AEDP: The Power of Affirmation to Heal Relational Wounds & Revitalize the SELF 

Presented by Diana Fosha, PhD

Friday, October 18, 2024

11:00 – 11:15am    
I:   Course Overview      

11:15am – 1:00 pm 
II:   Recognition and Affirmation in AEDP        
a. Theoretical foundations in AEDP: What is affirmation? What is recognition? 
b. Louis Sander’s work on recognition in a developmental context
c. Jaak Panksepp’s work on the Neurobiological Core SELF (capitals in Panksepp’s work) and applications to our clinical understanding of self experience
d. Diana Fosha’s work on transformation: The focus on vitality, energy and aliveness
e. Affirmation of self and relationality in AEDP

1:00-   1:15pm Break  

1:15-  2:45pm
III:  Putting Theory into Clinical Practice: The Use of Affirmation  & Recognition Interventions
a. Definition and importance of affirmation and recognition in therapy sessions
b. How -To: Techniques for using affirmation and recognition with patients experiencing relational trauma and disorders of the self
c.  The importance of the therapist’s use of self in using  affirmation and recognition
d. How  the technique of metatherapeutic processing amplifies, broadens & builds self and relational resources brought forth  by affirmation and recognition
e. Examples and clinical case studies–videotaped illustrations

2:45 – 3:00pm
IV: Large group discussion: Q & A

Saturday, October 19, 2024

11:00 – 11:15am    
I:   Review of Day 1, Q&A, Course Overview

11:15 am- 12:00pm      
I:   Defenses: AEDP Practical Strategies for Working with Defenses vs. Recognition and Affirmation   a.  Melting and bypassing defenses
b.  Validating defenses, befriending defenses
c.   Cost benefit analysis:  Celebrate survival value of defenses in the past, reckon with their cost in the present now when no l longer necessary
d. Therapist’s use of self and judicious self disclosure to 
reduce anxiety and restructure defenses
e. Examples and clinical case studies–videotaped illustrations

12:00 – 1:00pm
III:  Somatic/Affective Markers: Moment to moment tracking of the phenomenology of affirmation and recognition
a. Somatic/Affective Markers of Recognition: The click of recognition, the Duchenne smile
b. Somatic/Affective Markers of Affirmation: Vitality, energy, enlivenment 
c. Receptive affective experiences that arise in response to affirmation and recognition
d.Examples and clinical case studies–videotaped illustrations

1:00 – 1:15pm Break

1:15 – 2:30
IV:  Using recognition and affirmation with patients with dissociation and complex PTSD
a. focus on co-creating safety
b. the importance of attending to self experience
c. The metatherapeutic processing of self experience
d.Examples and clinical case studies–videotaped illustrations

2:30 – 2:45pm
IV:  Bringing together and integrating developmentally-based work on recognition, neurobiological work on the core self and AEDP work on transformation: Theory and Clinical Practice
a. Integration
b. Encouraging participants’ reflection and personal integration of what they have learned
2:45– 3:00pm V: Large group discussion: Q & A

OBJECTIVES: 

Participants will be able to describe the theoretical foundations and therapeutic mechanisms by which recognition and affirmation in AEDP facilitate the revitalization of the self.

Participants will be able to define affirmation and be able to use it in work with patients with relational trauma

Participants will be able to identify and evaluate techniques for harnessing recognition and affirmation in therapeutic settings, focusing on attunement and moment-to-moment tracking.

Participants will be able to develop and demonstrate practical strategies for working with the defensive walls against recognition and a affirmation built by traumatized patients.

Participants will be able to identify and track patients’ responses to recognition and affirmation, and assess whether they were received or led to defensive responses

Participants will be able to develop techniques to integrate recognition and affirmation into clinical practice, enabling patients to rediscover their inherent worth and capacity for connection within co-created healing therapeutic environments.

Participants will be able to integrate theoretical knowledge of AEDP, neurobiological models, and recognition principles with practical application in therapeutic settings to foster patient transformation and growth.

METHODS:
Lecture, PowerPoint Presentation, Video Presentation of case examples, Group Discussion, Bibliography, Handouts

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
This training is an introduction to AEDP for licensed clinicians. Content level: All