Full Course Description


Session 1: Stop the Dread & Avoidance of Anxiety! How to Apply IFS Techniques for Anxiety

Teach clients to stop dreading and avoiding their anxiety! Learn from Richard Schwartz, PhD, the founder of this model that is being embraced worldwide as a cornerstone treatment for therapists. Dr. Schwartz will show you that your client's anxiety is to be comforted - not dreaded or avoided.
The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model offers a way to help clients separate from their anxious parts and then love and comfort them. In doing so, clients can also learn where those parts are stuck in the past and retrieve them from those scary times and unload the fear they carry. This is a scary present but it’s also an opportunity to help many clients do some deep healing.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Assess the foundational concepts of the Internal Family Systems as an effective therapy model.
  2. Plan the IFS treatment steps to use with clients to enable them to identify and separate from their anxious parts. 
  3. Apply the concept of "multiplicity" as a model for case conceptualization of clients' presenting problem and/or symptoms. 

Outline

Multiplicity & the Self  

  • Evolution of the IFS approach  
  • Multiplicity of the mind  
  • Stumbling on to the self  

Internal Family System (IFS) For Anxiety  

  • Protector parts and exiles  
  • IFS technique:  
    • Honoring protectors  
    • Dealing with the overwhelm  
    • Witness and retrieve exiles  
    • Unburden beliefs and emotion that lead to dread and avoidance  

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 2: Creating a Story of Safety: A Polyvagal Guide to Managing Anxiety

When daily life feels overwhelming and cues of danger trigger survival responses, clients struggle to hold on to hope. The world feels unsafe and they are pulled out of balance into a persistent state of worry. Working with a Polyvagal perspective we can engage the body’s regulating circuits to help clients regain a sense of safety. In this workshop, you’ll learn ways to use the resources of the nervous system to help your clients manage anxiety and create a pathway back to calm.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Categorize the ways the nervous system responds to cues of danger.
  2. Utilize clinical skills to engage the nervous system’s natural pathways to regulation.
  3. Utilize The Polyvagal Theory as a model for case conceptualization of clients' presenting problem and/or symptoms.

Outline

The Polyvagal Theory of the Nervous System 

 

How our nervous systems shape our reaction to stress and trauma 

 

Resourcing and helping clients self-regulate  during times of distress and social distance 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 3: Mindfulness-Centered CBT: Daily Practices for Managing Stress and Anxiety

More and more people are seeking effective ways to reduce anxiety and manage overwhelming stress. The Think Act Be approach to mindfulness-centered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) offers three research-proven ways to cope with these challenges:  

  • Mindful presence (Be) grounds our awareness in the here-and-now and helps us open to realty just as it is, which provides a firm foundation for cognitive and behavioral practices.  
  • Cognitive (Think) techniques allow us to identify and challenge unhelpful thought patterns. 
  • Behavioral (Act) practices help us plan actions that move us toward our valued goals. These approaches are mutually reinforcing, with practice in one area supporting growth in the others.  

This session will begin with a brief overview of the Think Act Be approach and the research to support its effectiveness. It will then describe a method of integrating mindfulness-centered CBT practices into one’s daily routine, from the first moments after awakening until going to bed at night. These straightforward and practical exercises can help to keep stress and anxiety within a manageable range while increasing self-efficacy to handle challenging emotional states.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Appraise the effectiveness of mindfulness-centered CBT for anxiety reduction and stress management.
  2. Apply specific mindfulness-centered CBT interventions for management of stress and of reduction anxiety in clients.
  3.  Utilize mindfulness-centered CBT interventions as a means for helping clients increase their sense of self-efficacy.

Outline

The Think Act Be Approach to Managing Anxiety 

  • An overview of the model 
    • Mindful presence (Be) 
    • Cognitive techniques (Think) 
    • Behavioral practices (Act) 
  • Empirical support for the approach 
Think Act Be in Action:  Mindfulness-Centered CBT Interventions 
  • Specific strategies to implement throughout one’s day 
  • Increasing self-efficacy to handle challenging emotional states

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 4: Anxiety & Relationships in the New Era

There’s a hidden threat to relationships that we don’t talk about enough, and that is the role of anxiety. When one or both partners experience anxiety, it often comes out in unique and surprising ways that, if you’re not aware of it, can destroy the relationship. This recording will explore how anxiety shows up in relationships and what to do from a Gottman Method perspective. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Practice the three components of a healthy conversation for resolving conflict between clients.
  2. Utilize clinical interventions to support clients who experience physiological flooding.
  3. Demonstrate the connection between stonewalling and physiological flooding.

Outline

The ways anxiety shows up in relationships 

The importance of managing physiological flooding 

How stonewalling and physiological flooding work in relationships 

Healthy conflict and conversations for moving forward. 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 5: A Corona Love story: TEAM-CBT Approach to Cope with Crisis

David describes his treatment of Melissa, a psychologist experiencing intense anxiety and despair because her husband, Charles, is an emergency room / intensive care physician in New York, working long hours on the front lines to save the lives of Covid-19 victims. But he is fearful that he, too, will contract the virus and die, especially since he has just intubated two of his close colleagues. Charles has moved to a separate apartment to protect Melissa and their three young children in case he gets infected. Melissa cries herself to sleep every night, fearing that she might lose the man she loves so intensely, and angry that they have to be separated at such a challenging time when they both need more support.

According to the cognitive model, our angst does not result from what’s happening, but from our thoughts about it. Furthermore, when you’re depressed and anxious, the thoughts that upset you will not be valid--they’ll be distorted and unrealistic. Depression and anxiety, so the story goes, are the world’s oldest cons. And when you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel.

But is this possible? It just doesn’t sound right! Can Melissa really change the way she thinks and feels when the crisis is so overwhelming and so real? And can you?

David illustrates how he used the new TEAM-CBT to help Melissa cope with a very real and overwhelming crisis.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Determine the four components of TEAM-CBT 
  2. Analyze the role of therapeutic resistance in the treatment of depression and anxiety. 
  3. Demonstrate several techniques to reduce resistance and boost motivation, including the Miracle Cure Question, the Magic Button, Positive Reframing, and the Magic Dial. 

Outline

Components of TEAM-CBT Treatment for Anxiety 

  • T = Testing 
  • E = Empathy 
  • A = Assessment of Resistance 
  • M = Methods 
  • Q&A

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 6: Helping Parents Through Crises: Avoiding Pitfalls & Amplifying Opportunities

Parents are being asked to navigate jobs, kids’ schooling, and financial concerns, all while handling their own emotions and those of their children.

Although these circumstances are unique, the skills worried parents need to interrupt catastrophic (and contagious) patterns remain the same.

A family approach packed with concrete information and coaching works with stressed families--and is more important than ever.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Devise two interventions that interrupt anxious routines in families.
  2. Compose three cognitive patterns to target in anxious families.
  3. Appraise the efficacy of utilizing a family-centered approach to working with children. 

Outline

The importance of a family-centered therapy approach to treating children. 

The patterns that are emerging in families during this societal crisis. 

The 3 cognitive patterns to target when working with parents in treatment and how to work with them. 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses

Copyright : 06/04/2020

Session 7: The Traumatic Impact of a Global Pandemic and How it will Shape Patient Care in the Future

Watch Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The New York Times #1 bestselling author The Body Keeps The Score and learn critically important) approaches for your trauma clients during this anxious time.  
For over 40 years, Bessel has investigated how trauma impacts both the body and the brain to find strategies that help patients feel grounded and safe.  
Dr. van der Kolk will give you specific and practical approaches to use with your clients that address creating connections and activities to share with clients that keep them attached and out of re-experiencing past traumas. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Elaborate on the clinical benefits of creating connection for your trauma clients.
  2. Demonstrate activities to use in clinical practice that can help trauma clients from re-experiencing past traumas.
  3. Utilize clinical interventions for helping clients cope with collective anxiety during a widespread crisis.

Outline

The pandemic, leadership and integrity 

Collectively coping with calamity

Evidence-based techniques to reduce re-living past traumas

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

Session 8: EMDR in Trying Times: How Our Brains Process and Move Through Trauma

During these times of uncertainty, peoples’ anxieties and fears about their health, their families’ well-being and their finances are not without cause.  Yet, how we react to these circumstances depends on what we have experienced before, making it easier or harder to adapt to our current situations.  EMDR therapy is exquisitely equipped to address these demands by offering a range of clinical options from addressing acute stress symptoms and recent events to a more comprehensive psychotherapy approach.  In addition to offering an overview of this approach, we will discuss a couple of clinical vignettes to illustrate how EMDR therapy can offer brief and effective treatment to help our clients restore their resiliency and capacity to respond optimally to these ongoing demands. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Appraise the Adaptive Information Processing model of EMDR.
  2. Interpret why people respond differently to similar trauma circumstances.
  3. Apply EMDR approaches with clients in response to recent traumatic events.

Outline

Why EMDR therapy is a useful intervention for recent trauma 

The adaptive information processing model of trauma 

Using EMDR with recent trauma 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

Session 9: The “Wow” Factor: The New Ways Clinicians Care Use Awe and Gratitude in Therapy

The events of recent weeks have shaken many of us to the core. With our world turned upside down seemingly overnight, it’s become all too easy to become paralyzed with anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. And with the news and social media amplifying each and every twist and turn of the current crisis, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with fear and anxiety.

While these reactions are normal given our present circumstances, we can regain balance and find greater peace through the cultivation of awe, wonder, and gratitude in our daily lives. By learning to savor the good amidst the difficulties, and by opening ourselves up to moments of awe and wonder, we can calm our nervous system and foster feelings of peace, and connectedness.

This recording, led by positive psychologist and author Jonah Paquette, will explore how the principles of awe and gratitude can combine to offer us a powerful approach to healing, even amidst challenging times.  

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Utilize the benefits of awe for psychological and physical well-being and utilize specific approaches to foster feelings of awe and wonder in clients. 
  2. Determine which regions of the brain are linked to the practices of gratitude and savoring.
  3. Administer interventions aimed to increase neuronal firing and lead to lasting brain change.

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

Session 10: Pandemic and Panic: Facing Viral Realities and Viral Fears

We experience the epidemic both as objective reality we all share and as a subjective encounter with ourselves unique to each of us. This recording will explore what our response to the COVID reality can teach us about ourselves, how the anxieties it reveals, properly metabolized, can help fortify us for the coming new normal. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Explore how to cultivate deeper therapeutic presence by bringing attention to what remains unexpressed in clients’ everyday awareness. 
  2. Identify the risk facts and the primary adaptations to stress and how it affects: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

Outline

Defining the current situation in terms of biopsychosocial stress and trauma models

Supporting clients through cultural stressors and how it’s different from individual stressors

Creating a healing narrative for clients in stress and traumatic situations 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

Session 11: Mindfulness, Resilience, and Post Traumatic Growth

How can we ensure that we and our clients emerge from this time stronger and more resilient than ever?

As the shutdowns and stay at home orders continue, and as tragic news trickles in from near and far, clinicians and clients alike are experiencing a growing dread.

Watch Dr. Chris Willard as he explores the foundations of resilience and post-traumatic growth, looking to human history, anthropology and neuroscience as we discover and explore mindfulness tools that have boosted human resilience and beat back anxiety in the face of adversity for generations.  

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Practice implementing mindfulness techniques in order to reduce symptoms of anxiety.
  2. Apply trauma-sensitive interventions to aid clients’ post-traumatic growth and foster resilience during peak anxiety times.

Outline

Science backed strategies for cultivating resilience and post traumatic growth

A holistic biopsychosical model for understanding and working with anxiety

Trauma sensitive mindfulness and self compassion interventions for growth

Effectively applying mindfulness to multiple aspects of social isolation as well as the reintegration and changes we soon face

Anxiety specific-mindfulness and positive psychology interventions to use with your clients immediately 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

Session 12: Immobility and Fear in the Face of Helplessness: The Somatic Connection

Somatic Experiencing®(SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic approach to the treatment of trauma and other stress related disorders. Trauma can come from many things like war and abuse, but it can also come from a difficult birth, a snow boarding accident, or even an invisible threat, like Covid-19. With trauma we can become frozen and stuck in the past, unable to be fully present in the here and now, and unable to move forward in life with joy; detached from history, but intruding into the present. The trauma response is a set of defensive bodily reactions (fight, flight, freeze) that we initially mobilize in order to protect ourselves physically and emotionally, both from threat, and sometimes later, against feeling the aftermath of helplessness and fear.

This pandemic presents us with unique challenges. With Covid-19, we are working with the nervous system while it is still under an invisible perceived threat. Human evolution has prepared us to respond to threats that we can see, identify, and then respond to, as in fight or flight.

However, we are now confronted with a potentially lethal pathogen, one that we cannot see, and for which we do not have an evolutionarily prepared active response. In addition, people may also feel trapped and lonely, worried about a sick loved one, experiencing loss, or in an unsafe environment as they are sheltering in place. For some, the presence of Covid-19 may lead to chronic fear, helplessness, anxiety, anger, rebellion, collapse, and depression, as well as to various physical symptoms, like chronic pain, IBS, etc.  

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Appraise how trauma responses are a set of defensive bodily reactions meant to protect us.  
  2. Demonstrate two grounding, centering breath, and body-posture techniques to aid with soothing and self-regulation.  
  3. Determine how trauma-based perceptions remain fundamentally unchanged until the internal experience of the body changes.

Outline

Trauma and immobility and the body’s response to helplessness

How our body overcomes and processes trauma

The psychotherapy techniques that aid clients in processing trauma 

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • Psychiatrists

Copyright : 06/05/2020

BONUS: Private Practice in a Pandemic & Beyond: How to Stay Focused, Profitable, & Secure

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, many therapists in private practice found themselves scrambling.  
They didn’t have a plan for this kind of crisis....or any kind of disruption for that matter.  
The fact is, as Lynn points out, crises always present opportunities....if we know where to look.  
Few understand how to thrive in the therapy business through crises better than Lynn Grodzki. She points out that now is NOT the time to sit, wait, and hope for things to get better. Instead, as a proactive business owner of a small practice, this is the time to plan and re-invent the way you work.   
In fact, there has NEVER been a better time to step back and re-evaluate your practice. The question every provider should be asking right now is.... 
Do I really have the practice I want? And is it really prepared to weather any storm?  
In this all-new course, Lynn Grodzki shows you the exact ways she is guiding her own consulting clients RIGHT NOW through the crisis to find the opportunities and re-build their practices stronger than ever!

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Review the data within your private practice as a precursor for future decision making. 
  2. Assess critical practice issues using a 3-step triage process.  
  3. Understand how to recommit, rebrand or reinvest in your practice, based on your future goals.   
  4. Spot potential opportunities and how other practitioners are looking at options during this serious time. 

Outline

  • Address any existing weaknesses in your practice that the crisis is exacerbating
  • Test your business thinking and mindset; don’t allow fears and anxieties to cloud your judgment
  • Quickly review the essentials of your practice -- its strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities – so you can craft a solid plan for the immediate future
  • Use a 3-step process to prioritize immediate worries and know what to do now and what can wait
  • Consider the best marketing strategies to help fill your practice if it is slow; even during the pandemic, there are important steps to take
  • Know how to deal with overflow and overwhelm if there is more demand for your services than you can handle
  • Determine the business path your practice needs to follow to stay viable during chaotic times
  • Rely on one of the best 4 business models for times of economic uncertainty
  • Recognize that in business, there is often an upside to every downturn. See some of the opportunities that might be beneficial for your work now and over time
  • Learn self-care strategies that keep a business owner balanced and resourceful

Target Audience

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

Copyright : 04/21/2020