All-Day Workshops | Morning Only | Afternoon Only

Friday Afternoon Workshops 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

313 - The Art and the Science of Creativity

Daniel Siegel and Natalie Goldberg

As passive spectators overwhelmed by the constant deluge of words and images on Internet, TV, and movie screens, mountains of books, journals, and magazines, advertising everywhere our eyes fall, we can feel our own creativity shriveling up from pure exhaustion. How do we deflect the roaring waterfall of external clatter so that we can open ourselves to the soft, hidden voices of our imagination? How can our expanding knowledge of our brains help us better access our capacities for inspiration and original thought? In this free-ranging conversation between an expert on the brain and the author of one of the most widely read books ever published about writing and creativity, we’ll explore how to better connect to our inner sources of creative vitality. Participants are encouraged to bring fast-writing pens and notebooks.

Daniel Siegel, M.D., associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, is the author of the landmark book The Developing Mind. His latest book is Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.

Natalie Goldberg, writer, poet, teacher, and painter, is the author of the classic book on creativity Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. She’s recently completed the documentary Tangled Up In Bob, about Bob Dylan’s childhood.

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314 - Divorcing Well

Ashley Davis Bush

Although 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, the process of getting divorced is still imbued with feelings of shame, failure, mutual antagonism, and the certainty that one or the other party must be fully to blame. But sometimes divorce is the best, healthiest choice for a couple and, if handled well, can be a relatively peaceful, even positive, experience. In this workshop, we’ll explore a six-stage model, based on Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, that helps divorcing couples understand the stages of bereavement and transcendence, as well as discover their “inner grown-up” to go through the divorce process as calmly and respectfully as possible.

Ashley Davis Bush, L.C.S.W., cofounder of Transitions & Loss Counseling in Epping, New Hampshire, is the author of Transcending Loss and Claim Your Inner Grown-Up.

315 - Incest: The Most Fundamental Betrayal

Christine Courtois

In a sense, all cases of severe, chronic child sexual abuse and neglect at the hands of a trusted adult in a preexisting relationship--whether by a family member, a clergyperson, teacher, or other adult known to the child--are forms of incest. All share the same profoundly harmful components: betrayal of love and trust, misuse of power and authority, and manipulation of the child’s mind (“this is really good for you”). In this workshop, the presenter will focus on the complex traumatic stress disorders that typically result from incest and offer practical treatment strategies directed toward symptom stabilization, affect regulation, ego enhancement, interpersonal skills development, and overall functioning. The importance of the therapeutic relationship to treatment will be stressed.

Christine Courtois, Ph.D., cofounded and was the clinical and training director for 16 years of The Center: Post Traumatic Disorders Program in Washington, D.C. She’s the author of the newly revised Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy and coeditor of Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-Based Guide.

316 - Five Steps to Letting Your Clients Become Your Teachers

Barry Duncan

Whether we’re novices still not entirely sure of our way around a consulting room or expert practitioners with decades of clinical experience, we all face the challenge of learning from our clinical experiences, rather than merely repeating them. In this workshop, you’ll learning methods for collaborating more effectively with your clients and producing change faster, regardless of what approach you use. We’ll focus on how to track your cases systematically and develop an early-warning system about potential problems before they derail therapy.  But most important, we’ll explore a pragmatic, five-step method for accelerating your development as a therapist, invigorating your work, expanding your theoretical breadth, and dramatically improving your outcomes.

Barry Duncan, Psy.D., is director of the Heart and Soul of Change Project and author or coauthor of 15 books, including The Heart and Soul of Change, 2nd edition,

The Heroic Client, and the newly published On Becoming a Better Therapist.

317 - Money Matters: Understanding Financial Trauma

Vanessa Jackson

Although the economic implosion of the past two or three years has caused grave harm to many of our clients, most therapists still aren’t prepared to deal with the emotional issues triggered by the financial turmoil. Clients often don’t mention their financial vulnerability, even though it’s the hidden issue behind their presenting problems, such as anxiety, depression, marital conflict, feelings of inadequacy and personal failure. In this workshop, we’ll explore personal narratives of class, money, loss, and poverty and focus on how to discuss clients’ family money stories in our clinical work. You’ll learn specific strategies for uncovering invisible financial traumas and practical steps for helping clients tap into their inner emotional strength, maintain their sense of emotional equilibrium, and make rational decisions in the face of economic hardship.

Vanessa Jackson, L.C.S.W., a therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, is the author of “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Reflections on Feminist Therapy with Low-wage Earning Women” in Psychotherapy with Women.

318 - Tapping Spiritual Resources for Healing and Resilience

Froma Walsh

As neurobiological research now documents, spiritual beliefs and practices have a profound influence on healing and resilience, particularly after trauma, loss, or severe life changes. Therapy at its best can open spiritual wellsprings for our clients, yet many of us lack training for integrating spirituality with our clinical work and feel uncomfortable doing it. This workshop will draw on multi-faith perspectives to explore respectful ways of opening up more soulful conversations with our clients without overstepping boundaries. Practice guidelines and case examples will help you learn to recognize and address spiritual distress that blocks healing and positive growth. We’ll consider ways for clients and therapists to find spiritual nourishment and connection both within and outside religion, including contemplative practices, being in nature, focusing on intimate bonds, opening up to the arts, and compassionate service/social action.

Froma Walsh, Ph.D., is cofounder of the Chicago Center for Family Health and is the Mose and Sylvia Firestone Professor in the School of Social Service Administration and Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago. Her latest book is Spiritual Resources in Family Therapy.

319 - The New Monogamy: Desire and Fidelity in the New Millennium

Tammy Nelson

Therapists today report seeing an increasing number of committed couples, one or both of whom have outside sexual partners. Often neither partner wants to separate and both appear willing to negotiate monogamy in new ways, redefining fidelity. Are these couples just fooling themselves by thinking that they can have both genuine intimacy and outside sexual partners, or do we need to reexamine some of our attitudes about infidelity and relationship boundaries? Can we help couples survive affairs without the demoralization that comes with infidelity? In this workshop, we’ll discuss monogamy from a multicultural, historical, nonjudgmental perspective, reviewing the history of open marriage and polyamory, along with currently evolving rules about sexuality in marriage. We’ll explore the continuum of monogamy that most couples fall on, which isn’t the black and white scale that’s considered normal. You’ll learn how to talk with couples about the meaning of an affair in a way that can provide an opportunity for them to end their “old” marriage and begin a new, revitalized marriage.

Tammy Nelson, M.S., is the founder and executive director of the Center for Healing. She’s the author of Getting the Sex You Want and What’s Eating You?

320 - “The Mind Is What the Brain Does”: Integrating Neurofeedback into Your Practice

Sebern Fisher

Certain neurologically-based conditions--severe PTSD, Asperger’s, reactive attachment disorder, mood and personality disorders, chronic pain, and sleep disorders--are so entrenched in the brain’s neuronal firing patterns that even the most brilliant and perceptive psychotherapy will have only a modest impact, if any. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to integrate brain-wave training (neurofeedback) into your practice in order to change the rhythmic neuronal firing patterns that maintain stubborn symptoms, which talk therapy can’t touch. Drawing on case vignettes, a review of the research and science of neurofeedback, and a discussion of the brain circuitry of fear, we’ll focus on how to use neurofeedback to help clients learn to regulate their most deeply entrenched affective patterns.

Sebern Fisher, M.A., practices neurofeedback and psychodynamic psychotherapy in Northampton, Massachusetts. As the clinical director of a facility for severely disturbed adolescents, she was the first therapist to implement Dialectical Behavior Therapy in a residential program. She consults with Bessel van der Kolk in the Trauma Center’s implementation of neurofeedback.

321 - The Citizen Therapist: Becoming a Community Change Agent

William Doherty

As therapists, we believe deeply in the human capacity for self-healing and constructive change. As concerned citizens, we see that the world beyond our offices is in desperate need of both. We’d like to get out there and help, but don’t know what to do or how to get involved. We lack practical models for action that don’t require us to be rich and famous or have the time and wherewithal to jet off to international disaster sites. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to recognize how your clinical interests intersect with important public issues and how to use your skills to engage in social and political action. We’ll discuss an explicit model for catalyzing community action and hear about individual therapists who’ve connected with nonprofit organizations and expanded their work into the public sphere--while keeping their day jobs.

William Doherty, Ph.D. is a professor and director of the Citizen Professional Center at the University of Minnesota. His books include Take Back Your Marriage, Putting Family First, and Take Back Your Kids. His latest is Family Therapy, with Susan McDaniel.

322 - AD/HD and ADD in Kids and Grown-Ups: Using Common Sense

Lawrence Diller

Sometimes it seems that the majority of boys in America, and not a few adults, “have” AD/HD, and that many of the people you know (your children, your colleagues, you) are taking Ritalin, Adderall, or some equivalent medication. The illegal use of prescription stimulants for “cognitive enhancement” is also a growing phenomenon on college campuses. Medication isn’t the same as offering genuine engagement to children, or recognizing the difference between biologic/neurological causal factors and an unsuccessful “fit” between the child’s personality/temperament and social/educational expectations. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to identify the most likely causes of AD/HD and ADD, distinguish between genuine disorders and lifestyle mismatches, and make wise, effective, ethical decisions about treatment. We’ll explore effective non-drug interventions that make medications unnecessary. We’ll also discuss the dangers and potential dead-ends linked to the self-prescribed use of stimulants for “power studying.”

Lawrence Diller, M.D., is the author of Running on Ritalin and Should I Medicate My Child?, along with numerous articles on child behavior and treatment.

323 - Too Close for Comfort?: The Mother-Daughter Bond in the 21^st-Century

Linda Perlman Gordon and Susan Morris Shaffer

At no time in recent history have mothers and their young-adult daughters had so much in common--education, workplace experience, politics, fitness, fashion, music. Sometimes they seem more like best friends than members of two different generations, much less parent and child. Remarkably, there’s still no road map to help mothers and adult daughters negotiate their complex relationships that combine so many eternal elements of the old dynamics of this bond with social realities unlike any that have ever existed before. In this workshop, we’ll explore the sociological forces that have had such a striking impact on mother-daughter relationships, discuss the pitfalls of mothers and daughters becoming best friends, and provide tools for helping them develop mutually supportive relationships with realistic boundaries.

Linda Perlman Gordon, M.Ed., L.C.S.W., who was voted one of the top area mental health professionals in the July 2009 Washingtonian Magazine, is the coauthor of Too Close for Comfort.

Susan Morris Shaffer is executive director of the Maryland State Parental Information and Resource Center and coauthor of Too Close for Comfort.

324 - Emptying the Nest: Launching Young Adults

Brad Sachs

Family therapists increasingly find themselves working with young adults who, for various reasons, seem unable to take the necessary steps toward healthy self-sufficiency and remain unhappily entangled with and dependent upon their parents. Naturally, this situation creates significant friction and conflict, which can hobble growth on the part of both generations. In this workshop, we’ll explore a clinical framework for understanding the intrapsychic and family-based dynamics that typically interfere with the ability of parents and young adults to mature and evolve. You’ll become acquainted with practical strategies designed to ameliorate family tension, promote the autonomy and self-assurance of struggling young adults, and enable parents to grow into the next stage of their individual and marital lives. This workshop will be both didactic and interactive, so participants are invited to bring along case material for group discussion.

Brad Sachs, Ph.D., is the author of The Good Enough Child: How to Have an Imperfect Family and Be Perfectly Satisfied; The Good Enough Teen: Raising Adolescents with Love and Acceptance; and the forthcoming Emptying the Nest: Launching Young Adults Towards Success and Self-Reliance.

325 - Cries and Whispers: Unlocking Family Secrets

Evan Imber-Black

Secrets can be like ghosts haunting a family--a veiled threat that can’t quite be seen or confronted. We keep secret the things we’re ashamed of and the things we fear we can’t face. Working with clients to make decisions about revealing secrets requires an appreciation for the complex process necessary to determine the timing and appropriateness of disclosure. In this session, we’ll distinguish healthy privacy from toxic secrecy and discuss the systemic issues that should guide a clinicians approach to family secrets. We’ll then explore a multisystemic model of secrecy and openness that will enable you to make an individualized judgment about each secret you may encounter in your clinical work.

Evan Imber-Black, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Families and Health at the Ackerman Institute for the Family and the editor of Family Process. She’s authored, coauthored, and edited numerous books, including Rituals in Families & Family Therapy and The Secret Life of Families.

326 - Working with Gay & Lesbian Couples

Joe Kort

As a straight clinician, it’s important to be gay informed, more than just gay-friendly. It’s especially important to recognize the differences between the relationship dynamics of gay male and female couples. In this workshop, we’ll compare the distinct differences in relationship dynamics and problem areas that arise for gay men and for lesbians: responsible sexual practices and the need for more connectedness among gay male couples and diminished sexual desire and the need for separateness among lesbians are just a few. You’ll leave with specific interventions and assessment tools that promote gay-affirmative couples therapy.

Joe Kort, L.M.S.W., specializes in individual, couples, and group psychotherapy for gay and straight clients. He’s a certified Imago Relationship therapist and the author of Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician: The Essential Guide.

327 - Carrying the Hope: Helping Families Deal with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Alexandra Solomon

A diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a child can be a harrowing ordeal for families, forcing them to deal with overwhelming practical, financial, and emotional challenges as they negotiate the confusing choices between conflicting treatment philosophies. In this workshop, you’ll learn why therapists are particularly well suited to guide parents through the chronic stress of raising an ASD child by helping them understand the different forms of the disorder, sort through treatment alternatives, and sustain a strong, resilient marriage. We’ll explore the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) treatment model, which is focused on repairing the ASD child’s damaged immune and digestive systems, and the Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) model, which is focused on remediating the core deficits of autism by increasing dynamic intelligence. We’ll then discuss how to help families cope with the grief, upheaval, and sheer hard work of living with an ASD child.

Alexandra Solomon, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University and clinical lecturer in the Master of Science in Family Therapy Program at Northwestern. Her son has been diagnosed with ASD.

328 - Domestic Violence: New Directions in Treatment

Ronald Potter-Efron

For many years, the theory of patriarchal domination--violent men resort to violence to gain or maintain control over females--was thought to explain male aggression against their partners. Gradually, as this explanation has shown itself to be too narrowly focused, more nuanced and multidimensional clinical perspectives on male violence have emerged. In this workshop, we’ll explore the many factors contributing to male violence, beyond a need to dominate women, including overwhelming stress (from poverty and unemployment, for example), substance addictions, childhood attachment deficits, a history of trauma, lack of emotional control, and brain injuries. We’ll discuss how to use a multimodal treatment approach that includes individual therapy along with couples, family, and group counseling, and how to balance safety concerns with the appropriate couples counseling when both partners engage in mutually instigated domestic violence.

Ronald Potter-Efron, Ph.D., is a clinical psychotherapist, co-owner of First Things First Counseling and Consulting, and director of its Anger Management Center. He’s the author of Shame, Guilt, and Alcoholism and of Angry All the Time.

329 - Play Therapy for Grown-Ups

Peter Fraenkel

The tools of play therapy--toys, music, art, and other nonverbal media--typically are reserved for work with children. But both research and clinical experience indicates that talk therapy with adults often can become boring, predictable, and unproductive. Recent brain studies indicate that incorporating play and music result in more “whole-brain” responses, evoking the spontaneity and creativity in clients that can result in dramatic symptom reduction. This workshop will introduce novel ways to use objects of play to break up adults’ habitual self-sabotaging behaviors, repetitious couple’s conflict, and chronic symptoms of anxiety and depression. You’ll learn at least three specific techniques for using toys and other objects to interrupt obsessive, anxious rumination and a step-by-step approach to using music to engage psychologically inaccessible clients in a profound and healing emotional experience.

Peter Fraenkel, Ph.D., is associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York and director of the Ackerman Institute’s Center for Work and the Family. He’s written extensively on work/family balance and is the coauthor of The Relational Trauma of Incest.

330 - Ain’t Dead Yet: Maintaining Clinical Excellence in the Public Sector

David Waters and Gene Cash

As financial cutbacks slash the budgets of wraparound and foster-care-prevention agencies, good, clinically-oriented programs aimed at the poorest and most challenging families seem to get pushed further toward bare-bones case management. How do we maintain clinical excellence as we help families in urgent need when the financial pressures are pushing us to the wall? In this workshop, the presenters will demonstrate a model for teaching sophisticated clinical work to young therapists and maintaining a high standard of clinical care, even in the toughest times. The key to creating significant change with very troubled families is the rapid, accurate recognition of maladaptive patterns, both related to family functioning and thought processes. We’ll demonstrate a strongly structured approach built around the concept “See It, Name It, Change It,” which teaches pattern recognition and pattern reversal. Teaching and supervision strategies will be shown, with the ultimate goal of strengthening young therapists’ skill in creating lasting change.

David Waters, Ph.D., is a professor of family medicine, psychiatric medicine, and psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Gene Cash, M.S.W., is clinical director of the Greater Richmond Area League of Therapists, which offers intensive in-home, outpatient, group, and individual therapy programs.

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