Recorded for On Demand Learning, Presented Live on May 12, 2023
Course Content Level: Intermediate plus
How can we engage bravely with even the most painful and terrifying material?
This course will explore and expand your capacity for affective bravery and build greater trust in the process of AEDP to activate our inherent human potential for joy, even in the face of pain.
Course Description
Whether through departure or death, endings and loss are an unavoidable part of human experience. We want everything good to go on forever; staying present to both love and the inevitability of loss is an act of bravery. Avoidance of affective distress, especially relational pain and grief, means that many people are unprepared for inevitable experiences of separation and endings in life, and best efforts at adaptation to this reality have often imprisoned them in defensive or maladaptive patterns and suffering.
A deep unacknowledged existential dread of death is a reality most people strive to deny. Pema Chödrön’s insight that “only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us,” resonates with the AEDP position about engagement with suffering: “The AEDP transformational process organically links emotional suffering with flourishing. It connects a biopsychoevolutionary perspective at one end with acceptance, wisdom, aesthetics, spirituality, and the quest for personal truth at the other” (DF, 2020)
As findings in the AEDP research project have shown, explicit in vivo exploration of experiences of relational loss is in itself an opportunity for profound healing.
It is worth our efforts, for ourselves and for our clients, to engage bravely with even the most painful and terrifying material: to thrive in the present moment demands an open-eyed recognition of impermanence. Metaprocessing what changes as a result of explicit focus on loss in the therapeutic relationship invites multiple layers of unfolding self awareness, and jumpstarts the Transformational spiral into State four, Core State, where we connect to compassion for self and others. This self-transcendence (Danny Young 2010) in turn frees our access to the “big” relationship with Mystery; the ineffable. Not only do compassion and self compassion, but joy and some liberation from fear flow out of this leap into core state.
Although our clinical focus begins with loss and grief, joy and liberation are the true heroes of this course. Please join me as we explore and expand our capacities for affective bravery and delight. My intention is that participants of this course build greater trust in the process of AEDP to activate our inherent human potential for joy, even in the face of pain. (There’s a reason a common visual metaphor in AEDP is the vibrant green sprout emerging from concrete.)
Course Objectives
- Demonstrate an understanding of the psychological impact of loss and endings on individuals, and recognize the costs associated with avoidance of affective distress, particularly relational pain and grief.
- Define the concept of existential dread of death and describe its influence on individuals’ coping mechanisms and psychological well-being.
- Explain the theoretical schemata provided by AEDP to guide therapist interventions that address existential fear and lived experiences of loss.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the potential therapeutic benefits of explicit in vivo exploration of experiences of relational loss.
- Define the role of therapeutic presence and bravery in engaging with painful material, and their significance in facilitating client growth and healing.
- Develop strategies for integrating AEDP principles into clinical practice to facilitate clients’ engagement with experiences of loss; be able to explain how this promotes emotional resilience and well-being.
- Explain the concept of self-transcendence as it emerges in AEDP’s State 4, Core State, including its relationship to compassion, self-compassion, and liberation from fear.
- Demonstrate skills that facilitate affective experience, invite multiple layers of unfolding self awareness, and jumpstart the Transformational spiral into Core Self.
Meet the Presenter
Kate Halliday, LCSW
Kate Halliday, LCSW, is Senior Faculty, AEDP Institute from Ithaca, New York. Throughout Kate’s nearly 30 years as a psychotherapist, She has always been better at noticing the ways her clients are remarkable, resilient, and lovable than theorizing about the ways they are wounded. Kate has always been drawn to images, representations, and experiences of transformation. Music, poetry, literature, the natural world, and emotional relationships have always been her education. When Kate started learning to be a teacher of young children (in her first career she worked for Head Start and in elementary schools), and then to be a therapist, it was the magic of witnessing change and growth in other human beings that enlivened the experience for her. In psychotherapy, this led Kate to study Family Systems Theory and Narrative Therapy, then EMDR, and finally AEDP. (Read More…)Requirements
AEDP Institute On Demand Trainings are to be viewed on your private computer or smart device. They are intentionally not downloadable; we “stream” them. So, having a high speed Internet connection is important to having a good learning experience.
This training is intended to be viewed only by mental health professionals and students in mental health or related fields. You will be asked to provide evidence of and swear to uphold your professional credentials before completing registration and payment and receiving access to the materials.
Fees and Registration
$149 USD Non-Members
$129 USD AEDP Institute Members – please login to receive your discount
9 CE hours may be available. Please email admin@aedpinstiute.org for more information.
Attendance and Makeup Policy & Refunds:
Questions:
Course and all customer service related questions:
Please contact Customer Service Administrator
Marilia Rodriguez
admin@aedpinstitute.org
813-553-1294