Online Learning, Live Webinar: Transforming Resistance Monthly Online Training Course 2020 – 2021

with Steve Shapiro, PhD

This course is sold out – please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org to be added to the waiting list.

Live Webinar Training – 27.5 Hours of Training

Ironically, many clients interfere with the very progress they seek through their own resistance to the psychotherapy process. Not infrequently, they terminate prematurely before reaching their goals.  This results in tragic consequences for the client, as well as frustration and a sense of failure for the therapist. While clients enter treatment with conscious motivation, resistance is unconscious and, therefore, difficult to address without a coherent system. Therapists typically interpret resistance in a personal way becoming confused, frustrated, and hopeless, with a tendency to hold the client responsible and label him/her as “unmotivated or resistant”. Participants will learn to move beyond resistance and simple symptom management into deep, transformational processes that releases resources of health and resilience. Learn to accelerate treatment using innovative techniques that implore clients to abandon chronic coping patterns that were once necessary, but have long outlived their usefulness and are now causing untoward suffering.

Therapists offer the promise of help often based on the presumption that the client will arrive with sufficient initial motivation, openness and willingness to face painful realities. Frequently this is not the case. Clinicians are rarely adequately prepared to address resistance directly and therapeutically, making it difficult to help more challenging clients.  Defenses can be seen as “a problem,” rather than an inevitable part of the process; defense restructuring can mistakenly be understood as an adversarial task that we then avoid, rather than a compassionate and collaborative venture.

The instructor will teach the fundamentals of two Experiential Dynamic Therapies (EDTs), melded together in a way that he finds highly compatible. AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) is relatively more anxiety-regulating with a focus on underlying healthy resources, using an inter-personal/ relational focus, whereas STDP (Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy) is relatively more challenging to defensive barriers when needed, using an intrapsychic focus, and a tendency to prioritize accessing the unconscious. Understanding both allows the clinician a broad range and flexibility that is efficient, effective and powerful.

Therapists of all orientations and levels of experience will gain a clear understanding of the nature and function of defences, and ways to transform them therapeutically so clients can align with the healthy, buried and previously inaccessible internal resources. The principles taught can be readily integrated with your existing orientation and skill set. By adopting an active, focused, precise, experiential, attachment-based and emotionally engaged stance, therapists can create the safety and attunement necessary for patients to risk abandoning their resistance and shift to healthier functioning. The ultimate goal is to accelerate the healing process for clients, but also to help clinicians practice in a way that substantially reduces counter transference, is deeply rewarding, effective, and authentic, fully compatible with your personal and professional history.

FORMAT:

• The format is conceived as a webinar course and will primarily involve presentation of learning modules from the instructor and abundant video demonstration with micro analysis to understand the principles in a practical manner that is immediately applicable to therapists of all orientations.
• Maximum webinar course participants: 75
• Learning modules will be presented in a sequential, cumulative manner, beginning with basic principles and progressing to advanced theory and technique.
  • SEE: “Basic modules” below or a separate document “Transforming Resistance Curriculum” for a more detailed listing of topics.
• Topics will be taught and accompanied  by video demonstrations from the instructor. The instructor will teach for approximately 1/3 of the time on a particular topic. Then, the majority of time will be spent reviewing video demonstrations of actual patient sessions, with extensive micro-analysis and discussion to demonstrate the techniques vividly.
• Given the monthly format, we will have the luxury of ample time, not typically available in a workshop, to thoroughly address each topic. Video demonstrations will primarily involve UNEDITED footage to realistically demonstrate, step-by-step, in detail, various systems of intervention.  Consequently, attendees will gain a reasonable sense of what can reasonably be achieved and how, with different presentations and various levels of difficulty.
• To avoid information or emotion overload, and maximize integration with your existing skill set, only one module/topic, will be taught during each class.  This will encourage in-depth understanding of a limited number of techniques in one sitting, so that we can work toward mastery.   Teaching will be done in a principle centered manner, starting with the most basic concepts and building in a cumulative manner toward increasing complexity and sophistication. Students will be encouraged to engage in “deliberate practice” through certain exercises and role-plays during the class and between classes with suggestions for homework assignments. In almost any other field, it would not be reasonable to expect growth without specific and deliberate practice of individual skills. One would not successfully learn tennis or surgery by having a teacher simply demonstrate what s/he would do in various scenarios or by reading numerous books on the topics. This might increase theoretical knowledge, but not practical skill.
• Basic modules: (See “Transforming Resistance Curriculum” for a more detailed listing of topics):
  • Clinical maps: moment to moment tracking of verbal and somatic responses; understanding aspects of personality; trial therapy.
  • Removing barriers safely: understanding defensive operations, transforming resistance, defense restructuring, bypassing and therapeutically challenging defenses.
  • Keeping motivation high and inhibition low: anxiety monitoring and anxiety regulation, pathways of anxiety, assessing anxiety and affect tolerance, optimal window of anxiety.
  • Accessing healthy resources: facilitating affective experience, components of emotion, portrayals, corrective emotional experience, accessing the unconscious, relational interventions.
• Comments:
  • Studying material in this format, with abundant video viewing, is very powerful and effective in developing advanced clinical skills that can be used in your practice immediately. For intensive learning and advancement to the next level of expertise it is important to be e immersed in the material.
  • Reviewing your own work (and many others) with attention to various issues highlighted by the instructor is an effective way to translate theory into practical application.
  • There are other benefits to this format which do not involve technique per se, but instead relate to developing therapist emotional capabilities because of the repeated exposures to multiple patient videos each meeting: desensitization to intense emotion, improved anxiety/ affect tolerance, tolerating individual differences/ avoiding therapist agenda, comfort with defenses/ resistance, development of emotional courage, increased comfort with self supervision and consultation, understanding multiple styles and ways to intervene, etc.

TRAINING ISSUES:

• This course is well-suited for those with at least a moderate degree of experience/familiarity with experiential dynamic therapies. Because the material will be taught starting with the most basic principles and building from there incrementally, with increasing complexity, an advanced level of experience/skill is not necessary. More important is the presence of an open and curious mind, as well as a desire to integrate theory and technique in a way that is precise and systematic (“left brain/ science”), while also being authentic, flexible and compassionate (“right brain/ art”). 
• Teaching will be conducted in a principle-centered manner to optimize building of internal “cognitive maps” that will flexibly guide trainees in a variety of scenarios (“teaching to fish instead of giving a fish”).
• Together, we will create a learning environment that promotes the learning and practicing of new skills as rapidly as possible.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. To develop reliable, internal clinical maps that will flexibly and accurately guide assessment of the patient and, consequently, therapist interventions/ clinical stance. This will help the therapist gain a better understanding of the internal world of each patient, in each moment, and consequently, a better sense how to relate to create optimal attunement/ alliance and how to intervene to facilitate transformational opportunities for growth/healing (theory).
2. To develop practical clinical skills as rapidly as possible to function in an effective, deep and efficient manner (technique).
3. To develop a therapy style that is not only effective, accelerated and reduces suffering as rapidly as possible (patient benefit), but that is authentic and unique for each individual clinician, based on his both his/her professional experience/orientation, as well as his/her personality. The approach should be deeply rewarding to practice (therapist benefit). (professional development).
4. To improve therapist ability to detect his/her emotional reactions in various scenarios, to develop greater affect/anxiety tolerance, to welcome and use countertransference in a positive/effective manner (personal/emotional)
   • It is been my experience, both personally, as well as in providing consultation/supervision, that this is an important area and can be a barrier to further growth if not addressed. After all, unlike carpenters or physicians, WE, our “SELVES”, are the tools of our trade. This area is particularly important for advanced students who have at least a foundational grasp of theory and technique.

To view curriculum click HERE.

Meet the Presenter

[field title]

[content] [/loop]

Location, Dates and Times:

Location: Online via ZOOM: a HIPAA compliant platform (no incremental cost to participant).

Dates and Times:

Important! This course will now start October 7, 2020 and end June 30, 2021 (updated September 8, 2020)
10 Wednesdays, (October – June)
3:30 PM  –  6:30 PM EST (3 hours)

September 16, 2020
October 7, 2020 (new start date)
November 11, 2020
December 9, 2020
January 13, 2021
February 10, 2021
March 10, 2021
April 14, 2021
May 5, 2021
June 9, 2021
June 30, 2020 (replacement for September date, new end date)

CE’s, Fees and Registration:

27.5 CE Credits are included in the price of the course. Participants must attend every class for a total of 30 hours to be eligible for CE’s,

Maximum Participants: 75

Fee:

AEDP Members $1,450 USD

Non-Members $1,500 USD

This course is sold out – please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org to be added to the waiting list.

Learn about our ‘pay-what-you-wish’ pilot program for self-identifying Black mental health professionals here.

Diversity Scholarships: For more information and to download an application please click here.

Extra Help During the Pandemic:

• Covid Scholarships: A limited number of partial scholarships are available for licensed therapists in practice. If you are unable to afford the full course fee because you have been especially hard hit by the Covid virus, please contact us at admin@aedpinstitute.org with Covid Scholarship in the subject line and briefly tell us why you need the scholarship.
• Extended Payment Plans: Take up to 6 months to pay for the course. For information, call our registration partner Karen Newell at R Cassidy Seminars:  866-992-9399  X105 (Office Hours:  Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 2:00 pm PST)

Click here to see our Refund Policy

Course Questions & Registration Contact

Contact Karen Newell at R. Cassidy Seminars: AEDP’s CE and Registration Partner:

karen@rcassidy.com
866-992-9399  X105
Office Hours:  Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 2:00 pm PST

ADA Accommodations:

Please contact R Cassidy Seminars’ office 866-992-9399 if you have questions about disability access or accommodations.

Other questions about this course? Please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org

Continuing Education

This event is co-sponsored by R. Cassidy Seminars

Satisfactory Completion

Participants must have paid tuition and CE fee, attended the entire seminar and completed an evaluation in order to receive a certificate. Failure to attend the whole course will result in forfeiture of credit for the entire course. No exceptions will be made. Partial credit is not available.

Please Note: Licensing Boards change regulations often and while we attempt to stay abreast of their most recent changes, if you have questions or concerns about this course meeting your specific board’s approval, we recommend you contact your board directly to obtain a ruling.

Disability Access – If you require ADA accommodations please contact our office 10 days or more before the event. We cannot ensure accommodations without adequate prior notification.

For our refund policy click here and see “Live Courses (this is a Live Webinar)”.