Description

This immersive seminar with Dr. Fosha will explore the transformative power of recognition and affirmation in AEDP to heal attachment wounds and revitalize the self. Relational trauma disrupts the ability to trust and connect, draining vitality from self and leading to negative self-concepts and feelings of invisibility, rejection, and unworthiness. In AEDP, affirmation is not a mere nicety but a robust therapeutic intervention, activating the brain’s intrinsic capacity for healing and self-repair. Through affirmation and AEDP Psychotherapy’s hallmark dyadic experiential work, patients experience profound shifts in self-concept, attachment security, and overall quality of life.

As we delve into the neurobiological underpinnings of recognition and affirmation, we will integrate Diana Fosha’s work on transformation using the double helix of affirmation and relationality, Jaak Panksepp’s insights on the neurobiological core SELF, and Louis Sander’s work on recognition. Through didactic presentations, in-depth discussions, and detailed microanalysis of clinical videotapes, participants will  how learn how to harness recognition and affirmation, and how to work with the defensive walls traumatized patients have built. Key elements include attunement and moment-to-moment tracking, crucial to being able to co-create a therapeutic environment where clients feel deeply seen, understood, and valued.

We will explore Panksepp’s neurobiological core SELF model, demonstrating how affirmation and recognition activate neural circuits linked to exploration and discovery. Panksepp’s neurobiological core SELF model together with the  SEEKING, CARE, and PLAY systems demonstrates how these brain systems contribute to a vital, energized self and vibrant connections. 

Participants will leave with practical tools and strategies to integrate recognition and affirmation into their clinical practice, empowering patients to rediscover their inherent worth, and capacity for connection, in co-created healing therapeutic environments conducive to transformation and growth.

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.

-Define affirmation and be able to use it in work with patients with relational trauma

-Identify and evaluate techniques for harnessing recognition and affirmation in therapeutic settings, focusing on attunement and moment-to-moment tracking.

-Develop and demonstrate practical strategies for working with the defensive walls built by traumatized patients.

-Identify and track patients’ responses to recognition and affirmation, and assess whether they were received or led to defensive responses

-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.

-Integrate theoretical knowledge of AEDP, neurobiological models, and recognition principles with practical application in therapeutic settings to foster patient transformation and growth.

Day 1

I: Course Overview

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

Break

III: Putting Theory into Clinical Practice: The Use of Affirmation & Recognition Interventions
a. Definition and importance of affirmation and recognition in therapy sessions
b. 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, and builds self and relational resources brought forth by affirmation and recognition
e. Examples and clinical case studies – videotaped illustrations

IV: Large Group Discussion: Q & A

Day 2

I: Review of Day 1, Q&A, Course Overview

II: Defenses: AEDP Practical Strategies for Working with Defenses vs. Recognition and Affirmation
a. Melting and bypassing defenses
b. Validating defenses and befriending defenses
c. Cost-benefit analysis: Celebrating the survival value of defenses in the past while recognizing their cost in the present when they are no 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

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

Break

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

V: 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

VI: Large Group Discussion: Q & A

AEDP® INSTITUTE  REGISTRATION AND LICENSE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND PROMISE OF CONFIDENTIALITY AND RESPECT.

By registering for this course you agree to all the terms of this license: you are purchasing a limited license to use and access the above-referenced content from the AEDP Institute and agreeing to the following terms.

This training is intended to be viewed only by licensed mental health professionals, individuals who hold an equivalent credential in their region, or those legally practicing under the license of a licensed clinician.

​This content contains training in the theory and practice of AEDP and excerpts from or descriptions of actual clinical therapy sessions with patients, as well as descriptions of patients and their treatment. These patients have graciously and generously consented to this use of their experiences)

In return, as a professional, you have two important duties: Confidentiality and Respect.

CONFIDENTIALITY: By licensing and using this content, you are agreeing to keep this content confidential. You may use this content only for its intended educational and training purposes, and you agree not to disclose this content to others. DO NOT SHARE THIS CONTENT WITHOUT THE APPROPRIATE, ADDITIONAL WRITTEN PERMISSION. (If you want to share this content with others in what you believe is an appropriate professional setting, you must first obtain that additional written permission. To that end, or for related questions, please contact admin@AEDPInstitute.org).

RESPECT: As professionals, we share an ethic of respect for our patients and for each other. Please respect the patients who have allowed their therapists to share this content in this way and respect the decision they have made to reveal themselves so that you can learn how to help other patients more effectively. Therefore, even beyond any other legal obligation of confidentiality, you agree to treat this content the same way you would treat the experiences and records of your own patients. For example, do not view this content in a public place, or in some other way that would allow others to see or hear it. Do not share any information about the patients depicted in this content that might lead to someone identifying these patients.

Professionals also respect the work of their colleagues. Therefore, you are agreeing not to infringe the intellectual property contained in and constituted by this content. For example, do not copy this content or share or distribute it in any way without the appropriate written permission (see above). 

You are also agreeing to respect the spirit in which your fellow professionals are offering this content. Psychotherapy is not an exact science, and patient responses and outcomes will always vary based on the individual and many other factors. Therefore, you are agreeing that you understand that the practices and techniques discussed in this content do not guarantee any particular patient outcome, and that the AEDP Institute and its advisors, faculty and staff (collectively, “the Institute”) are accepting no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any actions, omissions, injuries or damages by or of you or any third party. In addition, you agree that the Institute is not providing you with professional advice of any kind; does not owe you or your patients any expert, professional, heightened, special or fiduciary duty of any kind; and is not responsible for the statements or misstatements of others, intentional or otherwise.

IN NO EVENT WILL THE INSTITUTE, OR ANY PERSON OR ENTITY WITHIN THE INSTITUTE, OR DEPICTED IN THIS CONTENT BE LIABLE IN CONTRACT, IN TORT (INCLUDING FOR ITS OWN NEGLIGENCE) OR UNDER ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY (INCLUDING STRICT LIABILITY) FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR SIMILAR DAMAGES, LOST PROFITS OR REVENUES, LOSS OF USE, OR SIMILAR ECONOMIC LOSS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF, CONTENT IN, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE CONTENT YOU ARE LICENSING.

For questions, please email us at admin@aepdinstitute.org

By registering for this course you agree to all the terms of the above license.

Suggested Readings

Fosha D. (2009). Emotion and recognition at work: Energy, vitality, pleasure, truth, desire & the emergent phenomenology of transformational experience. In D. Fosha, D. J. Siegel & M. F. Solomon (Eds.), The healing power of emotion: Affective neuroscience, development, clinical practice (pp. 172-203). New York: Norton.

Also reprinted in the Neuropsychotherapist, (2013), 2. www.theneuropsychotherapist.com

Fosha, D. (2013). A heaven in a wild flower: Self, dissociation, and treatment in the context of the neurobiological core self. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 33, 496-523. DOI: 10.108007351690.2013.815067

Fosha, D. (2021). “We are organized to be better than fine:” Building the transformational theory of AEDP. In D. Fosha (Ed.) Undoing aloneness and the transformation of suffering into flourishing: AEDP 2.0. (Chapter 14, pp. 377-400). APA Press.

AEDP Institute On-Demand trainings are available via online streaming and cannot be downloaded. A stable, high-speed internet connection is recommended to support optimal viewing quality.

This training is intended to be viewed only by licensed mental health professionals, individuals who hold an equivalent credential in their region, or those legally practicing under the license of a licensed clinician. As part of the registration process, participants will be asked to verify their professional status and attest that they meet the eligibility requirements before completing payment and accessing the materials.

The AEDP® Model of Psychotherapy

The following statements describe the empirical foundation, accuracy, utility, scope, limitations, and clinical considerations relevant to the content presented in AEDP Courses.

Empirical Basis

AEDP® Psychotherapy is supported by peer-reviewed empirical research published in established scholarly journals. Effectiveness studies conducted within a practice research network demonstrate significant symptom reduction (e.g., depression, maladaptive negative cognitions, interpersonal functioning, experiential avoidance) and significant increases in positive indices of mental health (e.g., self-compassion, flourishing) across diagnostic presentations (Iwakabe et al., 2020), with longitudinal follow-up findings indicating maintenance of gains at six and twelve months (Iwakabe et al., 2022). These outcome studies evaluated a 16-session AEDP treatment protocol.

Additional empirical investigations examine therapeutic process variables associated with flourishing and metatherapeutic processing (Fosha & Thoma, 2020; Fosha, Thoma, & Yeung, 2019), as well as psychometric validation of measures assessing positive affective transformation, including the Moments of Flourishing Experience Scale (Fosha et al., 2024). Collectively, this body of outcome and process research provides empirical support for the clinical principles and interventions taught in AEDP Courses.

Accuracy, Utility, Scope and Limitations

AEDP is a transdiagnostic, transformation-oriented model of psychotherapy practiced with clients experiencing a wide range of psychological difficulties. Developed and primarily taught for individual psychotherapy, the model may be adapted by trained clinicians for work with couples, families, children, and groups when clinically appropriate; however, formal empirical research has focused primarily on its application in individual treatment.

AEDP was developed to address affective, relational, trauma-related, and depressive symptom presentations within an attachment-based, experiential framework. The empirical base is strongest for these domains, and findings from the 16-session research protocol should not be assumed to generalize automatically to all treatment formats, durations, or to individuals with severe or unstable psychiatric conditions.

AEDP was not designed as a first-line or stand-alone treatment for active psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder that is not medically stabilized, or active substance use disorders. In such cases, clinicians should ensure appropriate stabilization and integration with disorder-specific and medically coordinated care. As with all clinical models, effective application requires sound professional judgment, adherence to ethical standards, and practice within one’s scope of competence.

Ongoing Research

Current research continues to investigate the therapeutic processes and specific AEDP interventions associated with transformational change. In addition, AEDP-informed psychotherapy is being studied in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai within randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

Risks and Clinical Considerations

As with all experiential and trauma-focused psychotherapies, potential risks include temporary increases in emotional distress, activation of traumatic memories, heightened affective arousal, interpersonal sensitivity, or destabilization if interventions are misapplied or insufficiently titrated. Severe risks are uncommon but may include significant dysregulation in vulnerable individuals if adequate screening, stabilization, and monitoring are not conducted. The model emphasizes careful attunement, pacing, and ongoing assessment to mitigate these risks.

Course Content Level: Beginner

This training is eligible for 6 CE and consists of 2 Part(s); viewing all parts is required for completion.

Requirement for CE:

a. Completion of all parts of the training

b. Purchase CE, which includes the post test ($25.00)

c. Achieve a minimum score of 80% within three attempts

d. Upon completing and submitting the course evaluation, the CE certificate will be immediately available for download

Please note that it is the responsibility of the licensee to check with their individual state board to verify CE requirements for their state and reciprocal approvals.

Continuing education applications may be underway for various national and state-level boards and agencies. Please check back for updated  approvals or email admin@aedpinstitute.org with questions.

Disclosure

All planners and presenters have disclosed that they have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies. There is no commercial support for this program nor are there any relationships between AEDP Institute, the presenter, program content, research, grants, or other funding that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest.

Continuing Education (CE) Approvals

Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB)
AEDP Institute, provider #2307, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: October 31, 2025 – October 31, 2026. Social Workers completing the training and CE requirements will receive 6 continuing education credits. 

New York Psychologists
AEDP Works, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0256. AEDP Works, LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This training is approved for 6 continuing education credits

New York Social Workers 
AEDP Works, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0805. This training is approved for 6 continuing education credits.

National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)
AEDP Works, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7622. Counselors in all states except NY and MFTs in all states except NY and MA are eligible. This training is approved for 6 continuing NBCC credits.