Registration for live training

Early registration fee is $175 (+txs), until January 15, 2021. Regular rate is $195 (+txs). This workshop is approved for 6 hours of continuing education by the OPQ (RA03443-21) and by the CCPA (under review). The workshop will be given live, online. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Alienation from self in the context of abusive or dysfunctional parenting is a survival strategy that maintains children’s attachment to caregivers by disowning themselves as “bad” or “unlovable.”   It is a survival ability only possible because of the innate hypnotic ability of young children to create imaginary worlds and companions in a frightening environment.   The result, however, is a deeply painful failure of self-acceptance maintained by lifelong shame and self-loathing, difficulty self-soothing, and complications in relationships with others.  Without internal compassion or a sense of worth, it is difficult to take in the compassion and acceptance of others and impossible to tolerate rejection or criticism. To overcome this alienation from self, the psychotherapy must focus on cultivating clients’ ability to observe painful emotions as communications from their disowned selves and then to provide the ‘missing experiences’ for which their child parts have longed.  When clients connect to their trauma-related, structurally dissociated younger selves and bring them “home,” they spontaneously feel an internal sense of warmth and safety that transforms the implicitly remembered experience of fear and threat.  In this workshop, using strategies inspired by clinical hypnosis, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Internal Family Systems, we will explore the therapeutic power of fostering internal states of warm, compassionate attachment to even our most deeply disowned selves. 

BIO

Dr. Janina Fisher, PhD is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Instructor at the Trauma Center, an outpatient clinic and research center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known for her expertise as both a therapist and consultant, she is also past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, a faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher has been an invited speaker at the Cape Cod Institute, Harvard Medical School Conference Series, the EMDR International Association Annual Conference, University of Wisconsin, University of Westminster in London, the Psychotraumatology Institute of Europe, and the Esalen Institute. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of research and treatment and how to introduce these newer trauma treatment paradigms in traditional therapeutic approaches.

OBJECTIVES

1. Describe the relationship between early attachment trauma and alienation from self and recognize clinical signs of self-alienation
2. Teach clients to mindfully notice their distressing emotions and impulses as communications from child ego states
3. Describe hypnotic and somatic interventions that create an increased somatic sense of connection or attachment to one’s self
4. Foster ‘earned secure attachment’ as the outcome of attachment bonding between adult and child selves

Early registration fee is $175 (+txs), until February 26, 2021. Regular rate is $195 (+txs). This workshop is approved for 6 hours of continuing education by the OPQ (RA03648-21) and by the CCPA (under review). The workshop will be given live, online. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is an evidence-supported treatment recommended in clinical practice guidelines as a first line intervention for treating depression. IPT is recommended by the World Health Organization, the Canadian Mood and Anxiety Treatment Guidelines, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and other national consensus guideline panels based on decades of research demonstrating its efficacy and effectiveness. IPT can be offered instead of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or when CBT has failed to help a patient achieve the desired outcome. In this workshop, Dr. Ravitz will first provide an overview of the research, theoretical foundations and clinical guidelines for Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) to help patients living with depression. The key principles, and associated techniques, of IPT will be presented with clinical demonstrations, focusing on an appreciation of individual patient differences in order to optimize clinical outcomes. The focus on relationships and stressors related to losses, changes and disagreements resonates with patients across the lifespan. 

FORMAT

The format of the workshop includes didactic teaching, clinical demonstrations, and participatory role plays to prepare participants to implement key IPT strategies with an appreciation of individual patient differences in order to optimize clinical outcomes.

BIO

Dr. Paula Ravitz, MD, FRCPC, is the Morgan Firestone Psychotherapy Chair at Sinai Health System, Mount Sinai Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, where she also previously headed the Division of Psychotherapies, Health Humanities and Education Scholarship. Her research, clinical work, publications, and teaching focus on helping patients who live with common mental disorders including depression, using Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Behavioral Activation, and Mentalizing.  She is the current past-president of the International Society of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (ISIPT), author of “Psychotherapy Essentials to Go:  IPT for Depression” (2013. WW Norton), and co-editor the Psychotherapy Essentials to Go, a 6-book/video series for skills-teaching of a range of evidence-supported psychotherapy principles. Dr. Ravitz has taught IPT across Canada, in China, Ethiopia, France, Israel, and the U.S.