AEDP®Advanced Skills January 2025
Undoing Disempowerment: Cultivating Agency in AEDP
Presented by Eileen Russell, PhD
Choose from two live online options:
Full Course: Friday – Monday | January 24 – 27, 2025
Seminar Only: Friday & Sunday | January 24 & 26, 2025
Explore the development and expansion of AEDP theory to include the addition of agency, will, and desire.
Internalized experiences of trauma, neglect, or oppression can severely impair one’s access to and expression of one’s emotions, as well as the sense of safety with oneself and others. But these experiences, as well as subtler, but chronic, experiences of not being seen or recognized, can also impair the development of the sense of the self being an agent in the world and in one’s own life. Even as one develops a connection to and capacity for one’s own feelings, people can still feel like “guests in their own lives.”
We will explore and explain the development and expansion of AEDP theory to include the addition of agency, will, and desire to the Four State Transformational Process of AEDP theory and practice. This course will discuss the broadening of our attachment-based therapeutic stance to invite differentiation (vs. “we-ness”) in the service of nurturing the agentic self that has often been suppressed in many clients in psychotherapy. It will explore situations in which “safety,” highly prized in AEDP, can be over-used and instances in which allowing for some conflict, or at least tension, in the therapeutic relationship may be more growth-full for the development of the agentic, differentiated self. It will contextualize the importance of this expansion in developmental, polyvagal, relational psychoanalytic, and learning theories.
Dr. Russell will use videotapes of actual sessions to illustrate examples of blocked agency as well as techniques for inviting the emergence of agency within the therapeutic relationship.
Full Course
4 Half-days:
—2 half-days didactic seminar
—2 half-days small group experiential work
Open to AEDP Level 2+ (Essential Skills graduates)
Counts towards certification
Seminar Only
2 half-days
—2 half-days didactic seminar
Open to AEDP Level 1+ (Immersion graduates)
does not count towards certification
About Advanced Skills Training
Full Course: Offers a rich blend of specialized learning through expert-led instruction and extensive experiential practice with peers to master interventions. Completing five courses advances you toward Level 3 certification.
Seminar: Offers a rich blend of specialized learning through expert-led instruction strengthening your therapeutic skills while connecting with our vibrant community. This format is ideal for clinicians who are interested in the didactic only — without the experiential practice.
Prerequisites
To attend the Full course you must have completed Immersion and Essential Skills. While the full course counts toward certification, you don’t need to be pursuing certification to attend.
To attend the Seminar only you must have completed Immersion
Learning Objectives & Agendas
- Explain the concepts of “sense of agency” and “will” and explore why these emotional aspects are often suppressed or underdeveloped in psychotherapy clients who have experienced different forms of disempowerment.
- Distinguish between State 2 maladaptive and adaptive core affective experience in the Four State Transformational Process of AEDP.
- Incorporate language techniques to assist clients in transitioning to more adaptive coping mechanisms and fostering a stronger connection with their innate sense of agency.
- Describe the contextual nuances of questions related to agency, will, as occurring in the dialectic between “freedom” and “determinism”. Explore how these concepts manifest in diverse psychological theories of pathology and transformation that inform our work.
- Develop and expand on AEDP psychotherapy’s attachment-based stance to include differentiation (and not just togetherness) to allow for the development of a separate self. and how to make use of them in therapy.
- Develop ways to address impasses in your practice where there is a collision between empathy and authenticity.
- Explain the concepts of “sense of agency” and “will” and explore why these emotional aspects are often suppressed or underdeveloped in psychotherapy clients who have experienced different forms of disempowerment.
- Distinguish between State 2 maladaptive and adaptive core affective experience in the Four State Transformational Process of AEDP.
- Incorporate language techniques to assist clients in transitioning to more adaptive coping mechanisms and fostering a stronger connection with their innate sense of agency.
- Describe the contextual nuances of questions related to agency, will, as occurring in the dialectic between “freedom” and “determinism”. Explore how these concepts manifest in diverse psychological theories of pathology and transformation that inform our work.
- Develop and expand on AEDP psychotherapy’s attachment-based stance to include differentiation (and not just togetherness) to allow for the development of a separate self. and how to make use of them in therapy.
- Develop ways to address impasses in your practice where there is a collision between empathy and authenticity.
AEDP psychotherapy is an empirically supported model that heals trauma and helps to undo aloneness by championing the innate healing capacity of neuroplasticity in a safe, attached therapeutic relationship.
Through moment-to-moment, in-depth processing of difficult emotional and relational experiences, AEDP clinicians help clients recover their sense of core self and experience increased resilience and a renewed zest for life.
AEDP has roots in many disciplines including interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, emotion theory and affective neuroscience, body-focused approaches as well as transformational studies.
As a clinical treatment, AEDP is effective with a variety of psychological symptoms and issues, including depression, emotion dysregulation, negative thoughts, experiential avoidance, and interpersonal problems. AEDP is also effective in enhancing positive functioning such as self-compassion, well-being, and self-esteem.
Meet the Presenter: Eileen M. Russell, PhD
Dr. Eileen Russell is a clinical psychologist and a founding faculty member of the AEDP Institute. She began studying and training in AEDP in 1996 with Drs. Diana Fosha and Jenna Osiason. Dr. Russell has been an adjunct faculty member at NYU
Medical/ Bellevue Hospital Center where she completed her internship training and later worked as a senior psychologist with individuals struggling with addiction and psychiatric diagnoses. She is currently also on the faculty of the National Institute of the Psychotherapies (NIP) Integrative Trauma Program. Her passion is AEDP, which she has taught to individuals and groups since 2004 nationally and internationally. She combines a warm and gentle clinical style with a probing and articulate interest in theory to bring out the depths of the AEDP approach.
Read more…
Dates, Times & Setting
Please check all dates and times closely for conflicts with local holidays, religious holidays, etc.
All time are Eastern Standard Time (New York)
Dates
Full Course:
Friday – Monday | January 24–27, 2025
Seminar Only:
Friday & Sunday | January 24 & 26, 2025
Times
11:00- 3:30 PM EST
11:00- 3:30 PM EST
Registration, Fees & Scholarships
Non-Member
Registration
Full Course
$679
Non-Member
Registration
Seminar
$399
Scholarships
Limited Scholarships are available
Are you a Member? Login here to get your discount.
Not a Member? Click here to join now.
To be Eligible to Attend
Full Course : Must be Level 2: a graduate of Essential Skills with the licensing credentials listed below.
Seminar: Must be Level 1: a graduate of Immersion with the licensing credentials listed below. Note that Essential Skills graduates may more readily grasp this somewhat advanced AEDP content.
North America: Licensed mental health practitioners as well as therapists practicing under the license of a supervising professional.
Beyond North America: Mental health professionals who hold licensure equivalent to North American standards including ongoing affiliation with an organization responsible for issuing and overseeing mental health credentials in their country or region.
Important Notes:
Coaching and other non-psychotherapy specific licenses are not eligible.
If you’re unsure about the relevance of this course for you, or your eligibility, please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org with your credentials before registering.
Attendance and Make up Policy
Institute Sponsored Courses Including Immersion, Essential Skills, Advanced Skill Modules, Seminars/Webinars and Institute Sponsored Core Trainings
The AEDP Institute does not offer make-ups for missed course days. In the rare case where someone joins a course late, or misses a session in the middle of a course, the hour(s) or day(s) that person misses cannot be made up. Why? Group dynamics developed during a course are essential to the course’s success; so someone coming into a course for a short period of time is – regardless of their best intentions – disruptive to other participants and the course’s overall success. The Institute will, however, provide handouts from missed hours or days but will not allow a person to make up the hours or days they miss in another course.
AEDP Level credit: if a participant attends 80% or more of a course, the Institute will apply the course towards AEDP Level advancement
Refunds and Cancellations
Program Cancellation/Changes
The AEDP Institute reserves the right to cancel a training/ program prior to its start, in which case full refunds will be issued to participants for any tuition fees paid for the program. The AEDP Institute is not responsible for participant expenses including travel, childcare, missed practice sessions, etc.
In the rare situation that the AEDP Institute makes changes to advertised presenter(s), tuition fees will not be refunded.
By adhering to these policies, we aim to ensure a fair and consistent approach to cancellations, refunds, and transfer requests.
Canceling 16 or More Days Before a Course or Seminar:
- Refund: 85% of your course fee.
Canceling 1-15 Days Before a Course or Seminar:
- No Refund
- An Institute credit of 85% of your course fee will be provided for use towards a future course.
Canceling / Withdrawing / No Show on the 1st Day or During a Course or Seminar:
- No refund
- No credit
Transfer Requests Made 45+ Days Before Course Start:
- Requests will be accommodated wherever possible without financial penalty.
Transfer Requests Made 44-1 Days Before Course Start:
- $200 Transfer fee Applied to new course
Participants in Multi-Module Essential Skills (ES1) Courses:
- Requests to transfer from one ES1 course series to another are highly disruptive and rarely possible.
- Exception: In rare and extreme circumstances where an exception is made, a $200 transfer fee will be charged
Refund Policy for Institute Sponsored On Demand (recorded) Seminars
If for any reason you are unsatisfied with an Institute sponsored (recorded) On Demand Seminar, please email admin@aedpinstitute.org with an explanation of why you are dissatisfied. We will offer, one time per person, a credit for your payment, less a 15% banking and administrative fee that you may apply to a different (recorded) On Demand seminar.
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