interventions designed to promote grounding and attunement and facilitate self-awareness and affect regulation for trauma survivors.
Launching a group can be one of the most challenging tasks you face as a group therapist. It is easy to get stuck because you are unsure what to do next. In this workshop participants will explore the potential pitfalls of starting a group and learn how to avoid them. Using practical advice that is grounded in group theory, participants are guided through a stepwise process of launching a group.
Get Diversity CEs ~ The work of artist Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) who in 1905-07, painted her body and those of mothers and babies in the nude, defied centuries of representations of idealized female nudes and nudes painted through the male gaze.