Full Course Description
Extended Adolescence - When 25 Looks More Like 18: Clinical Strategies for Clients Struggling to Meet the Demands of Adulthood
The interplay of new technologies, socio-cultural shifts, and educational stressors have created obstacles for young people like never before.
Research suggests that while today’s youth enter adolescence much sooner, they actually reach adulthood much later...resulting in an “extended adolescence.” Our traditional therapeutic tools now fall short, as we endeavor to help clients meet the demands of adulthood.
Watch national trainer and child/family consultant Steve O’Brien, Psy.D., for an enlightening experience designed to redefine and redesign your treatment approach to help young people forge a path to adulthood.
You will learn strategies to:
- Navigate ADHD, anxiety, autism and other obstacles to develop life skills
- Reprogram the dopamine dependent brain
- Cultivate openness and flexibility with Gen Z culture
- Collaborate with well-intended but over-involved parents
- Instill motivation to advance real-world engagement
- Promote “connected independence” in young adults
This timely and engaging training will shed new light on Generation Z youth and equip you with practical, contemporary tools for empowering these young people to shift gears and move toward a rewarding and meaningful adulthood.
Program Information
Objectives
- Evaluate relevant research on extended adolescence and emerging adulthood.
- Determine factors which promote normative vs complicated adolescent identity development.
- Evaluate the interplay of technological, societal, and educational stressors on the transition from adolescence to young adulthood.
- Distinguish how DSM-5™ disorders develop in adolescents hinder the “adulting” process.
- Choose therapeutic strategies for reducing symptom severity in young adults and for reducing systemic conflict.
- Design clinical interventions for common disorders of the Gen Z population.
- Employ therapeutic techniques for cultivating a growth mindset and resilience in young adults.
Outline
When 25 Looks More Like 18, Origins of Extended Adolescence
- Psychosocial implications of a “Check-listed Childhood”
- Plugged-in but disconnected: “The Loneliest Generation”
- Short-term gratification for the dopamine dependent brain
- Gender, race, privilege and other “identity influencers”
- Interplay of technology, society and educational stressors
- “Virtual Reality IS Their Reality”
Reaching Adolescents and Their Families
- Tips for rapport building with Generation Z
- Mindfully managing parental involvement
- Build working alliances without alignments
- Cultivate cooperation and bypass resistance
Modifying the Clinical Interview – What’s Changed
- Model openness and flexibility with Gen Z culture
- Distinguish between pathology and generational differences
- Precursors to other disorders – are you seeing these traits clearly
- Navigate more complex Identity exploration and confusion
- Differentiate oppositional behavior from healthy identity expression
Clinical Strategies for Clients Struggling with:
Anxiety - Social, OCD, Panic
- Promote “real” interaction in a virtual world
- Facilitate flexibility by reducing device dependent behavior
- Neutralize perfectionistic worry to combat outcome certainty
- Reduce fears around healthy risk taking
Depression
- Dealing with fallout of social media and cyber harassment
- Reframe devaluing self-talk from negative online comparison
- Mood-management and preventing isolation
- Reduce desensitized views of self-harming thoughts/behaviors
ADHD
- Social media boundaries to reduce impulsivity and negative consequences
- Device management to reduce distraction
- Self-structuring for time blindness
- “Appointment-Making” for better follow through
Autism Spectrum Disorders and Neurodiversity
- Social coaching to reduce “passing as neurotypical” stress
- Brain-based, self-regulation strategies to manage overstimulation
- Foster flexible self-view around gender identity and sexuality
- Healthy routines to promote friendship, productivity and fun
Cultivating a Growth Mindset for Life
- Teach tools for long-term resilience and self-advocacy
- Determine need for other professional services
- Advance healthy development in future generations
- Research findings and limitations
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- School Psychologists
- Physicians
- Art Therapists
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Educators
- Addiction Counselors
This workshop is intended for professionals working with clients 15-25.
Copyright :
11/15/2024
Loving You Without Losing Me
Do your clients continue to struggle to connect to their intimate partners because of toxic family dynamics, unhealed trauma, or emotional "baggage" from past experiences?
​​​As a therapist, you know intimate relationships have the power to wound us…and the power to heal us. But how do you help your clients recognize their unhealthy patterns may be unintentionally sabotaging their relationships, leading to heartache again and again?
Join Dr. Alexandra Solomon, licensed clinical psychologist and one of our field's most trusted clinician educators, for this 3-hour training that will change the way you work with all your clients. Through the lens of Relational Self-Awareness, Dr. Solomon's integrative approach to relating to ourselves and others, you’ll gain insight and strategies to help clients:
- Make connections about how their past experiences influence their relationship dynamics today
- Set healthy boundaries and expectations that create respect and prevent resentment
- Develop self-awareness, personal insight, and accountability in relationships
- Move away from fear and relational ambivalence toward empowerment and clarity
- Advocate for their relational needs with romantic partners
- Establish habits that cultivate safety and connection
- Transform patterns that block intimacy
- Understand their relationship with relationships
Whether your clients are single, in a relationship, or between relationships, this game-changing training will help you support their journeys to be seen and loved as their most authentic selves – and begin to heal from times when they weren’t.
Sign up today!
Program Information
Objectives
- Utilize key Relational Self-Awareness concepts to support clients in developing healthier coping, communication, and relational skills.
- Demonstrate how to help clients set boundaries and advocate for their relational needs with romantic partners.
- Demonstrate how to avoid common therapeutic pitfalls when working with clients at all stages of relationship development.
Outline
Relational Self-Awareness: A Curious, Compassionate Relationship…with Ourselves
- The five pillars of RSA
- Why the landscape of modern intimate relationships requires that clients develop RSA
- Helping clients understand their Love Templates including roles, core wounds, and coping strategies
- Family of Origin: How our first “love classroom” shows up in intimate relationship dynamics
- Common therapeutic pitfalls when working with clients at all stages of relationship development
Tools and Strategies: Using RSA to Cultivate Safety and Connection in Relationships
- Boundary setting and assertiveness skills
- Building self-worth and self-compassion
- Moving from “you v. me” to “us v. the problem” mentality
- Working more effectively with emotional triggers
- Developing and nurturing connection across relationship stages, and stepping away from relationships that are not working
Target Audience
- Therapists
- Art Therapists
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Addiction Counselors
- Nurses
- Other Behavioral Health Professionals
Copyright :
10/23/2023
Helping Your Clients Set Limits
Setting healthy boundaries is crucial for building stronger relationships, but because every individual is unique, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to addressing all boundary challenges. Most situations require tailored strategies, because the boundaries you set reflect your own needs, hopes, and relationship priorities. In this workshop, you'll not only learn why creating healthy boundaries is so critical in healthy, long-term connections, but how to identify the signs and symptoms of the boundary-related issues our clients show up with in sessions. You'll explore a variety of boundary-setting techniques for common albeit challenging situations as well as how to help clients avoid overstepping other people’s boundaries. You’ll discover how to:
- Help clients recognize where they struggle with boundaries and why
- Help clients identify the costs of relationships with weak or poor boundaries
- Model boundary-setting techniques you can teach clients
- Apply a tool for minimizing countertransference so you can better support clients in making their own boundary-related choices based on what they feel comfortable doing
Program Information
Objectives
- Articulate the benefits of setting and maintaining healthy boundaries.
- Identify signs and symptoms of boundary-related issues that may appear in session.
- Utilize at least two techniques to teach clients how to set and maintain healthy boundaries.
Outline
- The mental and physical implications of troubled relationships
- Providing a historical context for relationship issues.
- How to sit with clients who have difficult, unhealthy, or abusive relationships
- How to allow clients to make their own choices based on what they feel comfortable doing.
- Research-based relationship skills for setting and maintaining healthy boundaries
- Risks and limitations of the research
Target Audience
- Psychologist
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Social Workers
Copyright :
03/22/2024
Attachment Repair and Relationship Restoration
It has been said that “no one gets out of this life unwounded.” Wounds are inevitable in our relationships as we are flawed and fallible humans.
Addressing wounds and trauma is crucial to unlocking the true potential of intimacy and meaningful connection in both personal and professional relationships.
Join Eboni Webb, PsyD, HSP, to discover crucial techniques to unlock the true potential for intimacy and meaningful connection in your client’s relationships.
You’ll learn the:
- Impact of wounds and trauma on relationships
- Role of attachment in shaping adult lives
- Early signs of trauma on a developing mind
- Essential recovery techniques for repairing childhood wounds and broken relationships
You’ll walk away with proactive steps to foster healing, resilience, and growth…empowering clients to build stronger, more fulfilling and interconnected future!
Program Information
Objectives
- Recognize early signs of trauma and their impact on the developing mind, such as changes in behavior, emotional dysregulation, and disruptions in relationships
- Describe the key aspects critical for healthy attachment, including factors such as secure base, emotional availability, and trust-building behaviors
- Apply specific interventions to repair attachment disruptions verbally, environmentally, and interpersonally
Outline
Impact of identity trauma on a developing mind
Compare attachment wounding to attachment trauma
Key parenting and family styles that impact adult development
Culturally competent interventions to promote felt safety in the clinical space.
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- School Administrators
- Teachers/School-Based Personnel
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
08/03/2023
From Anxiety to Smartphones to Snacking
Join Jud Brewer, New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change, for this thought-provoking keynote. Drawing on his clinical work, research studies, and development of next-generation digital therapeutics for habit change, Dr. Brewer will discuss the underlying behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms of why habits are formed and how mindfulness can paradoxically tap into these very processes to uproot them.
Dr. Brewer struggled for years to help his patients overcome anxiety, overeating and severe addictions. After over a decade of laboratory research on habit change, someone using a digital therapeutic that he had developed for habitual eating innocently asked him to develop a program for anxiety. This led to a lightbulb moment for him that forever changed is clinical practice and his research, leading to new (and now evidence-based) treatment paradigms and a New York Times best-selling book on treating anxiety as a habit.
After this talk, you will have a simple, pragmatic, 3-step process that you can use with clients and patients to help them unwind unhealthy habits and build healthy habits—without willpower.
Program Information
Objectives
- Recognize how anxiety forms as a habit.
- Explain how mindfulness affects reward valuation in the brain.
- Determine how mindfulness approaches can help change habit patterns.
Outline
Current treatment paradigms for anxiety
How anxiety forms as a habit
How the brain forms habits in general
Key neuroscientific insights current anxiety treatments may not take into account
How to tap into reward valuation in the brain to affect behavior change
Clinical outcomes from new research studies of digital therapeutics
-three-step process for overcoming anxiety and other habits
Limitations and risks of presented material
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Educators
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
- Other Mental Health Professions
Copyright :
10/14/2023
Young Adults & the Addictive Cycle
Rates of anxiety and depression among young adults have been skyrocketing for years. Unsurprisingly, an increase in addictive behaviors tracks closely. Although most therapists understand how depression and other clinical issues fuel the addictive cycle, they’re often not aware of how effective treatment for young people differs from approaches targeted toward adults. In this session, presenters explore common experiences negatively impacting this age group as well as practical interventions that elicit and work with young people’s core beliefs to direct treatment. You’ll discover how to:
- Uncover critical experiences, such as cyberbully, sexual assault, emotional abandonment, and loss, that often underlie co-occurring disorders
- Effectively address clients’ deep-rooted views about themselves and the world
- Use practical tools, such as the Addiction Interaction Template and Behavioral Acting Out framework, to offer direction for healing and an understanding of the function of addictive patterns related to behavior
- Explore the interplay of trauma and technology
Program Information
Objectives
- Distinguish five critical experiences that fuel the mental health and addiction problems of young people.
- Implement two practical tools in sessions to disrupt the addictive process.
- Theorize how multiple addictions can interact with each other impacting treatment, particularly in youth.
- Categorize the stages of the Acting Out cycle.
Outline
- Identify five critical experiences that fuel the mental health and addiction problems of young people
- Apply the core elements to a healthy treatment process
- Describe the interplay of various forms of trauma with use of technology
- Describe practical tools for clinical use
Target Audience
- Addiction Counselors
- Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Physicians
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
- Other Mental Health Professions
Copyright :
10/07/2022
Overcoming Perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome with ADHD Clients
Join Dr. Sharon Saline, award-winning author, international speaker, and consultant, as we explore the links between perfectionism, imposter syndrome, productivity, and ADHD. She will reveal how these issues often arise from anxiety, fear of making mistakes, and efforts to control outcomes.
In this session Dr. Saline will guide you in helping clients:
- Cultivate resilience and adaptability, conquer procrastination, and transform toxic shame into self-acceptance
- Set and achieve meaningful goals, enhance task completion, and strengthen self-worth
- Boost executive functioning to drive peak performance and productivity
- Break free from negative self-talk and nurture a strong sense of self-compassion
Equipped with these tools, you’ll be able to guide your clients in embracing a growth mindset and accepting themselves as they are—perfectly imperfect.
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine the relationship between perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and ADHD.
- Develop CBT techniques for social anxiety disorder.
- Identify the benefits of growth mindsets with ADHD clients.
Outline
- Patterns and causes of perfectionism and imposter syndrome in adults with ADHD
- Effects of social media and cultural comparisons on self- worth and task performance
- Assess modalities that strengthen executive functioning skills for increased productivity and personal confidence
- Strategies and tools to reduce negative mindsets and identity personal strengths
Target Audience
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
- Speech-Language Pathologists
- Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- School Administrators
- Teachers/School-Based Personnel
- Addiction Professional
- Occupational therapists
Copyright :
12/13/2024
Eco-Therapy in Action
Last summer was this country’s hottest on record. Worldwide, all living creatures suffered through excessive droughts, heatwaves, and a wildfire season that only halfway through the calendar year was worse than any in previous year. With two-thirds of the population anxious about climate change, and more than half worried about its effects on their mental health, becoming a climate-aware therapist is a competency we should all be considering. The mainstay of good ecotherapy is your own “environmental identity.” This self-concept and sense of relationship with nature provides the base on which to build client-specific, ecotherapy interventions. In this experiential session, you’ll discover how to:
- Explore one's environmental identity, beliefs, and experiences
- Adapt your existing clinical orientation and skill set to address clients’ environmental and climate concerns
- Assess your clients’ sources of environmental well-being and resilience as well as their sense of environmental traumas or injustice
- Integrate ethics, context, and messaging when applying environmental interventions with diverse individuals
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze recent research on mental health impacts of climate change and other environmental issues.
- Catalogue common responses and stressors regarding ecological issues and practice skills for responding clinically.
- Differentiate between (1) normal feelings of anxiety and despair regarding environmental issues and (2) clinical anxiety, depression and adjustment disorders.
- Practice adapting common therapy approaches to include ecological concerns.
- Demonstrate specialized approaches for unique populations including ways to support environmental professionals and developmental needs of children and young people.
Outline
- Mental health impacts of climate change and environmental issues
- Diversity, equity, and social justice issues related to environmental issues
- Assessments for identifying links between nature values and sustainability actions
- Differentiating between normal eco-stressors and clinical significant and / or diagnosable eco-anxiety or trauma
- Therapeutic interventions for ecological related mental distress
- Demonstrations and role-plays of eco- and climate-conscious therapy, ethics, practices, risks, and limitations
- Working with special populations
- Limitations of the research and potential risks
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Physicians
- Physician Assistants
- Nurses
- Nurse Practitioners
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/16/2023