Level 2 Certification Course

Presented by AEDP™ Institute Faculty:
Benjamin Lipton, LCSW
Annika Medbo, MA
Ben Medley, LCSW
Richard Harrison, PhD
Live Online, Five 4-Day Modules, November 2023 – July 2024
Designed for Time Zones: Americas
Who the Essential Skills (ES1) Course is for:
This is an AEDP certification course open to AEDP Level 1 clinicians, i.e. those who have completed Immersion. Participants must be licensed mental health providers practicing legally in their state, province, or country, including Counselors, Doctors, Nurses, Psychoanalysts, Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Social Workers, other Behavioral Health Therapists and related professionals. If you have a question about the relevance of this course for you and/or your eligibility for this course please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org with your credentials before registering.
Course Description
AEDP™ psychotherapy is an empirically supported approach that seeks to alleviate patients’ psychological suffering by helping them process the overwhelming emotions associated with trauma in a way that facilitates corrective emotional and relational experiences that mobilize changes in the brain.
If you are interested in persuing AEDP certification, the Essential Skills is the second course in a series of certification courses for licensed therapists.
AEDP Essential Skills provides practical skills for the application of AEDP as well as a thorough immersion in the theory underlying the practice. Different skill sets will be introduced, explained, illustrated and practiced in each module, so that participants will emerge with both an understanding and a felt sense of how to practice AEDP.
Faculty Steeped in Theoretical Framework, Clinical Teaching from Videotapes, Experiential Exercises. These are the hallmarks of AEDP trainings. At AEDP Institute, we pride ourselves in how thoroughly and deeply we seek to both undo professional aloneness and engage in rigorous clinical teaching with skilled accompaniment. Our faculty are excellent as academics, clinicians and teachers. Participants deeply appreciate how effectively faculty presenters’ clinical video demonstrates “AEDP in action.” And faculty have skilled accompaniment from a large number of Experiential Assistants – up to and often including one Experiential Assistant for every four participants. Participants rave about the excellent attention and support they receive in this unique learning environment.
Routine for each module: AEDP skills are introduced with their theoretical foundations and with illustrations by way of clinical videotapes. Skills are then practiced in small group experiential exercises. Experiential practice time makes up roughly 40% of the course.
Course Objectives
- Summarize the theoretical foundations of AEDP
- Identify and demonstrate core elements of AEDP’s therapist stance: welcome, affirm, validate, orient
- Integrate healing and transformance from the get-go
- Apply moment-to-moment tracking of emotional states and their markers to clinical practice
- Construct dyadic safety and connection to promote exploration and risk-taking, and foster the capacity for optimal affective experience
- Identify and respond to different aspects within the Triangle of Experience to facilitate affective experience and processing to completion, optimize “attunement” and accelerate the healing process
- Explain how to assist in the processing of emotions to completion to activate deep transformational processes
- Define the four types of attachment styles: secure, anxious-ambivalent, disorganized and avoidant and demonstrate how to utilize different interventions according to attachment style
- Utilize various interventions to regulate/alleviate anxiety and traces of shame, bypass defenses and other inhibitory forces which block progress in therapy
- Identify and access core affective experiences including anger, sadness, fear and joy Identify the presence and/or expressions of transformance, the overarching motivational force driving positive change in AEDP, in clients
- Demonstrate utilizing transformance affects as a catalyst to maximize patient’s healing
Course Topics Module 1 – 5:
Module 1: “Healing from the Get-Go, Undoing Aloneness & the Clinical Roadmap for AEDP’s Transformation Journey”
Module 2 :”Attachment & Relational Work: Undoing Aloneness in Clinical Action”
Module 3: “State 1: The Top of the Triangle of Experience Working with Defense and Anxiety”
Module 4: “State 2 Work: the Processing of Core Affective Experience”
Module 5: “The Processing of Transformational Experience & The Integration of Transformation into Self State 3 & State 4 Work”
Suggested Readings for each module
Daily Schedule
View the daily agenda for all 5 modules here.
Location: Live Online and highly interactive
AEDP’s Live, Online Learning: Requirements & FAQ’s
Dates & Times
- Sessions run Friday – Monday
- Online sessions use the U.S. Eastern Time Zone
- Please double check the meeting times for your local time zone if not U.S. Eastern Time Zone by visiting http://www.24timezones.com/ or your resource of preference.
- Please check the dates and times closely for conflicts with Local Holidays, Religious Holidays, etc.
- Participants must commit to all 5 modules.
Times: 11:00 AM – 3:30 PM Eastern Time
2023 – 2024
Module 1: November 3-6, 2023 | Benjamin Lipton, LCSW
Module 2: January 26 – 29, 202 | Annika Medbo, MA
Module 3: March 15-18, 2024 | Ben Medley, LCSW
Module 4: May 3 – 6, 2024 | Richard Harrison, LCSW
Module 5: July 12 – 14, 2024 TBD
Registration, Course Fees and Scholarships
Course Fee:
Member $3,150 USD (please log in to register)
Non-Member $3,200 USD
To attend you must be a licensed therapist who is AEDP Level 1 (completed AEDP Immersion).
- Course includes 85 CE*
- $3,200 USD Non-Member Course Fee
Payment plan: $500 due at registration – email admin@aedpinstitute.org to schedule your payment plan
Are you a Member? Log in to get your Member discount
Scholarship Applications here
Meet the Presenters

Benjamin Lipton, LCSW
Benjamin Lipton, LCSW, is a founding faculty member of AEDP™ Institute. He is based in New York City and has travelled nationally and internationally to teach and present AEDP to a broad range of professional audiences. Mr. Lipton pioneered the first AEDP Advanced Core Training programs (Bay Area and Seattle); and he teaches seminars as well as the certification courses Essential Skills and Advanced Skills. His open and engaging teaching style and skill in translating complex ideas into clear and accessible learning points receives consistent praise from his audiences. Mr. Lipton is the editor of From Crisis to Crossroads: Gay Men Living with Chronic Illnesses and Disabilities (Haworth Press) and has published many clinical articles and book chapters in psychology and social service journals over the past two decades. (Read More…)
Annika Medbo, MA
nonverbal “calls” for connection, rather than focusing on defences and pathology. Her interest for nonverbal processes expanded when she supervised psychotherapy students in Infant Observation at a major Psychotherapy Institute in Stockholm.

Ben Medley, LCSW
Ben Medley, LCSW earned his degree in Clinical Social Work with the NYU Silver School of Social Work and has a private practice in NYC. Ben is a member of the AEDP Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and teaches nationally and internationally in the AEDP Immersion and Essential Skills courses. Ben created and presented “Clinically Oppressed: Addressing the Trauma of Marginalization Using AEDP” and co-created and co-presented with AEDP faculty member Ben Lipton the workshop “Feeling Like a Man: Using AEDP to Overcome Shame and Heal Attachment Trauma with Gay and Straight Men” (also available on-demand). Before private practice, Ben began a mental health program for study abroad students with the Scuola Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy; worked in the Jewish Board of Family Services LGBTQ Unit; and worked in Greenwich House’s HIV Mental Health and Chemical Dependency programs. (Read More…)

Richard Harrison, PhD
Richard Harrison, PhD, is a Registered Psychologist and Certified AEDP Therapist and Supervisor with over 25 years’ experience as a clinician, educator, and group facilitator.
He was trained and supervised in AEDP by Diana Fosha, founder of the model, and has taught with her at AEDP Immersion Courses in Vancouver and the UK. He currently teaches Essential Skills courses and Workshops for the Institute. Richard is also a
Certified EFT Therapist and Supervisor. He maintains a full caseload with individuals and couples in private practice, and teaches and supervises graduate students in the Counseling Psychology and Psychiatry departments at the University of British
Columbia. (Read More…)
Continuing Education Credit
Continuing Education: This program is generally eligible for 85 CE hours of continuing professional development credit.* Participants must have paid course fee, attended the entire course and completed an evaluation to receive CE. RCassidy, is our CE partner and will provide CE certificates. In addition a certificate of completion will be provided by the AEDP Institute. Partial credit is not available.
Listed below is a link to the continuing education credit(s) currently available* for this training. Each local and National professional board has its own specific Rules and Regulations for Continuing Education Credit Approval and Acceptance. Check with your State Regulatory board if you have questions or concerns not clarified by the information provided below. If your profession is not listed, please contact your licensing board to determine your continuing education requirements and check for reciprocal approval. For other credit inquiries not specified below, please contact our CE and Registration Partner, R. Cassidy Seminars Karen Newell, karen@rcassidy.com, 866-992-9399 x 105 before the event.
*Individual Board Rules are subject to change.
It is the responsibility of the Attendee to determine if the CE credit offered by R. Cassidy Seminars meets the regulations of their state licensing/certification board.
Important Note for Psychologists: At this time R Cassidy Seminars can award CE to New York Psychologists ONLY
There is no conflict of interest or commercial support for this program.
Go here for the continuing education credit(s) currently available for this live online seminar.
Important Note: California Mental Health Providers: At this time R Cassidy Seminars does have sponsorship with California CE Boards.
Psychologists: R Cassidy Seminars can award CE to New York Psychologists ONLY
ADA Accommodations | Attendance | Refund Policy | Questions
ADA
All AEDP Institute Trainings are offered Live Online.
Should you need any modification or accommodation to allow you to effectively
participate, please contact Marilia Rodriguez, admin@aedpinstitute.org or call
813-5553-1294 thirty days or more before the event so we can be sure to accommodate
you.
Attendance and Makeup Policy & Refunds
• Attendance and Makeup Policy
• Refund Policy
• Grievance Policy
Course and all customer service related questions:
Please contact Customer Service Administrator
Marilia Rodriguez
admin@aedpinstitute.org
813-553-1294
Office Hours: 9:00 – 5:00 PM Eastern Time USA