Sunday, March 29, 2009

Download PDF Sunday Workshops here.

All Day (2-Part) Workshops

10:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

601 - Treating the Untreatable: The Paradox of
Dialectical Behavior Therapy

* Marsha Linehan

The diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) has generally been a kind of diagnostic shorthand for "impossible clients who never seem to improve." But Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a systematic, multi-modal approach, has demonstrated remarkable, empirically supported success with such clients. In this workshop, you'll get an overview of DBT, which integrates principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy, coaching, stress management and emotional self-regulation, interpersonal skills training, problem-solving, Zen practice, and mindfulness techniques. We'll explore biological, developmental, environmental, and traumatic factors in the development of BPD. You'll learn the "key paradox" at the heart of DBT--balancing deep acceptance of these clients as they are with active strategies for helping them change. We'll also discuss the research outcomes on DBT and how the model is being adapted for other conditions.

Marsha Linehan, who originated Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is professor of psychology at the University of Washington and director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics. She's the author of Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder and Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder.

602 - The Art and Science of Self-Compassion

Christopher Germer

While the mindfulness practice of moment-to-moment awareness can help clients acquire some freedom from the mad rush of their thoughts and emotions, this may not be a calming enough practice for those who suffer from the intense feelings of shame, rage, worthlessness, and despair arising from trauma and other disorders. In this workshop, we'll consider metta or loving-kindness, a Buddhist meditative practice of compassion that can be a powerful source of self-soothing. You'll learn how to practice metta yourself and how to teach your clients to use it in and out of session to nurture themselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We'll discuss how to integrate our psychological insights with the practice of metta in ways that are helpful across a range of diagnoses and complement other treatment approaches.

Christopher Germer, Ph.D., a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, is the coeditor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy and author of the forthcoming Mindful Path to Self-Compassion.

603 - Unlocking the Emotional Brain: How to Reliably
Create Deep Breakthroughs

Bruce Ecker and Sara Bridges

We clinicians savor those moments in therapy when a client experiences a deeply felt shift that dispels longstanding negative emotional patterns and symptoms. However, the alchemy that produces such life-changing shifts has been something of a mystery, making them happen unpredictably--until now. In this workshop, we'll describe the specific steps of a clinical process that can regularly bring about these profound change events in sessions, radically enhancing the power of therapy and greatly shortening its duration. We'll explain the recently discovered neurobiology that determines how emotional memory gets unlocked and explains why this process can be so effective in freeing clients from entrenched negative reactions, old attachment patterns, unconscious core schemas, and emotional wounds. The workshop will include videotaped demonstrations, a live session, and the chance to practice experiential techniques.

Bruce Ecker, M.A., L.M.F.T., is codirector of the Coherence Psychology Institute and coauthor of Depth Oriented Brief Therapy: How To Be Brief When You Were Trained To Be Deep, and Vice Versa.

Sara Bridges, Ph.D., is codirector of the Coherence Psychology Institute, associate professor at the University of Memphis, coeditor of the four-volume series Studies in Meaning, and president-elect of the APA's Society for Humanistic Psychology.

604 - Treating Personality Disorders

Noel Larson

Many therapists now understand that personality disorders--narcissistic, borderline, dependent, antisocial--usually result from severe attachment disruptions in childhood. What most therapists don't realize, however, is that the erratic and dangerous nurturing these clients experienced has resulted in the development of trauma templates in their brains that underlie their profound relationship difficulties. In this workshop, we'll discuss an approach that helps clients with disrupted attachment patterns and difficult boundary issues develop healthier brain templates, reduce their symptoms, and ultimately strengthen their ability to form more satisfying relationships. You'll learn how to safely manage and decrease frightening symptoms, including violence and emotional meltdowns, access their traumatic histories without reactivating the trauma, sidestep the many potential clinical traps arising in this work, and help them develop a more differentiated sense of themselves.

Noel Larson, Ph.D., a psychologist, marriage and family therapist, and clinical social worker at Meta Resources, is the coauthor of Incestuous Families: An Ecological Approach to Understanding and Treatment.

* Symposium Featured Speaker