AEDP® Essential Skills October 2026
Nickname: Everest
Presented by AEDP Institute Faculty
Five 4-Day Modules | October 1, 2026 – June 27, 2027 | Thursdays–Sundays | 11:00 AM–3:30 PM ET
Interactive Synchronous Distance Learning (Live Online)
85 Continuing Education Credits Available
Take your Skills to the Next Level
Participants emerge from Essential Skills with both an understanding and a felt sense of how to “do” AEDP.
Description
AEDP Essential Skills provides practical skills for the application of AEDP as well as a thorough immersion in the theory underlying the practice.
In 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.
- 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 Work: 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
Hallmarks of Training
Faculty, experiential assistants and clinical video. These are the hallmarks of AEDP training. In AEDP, we pride ourselves in how thoroughly and deeply we seek to both undo professional aloneness and engage in rigorous clinical teaching. Our faculty are excellent as academics, clinicians and teachers.
Prerequisites
Essential skills is open to all licensed mental health practitioners who have completed the Immersion Course. See here for detailed eligibility requirements. This course is a prerequisite for the Advanced Skills training. While it counts toward certification, you don’t need to be pursuing certification to attend.
Course Overview
Presented by: Kate Halliday, LCSW
Financial: Kate Halliday has no financial relationships with ineligible organizations. She receives a speaking honorarium from from AEDP Institute, AEDP Works, LLC.
Non-financial: Kate Halliday has no non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Healing from the Get-Go, Undoing Aloneness & the Clinical Roadmap for the AEDP Transformation Journey
Module 1 lays the groundwork for AEDP by establishing its essential foundations. This session highlights two core principles: “healing from the get-go” and “undoing aloneness.” Additionally, the AEDP 4-State Transformational Model is introduced—the guiding framework for understanding the therapeutic process.
Click here for learning objectives | agenda
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Demonstrate moment-to-moment tracking.
Describe how transformance, a central construct in AEDP psychotherapy, drives positive change.
Explain the AEDP 4-State Transformational Model and cite each of the 4 states.
Describe the concept of ‘undoing aloneness’ and how it gets put into practice in the relational co-creation of safety.
Explain the vitality affects of transformative change which occurs during therapy.
Role-play metatherapeutic processing from a client’s perspective.
Presented by Anna Christina Sundgren, MA
Financial: Anna Christina Sundgren has no financial relationships with ineligible organizations. She receives a speaking honorarium from from AEDP Institute, AEDP Works, LLC.
Non-financial: Anna Christina Sundgren has no non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Attachment and Relational Work: Undoing Aloneness in Clinical Action
Module 2 examines the AEDP fundamental commitment to a relational stance and the experiential exploration of here-and-now relational experience, deeply rooted in attachment theory. Particular emphasis is placed on the crucial role of receptive affective experience within the therapeutic relationship.
Click here for learning objectives | agenda coming soon
OBJECTIVES
-Analyze how attachment history influences emotional experience and sense of self.
-Implement the Self-Other-Emotion Triangle as a framework for designing appropriate relational interventions.
-Choose and demonstrate relational interventions based on the client’s position within the Self-Other-Emotion Triangle.
-Demonstrate how to effectively embody the AEDP stance of explicit care and compassion for the client.
-Identify and distinguish between receptive affective experiences and the defensive mechanisms that block them.
Presented by Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Financial: Karen Pando-Mars has no financial relationships with ineligible organizations. She receives a speaking honorarium from from AEDP Institute, AEDP Works, LLC.
Non-financial: Karen Pando-Mars has no non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
State 1 work: The Top of the Triangle of Experience Working with Defense and Anxiety
Module 3 focuses on defense work and anxiety regulation in AEDP practice. It examines defenses and techniques for melting, bypassing, and restructuring them. Additionally, the module explores the nature of anxiety, its origins, and techniques for working with and regulating it.
Click here for learning objectives | agenda coming soon
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Demonstrate specific intervention strategies for reducing defenses and anxiety in clinical settings.
Explain the components and function of the AEDP Triangle of Experience.
Differentiate between various types of defense mechanisms within the AEDP framework.
Evaluate the costs and benefits of defense mechanisms and analyze their therapeutic consequences.
Apply specific interventions designed to soften and bypass client defenses.
Relate the AEDP Self-at-Best versions of the triangle and apply them to case conceptualization.
Select and utilize multiple AEDP-specific interventions to reduce client anxiety.
Presented by Martina Verba, LCSW, DSW
Financial: Martina Verba has no financial relationships with ineligible organizations. She receives a speaking honorarium from from AEDP Institute, AEDP Works, LLC.
Non-financial: Martina Verba has no non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
State 2 work: The Processing of Core Affective Experience
Module 4 explores core affective experience and the process of working through emotions to completion. It differentiates between various types of affective experiences while highlighting portrayals as a key technique for deep emotional processing.
Click here for learning objectives | agenda
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Identify the different kinds of core affective experiences and different kind of experiential processing that can be used to work with them.
Utilize moment-to-moment tracking, a foundational AEDP skill, to assess the client’s experience State 2 therapeutic interventions, and their effectiveness.
Describe and process a core affective experience to completion, or to a corrective emotional experience.
Identify 3 different types of portrayals used to process core affective experience.
Define the technique of “portrayal” and describe its clinical uses in facilitating the processing of affective experiences to completion.
Presented by Sigal Bahat, MA
Financial: Sigal Bahat has no financial relationships with ineligible organizations. She receives a speaking honorarium from from AEDP Institute, AEDP Works, LLC.
Non-financial: Sigal Bahat has no non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
State 3 and 4: The Processing of Transformational Experience & The Integration of Transformation into Self
Module 5 weaves together the methodology of metatherapeutic processing while simultaneously using these concepts to explore the group’s own transformational journey throughout the ES1 course. Through this parallel process, participants experience firsthand the very phenomena they are learning to facilitate, allowing for a deeper integration of course concepts.
Click here for earning objectives | agenda
Use moment-to-moment tracking to assess the client’s experience of the effectiveness of AEDP therapeutic interventions.
Apply the 4 state map of AEDP as a framework for processing the full range of affects
Describe transformational affects in AEDP that lead to transformative change to maximize patient’s healing.
Demonstrate how to help a client develop a new working model of secure attachment and relational capacity.
Describe how to facilitate state transformations.
Describe how transformance is the overarching motivational force driving positive change and assess markers of transformation in the client.
>>>AGENDA
Training Content Level: Intermediate
This training is approved for 85 continuing education credits
Continuing Education Information
To receive continuing education credit, participants must pay the applicable CE fee, attend the entire training, and complete the course evaluation. Partial credit is not available. CE certificates are issued after the evaluation is submitted.
Continuing education applications may be underway for various national and state-level boards and agencies. Please refer to the individual course page for current CE availability, approvals, and the number of continuing education credits offered for that training. For questions, please contact admin@aedpinstitute.org.
Disclosure
All planners and presenters have disclosed that they have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies. There is no commercial support for these programs, nor are there relationships between AEDP Institute, presenters, 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.
Psychologists – American Psychological Association (APA)
AEDP Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. AEDP Institute maintains responsibility for its programs and their content.
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 its programs and their content.
New York Social Workers (LMSWs and LCSWs)
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.
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 New York and MFTs in all states except New York and Massachusetts are eligible.
This program was developed for:
Licensed and pre-licensed mental health professionals who are practicing under the supervision of a qualified, licensed clinician. Participants typically hold (or are actively working toward) one of the following credentials:
Graduate students enrolled in accredited mental health training programs practicing under a licensed Supervisor
Psychologists (PhD, PsyD, EdD)
Psychiatrists (MD, DO)
Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW, LICSW, MSW)
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT)
Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC, LPCC, LCPC, etc.)
Licensed Mental Health Counselors (LMHC)
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP, APRN)
Registered Psychotherapists (as recognized regionally)
Occupational Therapists with training in mental health
Licensed or registered art, music, or dance/movement therapists
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.
Meet The Presenters
Sigal Bahat, MA
Kate Halliday, LCSW
Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Anna Christina Sundgren, MA
Martina Verba, LCSW, DSW
Dates, Times & Setting
You will need a private space with a reliable Internet connection.
Please double check the meeting time in your local time zone by visiting here.
Dates and Presenter
Module 1 | October 1-4, 2026 | Kate Halliday, LCSW
Module 2 | December 10-13, 2026 | Anna Christina Sundgren, MA
Module 3 | February 18-21, 2027 | Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Module 4 | April 22-25, 2027 | Martina Verba, LCSW
Module 5 | June 24-27, 2027 | Sigal Bahat, MA
Times
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST
11:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST
Setting
Click here for the AEDP Live Online Learning Requirements & FAQs.
Live Online
Registration, Fees & Scholarships
Group Discounts Available
Non-Member
Pricing
$3259 USD
Single Payment
registrations close Sept 17, 2026
Non-Member
Pricing
$3309 USD
Standard Payment Plan
registrations close Sept 17, 2026
Scholarships
We are no longer accepting applications for this course
To be Eligible to Attend
Must be Level 1: a graduate of Immersion with the licensing credentials listed below.
Licensing Credentials
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 licenses 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.
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
Click here for our refund and cancellation policy
Click here for our grievance policy
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.
Please contact Customer Service Administrator
Marilia Rodriguez
admin@aedpinstitute.org
813-553-1294
Office Hours: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern (USA)