Essential Skills Agenda: Module 3 State 1 work: The Top of the Triangle of Experience Working with Defense and Anxiety

Day 1
11:00 – 11:30
I: Course Overview and Orientation

11:30 – 1:15
II: Working with Defense and Anxiety

• Triangle of Experience – the AEDP Central Representational Schema and its Categories
• Defense
• Anxiety
• Core Affective Experience
• Self-at-Worst and Self-at-Best Versions of the Triangle

1:15 – 1:30
III: Break

1:30 – 3:30
IV: Working with Defense and Anxiety – Continued

• Defining Defenses
• Types of Defenses
• Function of Defenses
• AEDP Techniques for Softening Defenses; Bypassing Defenses; Putting Defenses to the Side
• The Somatic Experience of Defense
• Using Parts Work
• Cost/benefit Analysis of Defenses and Their Consequences
• Relinquishing the Defenses
• Bypassing Defenses
• The Protective/Adaptive Nature of Defenses
• Affirming Defenses and the Important Role They Played in the Past
• Restructuring Defenses

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Day 2

11:00 – 11:55
I: Review Prior Day Learning and Role-play

11:55 – 12:00
II: Directions for Experiential Exercises

12:00 – 1:15
III: Small Group (Quad) Experiential Exercises
Therapist/Client Role Play to Practice the Following Skills:

• Interventions to Reduce or Bypass Defenses
• Defense Restructuring

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Day 3

11:00 – 11:30
I: Working With Defense and Anxiety – Review of Day 2 and Overview of Day 3

11:30 – 1:15
II: STATE 1: The top of the Triangle of the Experience: Working With Defense and Anxiety – Continued

• Defining Anxiety
• Implicit Origins of Anxiety
• The Signal Function of Anxiety
• Anxiety in the Mind and Body
• Voicing Anxiety

1:15 – 1:30
III: Break

1:30 – 3:30
IV: STATE 1: The Top of the Triangle of the Experience: Working With Defense and Anxiety – Continued

• Defense Combined With Anxiety
• Dysregulation
• Undoing Aloneness
• Social Engagement as a Way to Reduce Fear and Anxiety
• Self-Regulation
• New Experience That Emerges When Anxiety Decreases

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Day 4

11:00 – 11:55
I: Review Prior Day Learning

11:55 – 12:00
II: Directions for Experiential Exercises

12:00 – 1:00
III: Small Group (Quad) Experiential Exercises
Therapist/Client Role Play to Practice Interventions for Regulating Anxiety

1:00 – 1:15
IV: Break

1:15 – 2:45
V: Small Group Experiential Exercises / Role-Plays Continued

2:45 – 3:30
VI: Large Group Processing of Role-play experience