Conference Schedule of Presentations
Friday April 4 (day one)
Begin your day with a complimentary Breakfast and Registration
8:00- 8:45 AM EST
Welcome, Housekeeping 8:45 – 9:00 AM EST
Presentations begin: 9:00 Am
Benjamin Lipton, LCSW
The ABC’s of AEDP: Acronyms to get you started or keep you on track with the practice of AEDP
Friday, April 4, 9:30 – 10:30 AM EST
In this presentation, which includes a live demonstration of AEDP, Mr. Lipton shares essential–and memorable–acronyms for practice that he has developed over the past 20+ years as a teacher of AEDP. These acronyms capture fundamental, but often complex principles and strategies of AEDP theory and technique, and translate them into accessible and directly applicable steps for effective practice.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Gul Dolen, PhD
Keynote # 1: Neuroscience, Critical Periods, Psychedelics Research
Friday, April 4, 10:30 – 11:30 AM EST
Our featured keynote speaker is Dr. Gul Dolen, professor in the Psychology Department at UC Berkeley where she holds an endowed chair, teaches, and runs Dolen Lab where she and her team work on Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience.
Ms. Dolen, MD , PhD (Brown/MIT) is a world renowned researcher whose areas of interest include: Psychedelics, Critical Periods, Research with Octopus, Synaptic Plasticity, Extracellular Matrix, Oxytocin, Stroke, Fragile X, Autism, PTSD and Addiction.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Panel Discussion: Gul Dolen, PhD, Diana Fosha PhD, Kari Gleiser PhD, & Lauren Lepow, MD
The panel will ask Dr. Gulen questions that will tie her work to our own research and clinical work in & with psychedelics.
Friday, April 4, 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST
Read Dolen’s Bio, Read Fosha’s Bio, Read Gleiser’s Bio, Read Lepow’s Bio
Lunch 12:00 – 1:15
Natasha Prenn, LCSW
How to use Deliberate Practice in your AEDP clinical practice both as a therapist and as a supervisor.
Friday, April 4, 1:15 – 2:15 PM EST
Master essential AEDP skills through Deliberate Practice. Learn 12 core techniques bridging theory and clinical application. Transform challenging concepts into practical skills through behavioral rehearsal.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Danny Yeung, MD
Hearkening Together in One Spirit: I-and-Dao in the here-and-now as AEDP therapist’s transpersonal use of self.
Friday, April 4, 2:15 – 2:35 PM EST
Focusing at the What, Why, and How of the spirit of AEDP, this multimedia presentation with clinical video vignettes aims to address three inter-related questions: What is the Spirit of AEDP? Why care about the spirit of AEDP? How do we cultivate the spirit of AEDP?
Read Bio Here
Gerald Brooks, LCSW
Black Men Do Cry: The transformational tear, father wounds, and the healing power of AEDP.
Friday, April 4, 2:35 – 3:00 PM EST
Brooks explores the emotional journey of Black men as they heal from the ‘Father Wound’ through the process of crying for the inner child with the support of a Transformational Other (Russell, 2021). The presentation, including clinical video, challenges the stereotype that emotional expression, particularly crying, signifies weakness in men, and instead reframes it as a powerful act of healing and strength.
Read Bio Here
Break 3:00 – 3:30 PM EST
Kate Halliday, LCSW & Andrea Northwood, PhD
Championing and Celebrating the True Self: An AEDP “True Other” is an agent for lesbian liberation.
Friday, April 4, 3:30 – 3:55 PM EST
While our gay male colleagues (Tunnell & Greenan, Lipton and Medley) have contributed to the dialogue, we lesbians have been under recognized in the AEDP literature, even though there are many female AEDP clinicians who identify as queer. Andrea and I are working on a writing project to rectify that omission; this presentation will be our “coming out” event.
Yuval Moses, LCSW
In Defense of Defenses: lessons from integrating DBT with AEDP when feeling emotions leads to high risk behaviors
Friday, April 4, 3:55 – 4:20 PM EST
It is widely recognized that borderline personality disorder is at its core a disorder in emotion regulation. In AEDP, bypassing defenses can risk intensifying high-risk behaviors for some clients. Viewing such behaviors as defenses, we can use DBT’s framework to safely transform and restructure them.
Read Bio Here
Sigal Bahat, MA
Pressing one’s edges from safety: working in Core State to expand relational receptive affective capacity
Friday, April 4, 4:20 – 5:20 PM EST
AEDP uniquely leverages safety to expand emotional and relational capacity. Learn techniques to help clients stretch their edges while remaining grounded in secure attachment. Through clinical demonstration, witness how working from Core State creates profound opportunities for new experiences and deeper connection.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Ben Medley, LCSW
Summing Up and what’s to come.
Friday April 5, 5:20 – 5:30 PM EST
Welcome Cocktail Party in the Lobby 5:30 – 7:00 PM EST
Saturday April 5 (day 2)
Breakfast 8:00 – 8:45
Welcome & Housekeeping, Ben Medley, 8:45 – 9:00
Special International Welcome and Video, Danny Yeung, 9:00- 9:10
Vision Collective Panel Presentation
Transforming Racialized Trauma: Black belonging in AEDP
Saturday, April 5, 9:10 – 10:00 AM EST
In a time when the mental health needs of Black communities are more pressing than ever, the Vision Collective has emerged as a transformative space for Black Identified therapists. Our collective represents a unique convergence of healing, empowerment, and professional growth, shaped by the innovative practices of AEDP. This presentation features a pre-recorded video that captures our narratives of transformation, growth, and the challenges of navigating racialized trauma.
Members: Kosu Boudreau, Gerald Brooks, Karla Amanda Brown, Nicky Cameron, Marsha Elliot, Jennifer Jackson, Peter Muhwati, Sonya Parker, Heloise Ridley. Consultants: Diana Fosha, Lynne Hartwell, Karen Pando-Mars,
Led by: Connie Rhodes:
Meet the Vision Collective and Read Bios Here
Break 10:00 – 10:30 AM EST
Ben Medley, LCSW
Navigating differences in social experiences in the therapeutic dyad using the Triangle of Social Experience
Saturday, April 5, 10:30 – 11:30 AM EST
Medley’s workshop focuses on social dynamics operating within the therapeutic dyad and how to explicitly recognize and work with these dynamics. Mr. Medley will share video of a therapeutic rupture and repair when a straight client’s heterosexist microaggression leads to transformative healing for both client and therapist.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Eileen Russell, PhD
When Empathy and Authenticity Collide in AEDP
Saturday, April 5, 11:30 -12:30 PM EST
Learn practical AEDP strategies for maintaining authentic connection when empathy feels elusive or patient dynamics trigger countertransference. Dr. Russell will share the art of balancing therapist authenticity with therapeutic presence, even when facing complex relational dynamics and defensive patterns.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Lunch 12:30 – 1:45 PM EST
Emily Bilbao, LCSW, Kari Gleiser, PhD, Mark Green, MD, Elizabeth Perkins, LMFT
Undoing Aloneness in Intra-relational Interpersonal and Trans Personal Realms with AEDP and Psychedelics
Saturday, April 5, 1:45- 2:45 PM EST
This presentation including clinical video and panel discussion will introduce the burgeoning field of psychedelic research and practice, integration and the AEDP psychedelic committee’s protocol for psychedelic-assisted AEDP. We will focus on legal medicines – ketamine, cannabis and psilocybin – while acknowledging others medicines that your clients might be exploring.
Download handouts here
Read Bilbao’s Bio, Read Gleiser’s Bio, Read Green’s Bio, Read Perkins’ Bio
Shigeru Iwakabe, PhD
16 Session AEDP & the AEDP Research Project: bridging the clinician researcher divide.
Saturday April 5, 2:45 – 3:45 PM EST
The AEDP Research-Practice Network Study, launched in 2016, explores AEDP’s long-term effectiveness on psychological functioning, including symptoms, depression, interpersonal problems, and self-compassion. With data from over 120 dyads, this presentation highlights the study’s guiding principles, major findings, and clinical applications, showcasing AEDP’s transformative impact in therapy.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Break 3:45 – 4:00 PM EST
Diana Fosha, PhD with Trisha Bell,
Facilitated by Andrew Joseph
Keynote 2: Tell the Deep I’m New
Freedom and Transformation in Connection
Saturday April 5, 4:00 – 5:30 PM EST
In this live conversation with a client, including vignettes from their treatment, Diana unveils to conference participants the 7th AEDP transformational affect. Be there to learn all about it.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Fosha’s Bio Here
Read Bell’s Bio Here
Read Joseph’s Bio Here
Sunday April 6 (day 3)
Breakfast 8:00 – 8:45
Day 3 Welcome & Housekeeping, Ben Medley, 8:45 – 9:00
Kari Gleiser, PhD & Jason Trowbridge, MFT
Feeling in Synch: Core state accelerates integration in patients with dissociative parts
Sunday April 6, 9:00 – 10:00 AM EST
Gleiser and Trowbridge’s presentation features patient videos and transcripts to illustrate the integrative potential of AEDP States 3 & 4 while working with severe dissociation. Many trauma models spotlight trauma/memory processing, and building communication and positive relationships between fragmented parts of the self. But AEDP is unique in tracking and staying with the phenomenology of transformative processes and Core State. These states are essential in healing severe dissociation, as transformative experiences can ripple across a complex system of parts in positive and/or negative ways.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Jacquie Ye-Perman, PhD
AEDP Reaches out in Zimbabwe.
Sunday April 6, 10:00 – 10:20 AM EST
Ye-Perman shares her experience leading two women’s groups in rural Zimbabwe. In a brief time, participants made breakthroughs undoing aloneness in trauma and suffering, and discovered well-being and strength through connection. This work highlights AEDP’s broad applicability beyond therapy, fostering rapid, transformative healing across diverse contexts.
Read Bio Here
Heather Sanford, LCSW
Maximizing the Transformational Power of AEDP: Using Groups in the Community Mental Health Setting.
Sunday April 6, 10:20 – 10:40 AM EST
Sanford shares the curriculum she created to provide basic AEDP treatment to individuals in a community mental health group setting. Conference participants will have the opportunity to experience brief exercises from the curriculum and hear about some of the benefits and barriers to the use of AEDP in this environment with a population of adults with serious mental illness.
Read Bio Here
Kev Kokoska
Responses To Constraint: Relational Prisms in Prisons
Sunday April 6, 10:40 – 11:05 AM EST
This talk weaves together Kokoska’s family history of incarceration with his current interdisciplinary PhD work on developing population-specific interventions with — and for — men in prison.
Read Bio Here
Break 11:05 – 11:35
Jerry Lamagna, LCSW
When therapy gets stuck: Addressing therapeutic impasses in AEDP treatment
Sunday April 6, 11:35 AM – 12:35 PM EST
In AEDP, we fundamentally lean into transformance, feelings and connection. This workshop, including video demonstration, explores therapeutic impasses that can commonly occur in psychotherapy with clients who experience feeling, connecting, empowerment and acceptance as problems rather than solutions.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here
Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Tastes of Tailoring Treatment: Relational work with avoidant, ambivalent/resistant and disorganized patterns of attachment
Sunday April 6, 12:35 – 1:35 PM EST
Learn how to create powerful corrective emotional experiences by recognizing and working skillfully with different attachment styles and how
to intervene differentially with our patients. Ms. Pando-Mars will discuss the configuration of each pattern and show video clips to illustrate distinctions.
Download handouts here | CE Eligible for some License Types
Read Bio Here