October 2019
Buried Above Ground Understanding, Assessing, and Treating Suicidal People
– Presented by Joseph H. Obegi, PsyD
Narrative: This 6-hour course covers the essential aspects of suicide risk assessment and intervention. Part 1 teaches participants how to complete a high-quality suicide risk assessment, an essential first step in protecting the suicidal patient. Participants will learn a structured approach to (a) inquiring about suicidal thinking and behavior and (b) integrating this information with warning signs and risk factors for suicide. Guidelines for estimating suicide risk will be reviewed as well as how to create a treatment plan that…
Find out more »November 2019
Traversing the No Cry Zone: Psychotherapy with Men
– Daniel S. Ellenberg, PhD
Narrative: Male clients often present challenges to psychotherapists. Men are socialized to feel threated by the very nature of the therapeutic process: the language of feelings, the disclosure of vulnerability, and the admission of dependency needs. Male clients’ discomfort with the developing intimacy of a therapy relationship can manifest as early termination, anger at the therapist, unproductive intellectualizing, and other forms of resistance. Yet, emerging theory and research suggests that men can benefit from psychotherapy approaches that incorporate empathy and…
Find out more »January 2020
Working in the Eye of the Storm: Helping Families through Separation and Divorce
– Nancy Oleson, PhD
Narrative: The time around the decision to separate/divorce is one of intense distress and provides a common reason for people to consult a mental health professional. Adults and children are often flooded with anger, fear and guilt, and it is very common for the confusion parents experience to lead to actions that harm themselves and their children. However, these are also fertile period for growth and development in which the person’s underlying psychological structures are “softer” and more open to…
Find out more »February 2020
Hand in Hand: Enlisting Parents as Partners in Child Trauma Therapy
– Vilma Reyes, PsyD
Narrative: Through the use of didactic training, group discussion and interactive question-and-answer sessions, this seminar will teach therapists how to identify the ways that trauma impacts childhood development and learning, and how it impacts caregivers and families as well. Participants will learn about the principles of trauma informed and family-based interventions, like CPP, and will be able to identify two ways to prevent vicarious trauma. Dr. Vilma Reyes is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides Child-Parent Psychotherapy, training and supervision…
Find out more »March 2020
Lust, Rage, Chaos and Love: Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy
– Felicia Matto-Shepard, LMFT
Narrative: While all psychotherapists are trained to understand that “therapy never includes sex,” few feel adequately train in how to navigate sexual content that might emerge in the course of treatment. And when the sexual content is directed toward the therapist, many feel unprepared to respond. Merely setting boundaries with the patient without exploring the meaning of the erotic transference risks the loss of a vital archetypal energy that could be critical to the patient’s development. At the same time,…
Find out more »April 2020
The Rough Patch in Marriage: Working with Couples Psychoanalytically
– Daphne de Marneffe, PhD
Narrative: Empirical and clinical research on couple processes and couple therapy has expanded in the last thirty years. Simultaneously, psychoanalytic views of development and therapeutic action have incorporated findings from research on attachment, mentalization, and emotion. This seminar provides a grounding in current theories of mentalization, couple therapy, and adult development as a vehicle for considering the crises and challenges of long-term intimate relationships and how to best work with them psychoanalytically. As therapists, we need to hold in tension…
Find out more »May 2020
When Self-Hate is Self-Protection: Understanding Eating Disorders
– Lisa Bograd, MA, MFT
Narrative: Eating disorders are very complex disorders that can be very difficult for clinicians to treat both because of the life threatening nature of these disorders as well as the tendency of those afflicted with them to cling desperately to them despite the grave risk they pose to their physical health and emotional wellbeing. But if we really understand what is at stake for these patients in giving up their disorder, if we can appreciate the profound way in which…
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