Essential Skills October 2025 | Perseus

A Level 2 Course* Presented by AEDP™ Institute Faculty

Five 4-day Modules: October 2025 – January 2026

*This course contributes to Certification eligibility, but attending does not require pursuing Certification.

Our aim is to teach, in both left-brained and right-brained ways,
different types of clinical interventions so that participants
will emerge with both an understanding and a felt sense of how to “do” AEDP.

Course Description

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. In each module AEDP skills are introduced with their theoretical foundations and then illustrated by way of clinical videotapes; skills are then practiced in small group experiential exercises.

Topics
Module 1: Healing from the Get-Go: a Clinical Roadmap for the AEDP Transformational Journey
Module 2: Attachment and 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: State 3 & State 4 Work: The Processing of Transformational Experience & The Integration of Transformation into Self

Faculty Steeped in AEDP Theory, 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 Experiential Assistants – up to and often including one 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.

Objectives, Schedule

Who Should Attend:

Licensed mental health practitioners (or the local/regional equivalent to ‘licensed’*) as well as interns legally practicing under the license of a supervising practitioner. These include Counselors, Psychoanalysts, Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Social Workers, other Behavioral Health Therapists and related professionals.

Level: AEDP Level 1 (Graduates of Immersion)

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.

Meet the Presenters (see full bios below)

Dates, Times, Location
(participants must commit to all five modules):

— Please double check the meeting time in your local time zone by visiting here
— Please check all dates and times closely for conflicts with local holidays, religious holidays, etc.

Location: Live Online
Requirements to participate effectively online: You will need a private space with a reliable Internet connection for a desktop/laptop computer that has video and microphone. Click here for the AEDP Live, Online Learning Requirements & FAQ’s.

Registration, Fees and Scholarships

Non-Member Registration: $3259 USD
Non-Member Registration with a payment plan $3309: requires a $500 deposit today and 8 monthly installments of $351.13

Reminder: you must have completed AEDP Immersion or an Institute approved equivalent to attend

Are you a Member? Log in to get your Member discount

Scholarships
Limited Scholarships are available. Learn more and apply here

Presenter Bios

Karen Pando-Mars, MFT

Karen Pando-Mars, MFT, is a psychotherapist in San Rafael, California, and Senior Faculty of the AEDP Institute. She was irresistibly drawn to AEDP in 2005 and captivated by the depth and breadth of this transformational model. She immersed herself in training and consultation with Dr. Fosha and three years of core training with Dr. Frederick. Ms. Pando-Mars is one of the founders of AEDP West and chaired the AEDP Institute Education Committee from 2011-2018. Since 2020, Ms. Pando-Mars is a member of the AEDP DBEI (Diversity, Belonging, Equity and Inclusion Committee). Ms. Pando-Mars’ passionate interest in what cultivates deep connection between Self and Other has been furthered by attachment theory and related neuroscience. She is known for her presence, warmth, and the clarity of her presentations. Videotapes of her clinical work are moving and inspiring examples of how AEDP explicit relational and experiential practices can help patients heal from relational trauma. (Read More…)

Richard Harrison, PhD

Richard Harrison, PhD, is a faculty member of AEDP™ Institute and a Registered Psychologist with over 25 years’ experience as a clinician and teacher. He was trained and supervised in AEDP by Diana Fosha, founder of the model. He is a Certified Supervisor in both AEDP and EFT. Richard teaches and supervises graduate students in the Counseling Psychology and Psychiatry departments at the University of British Columbia, and maintains a full clinical caseload with individuals and couples in private practice in Vancouver.

Richard has authored peer-reviewed publications on AEDP theory and practice; attachment-informed supervision; and therapist self-care; including a 2020 article in Psychotherapy on “Termination in 16-session

(Read More…)

Mary Androff, MD

Mary Androff, MD, is a faculty member of AEDP™ Institute. Based in Minneapolis-St Paul, Mary works in a private psychotherapy and integrative psychiatry practice and also provides psychiatric consultation for an Assertive Community Treatment team. Her journey to AEDP began with STEM (chemistry at University of Illinois), then medicine (Washington University-St Louis), then psychiatric residency (University of Washington, Seattle), then training in psychodynamic psychotherapy alongside daily yoga and meditation practices.

Seeking a way to integrate all these threads and hoping to discover a more coherent theoretical framework, Mary found her professional home when she took the AEDP Immersion course. She went on to receive certification as an AEDP therapist in 2015 and as an AEDP supervisor in 2020. She founded AEDP Minnesota in 2017. She has run multiple study and consultation groups, participates as a treating clinician in the AEDP research program, teaches ES1 modules and provides individual and group AEDP supervision.

Presenter: Kate Halliday, LCSW

Kate Halliday, LCSW, (she, her, hers) is an AEDP senior faculty member from Ithaca, New York.

Kate is a white, cis-female, lesbian psychotherapist born and brought up in the UK, now based in Ithaca New York. She has been in private practice since 1998 after a number of years spent in community human service agencies. As a member of the AEDP community, Kate is particularly pleased to have developed and maintained a thriving local AEDP group in the Finger Lakes region of New York. As Senior Faculty, she teaches the Essential Skills courses, and developed her “Experience Teaches” series. Her Advanced Skills courses have a focus on the “+1” aspects of being an AEDP clinician. She has also re-discovered an early passion for time limited treatment as a member of the AEDP Research project.

(Read More…)

Presenter: Ben Medley, LCSW

Ben Medley, LCSW (he/him/his) is an AEDP senior faculty member and has taught AEDP internationally with the AEDP Institute, the National Institute of Psychotherapy, the Cape Cod Institute, NASW and in mental health organizations and clinical practices. He has a private practice in New York City and specializes in working with the LGBTQ+ community. Ben earned his degree in Clinical Social Work with the NYU Silver School of Social Work. Before private practice, Ben worked in Greenwich House’s HIV mental health program and the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services’ LGBTQ+ mental health treatment unit. His paper “Recovering the True Self: Affirmative Therapy, Attachment and AEDP in Psychotherapy with Gay Men” is published with the SEPI Journal: the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration and he has written a chapter on using portrayals to process core affective experience for the most recent AEDP book Undoing Aloneness and the Transformation of Suffering Into Flourishing: AEDP 2.0, Washington D.C.: APA. He has also presented with AEDP faculty member Kate Halliday the “5 Star” seminar Liberating the Core Self from the Confines of Heterosexist Oppression with AEDP and with AEDP faculty member Ben Lipton Undoing Shame and Healing Attachment Trauma with straight and gay men (also available on demand). His newest work, a book chapter on AEDP, will be published in Experiential Therapies for the Treatment of Trauma with Routledge Publishing Company.

Attendance, Make-up Policy and Refunds

• Attendance and Makeup Policy
• Refund Policy
• Grievance Policy

ADA

Disability Access: If you require ADA accommodations please contact Marilia Rodriguez, admin@aedpinstitute.org or call 813-553-1294 thirty days or more before the event so we can be sure to accommodate you.

Questions

Please contact Customer Service Administrator
Marilia Rodriguez
admin@aedpinstitute.org
813-553-1294
Office Hours: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern (USA)