• Date: June 18 and 19, 2018; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Cost: $275 (plus tax)
• Instructor: Scot Cooper, RP

This workshop provides a venue for you to further extend your therapeutic skills for single session therapeutic contexts. We begin with exploration of our practice ethics and ways to navigate the tensions and pulls in working in such time constraint -- when must we 'lean in', how do we resist colonizing practices? Working with segments of transcript, scenario discussions and video review we will explore options for proceeding amidst various levels of complexity. Specifically, participants will have the time to practice conversation options amidst trauma conversations and through a re-conceptualization of 'crisis'. The practice of counter-storying will be introduced as a means to address the effects of negative identity conclusions that keep people mired in their distress. We will also explore a quality assurance/outcome measure that holds us accountable to our practice intentions and further informs our own professional growth.  

Learning Objectives

• Extending our listening for the range of entry points to 'stories in the making' and counter stories.
• Ways to resist replicating the politics of culture in session.
• Ways to proceed amidst stories of the experience of trauma that shore up safety and infuse possibility.
• A re-conceptualization of crisis that opens new possibilities for people and infuses a sense of hope.
• The practice of counter-storying pathology.
• Various uses of 'take-away documentation' to support a counter story.

It is required that participants have completed the Brief Single Session Therapy workshop (or similar) and have experience at walk-in clinics or other time-constrained contexts.  

Note: This workshop has been pre-approved for 12 continuing education credits by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) was developed for people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. More recently, DBT has been used to help people manage painful emotions, bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, and improve relationships. DBT is focused on increasing people’s skill development in the areas of mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness and distress tolerance. It also provides generative ways of thinking about our judgments and expectations, our relationships and our behaviours, cognitions and emotions.  

Learning Objectives

• Explain the main theories that inform DBT.
• Describe a common way of structuring DBT.
• Explain selected skills from the four groups of DBT skills.
• Consider ways DBT can be integrated with other models of therapy, such as CBT, narrative therapy, and attachment-based therapies.
• Critically examine some of the model’s assumptions (for example, what ideas about people, problems, solutions, and the world does DBT perpetuate and/or challenge?).
• Consider issues pertaining to the therapist’s use-of-self when using DBT with clients.

This workshop has been pre-approved for 12 continuing education credits by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

• Date: May 28 and 29, 2018; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Cost: $275 (plus tax)
• Instructor: Scot Cooper

Brief services have emerged as a core component of an agency's modern diverse service menu. As such single session therapy, often provided through walk-in clinic services, provides a viable alternative to long wait lists, offering a venue for people to address various life problems at their time of need. This two-day workshop will immerse participants in the thinking and skill set of brief single session therapeutic practice.

Drawing from contemporary 'brief therapies' we will explore concepts and practices that support a collaborative, competency-based, person-centred approach that builds pathways forward drawing from people’s lived experience. You will learn to hear several 'entry points' to possibility that foreground people’s preferences for life and the many skills of living they bring with them to these conversations. A structure for conceptualizing the single session conversation will be provided.

The application of brief therapies theory will be grounded in practical skills that you can use the very next day. Ideas will be explored through didactic presentation, group discussion, skills exercise and video review of conversations with children, and adults. This workshop is well suited to all service providers, beginning and experienced, working in time-constrained contexts with people describing various problems.

Learning Objectives

• Ways of thinking about people, problems and change that relate well to exploring possibility and outline an ethic of practice.
• A design for single session therapy sessions that brings focus, coherence and completion to the process.
• How to listen with a 'brief ear' to quickly hear entry points to possibility.
• Several questions to elicit difference and possibility that foreground competency.
• Practices for co-crafting various 'take-home' documents.
• Ways to co-develop culturally and contextually relevant 'next steps' and extend the conversation well past the session into everyday living.

Note: This workshop has been pre-approved for 12 continuing education credits by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

• Date: April 26, 2018; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., or 
  Cost: $175 (plus tax)
• Instructors: Sue Gallagher, MSW, RSW and Sandy Jardine, MSW, RSW

Do you work in a role where counselling is not your primary focus, but where you are often required to assist, advise or counsel? This workshop is designed for people like you who find themselves assisting clients, students, patients, the public etc. with brief counselling and referral. The focus is on general counselling principles and skills and the integration of these into practice. The workshop will use lecture, role play and case studies as a way of engaging participants in the acquisition of practical skills. Participants can expect to actively participate in this course.

Throughout the day participants will:

• Become familiar with a variety of individual counselling skills.
• Practice those skills through role play, observation and coaching.
• Gain an understanding about ethical and professional issues involved with the counselling process.

Specific aspects of the program include:

• Principles and ethics of counselling.
• Empathy and assessing needs.
• Contracting and goal settings.
• Solution focused interventions.
• Diversity and cultural issues.
• Crisis intervention.
• Self-care and knowing when to refer.

This workshop will be of interest to those working in a variety of human services including healthcare providers, educators, social workers, social service workers, police and law enforcement personnel, residential staff and those considering careers in the helping professions.

• Date: April 30 and May 1, 2018; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Cost: $275 (plus tax)
• Instructor: Elisha Van Harte, MSW, RSW

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment approach for chronically suicidal clients. However, in the last decade DBT has received empirical support to treat other populations including eating disorders, addiction, anger problems and other mood disorders. Additionally, it has been adapted for adolescent mental health populations, inpatient, residential and forensic settings. DBT clients are taught more skillful ways to regulate their emotions, effectively manage the distressing situations in their lives, and improve and maintain relationships with the people around them. These skills are taught within a caring treatment relationship that accepts the client for who and where they are, while maintaining a movement towards creating "a life worth living".

Learning Objectives

• Understand how to conceptualize a case based on the principles and theory guiding DBT.
• Identify how to structure the individual therapy session.
• Describe and use commitment, dialectical and stylistic strategies common to DBT.
• Identify core treatment strategies for managing difficult in session behaviour and avoiding therapeutic impasses.

Notes 

• This is an advanced level course that requires a basic understanding of DBT. Participants must have completed a foundational DBT workshop (such as An Introduction to DBT) before registering as an overview of DBT will not be provided.
• This workshop has been pre-approved for 12 continuing education credits by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

• Date: June 13 and 14, 2018; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Cost: $275 (plus tax)
• Instructor: Elisha Van Harte, MSW, RSW

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment approach for chronically suicidal clients. However, in the last decade DBT has received empirical support to treat other populations including eating disorders, addiction, anger problems and other mood disorders. Additionally, it has been adapted for adolescent mental health populations, inpatient, residential and forensic settings. A core mode of intervention within DBT is the DBT Skills Group whereby clients are taught more skillful ways to regulate their emotions, effectively manage the distressing situations in their lives, and improve and maintain relationships with the people around them. These skills are taught in a weekly skills group for adults and in a multi-family skills group for the adolescent population. There is currently evidence that supports decreases in problematic behaviour and increase in adaptive coping by implementing skills group as a stand alone intervention; this has resulted even in the application of DBT Skills within the education system.

Learning Objectives

• Have a clear understanding of the theory and principles behind DBT.
• Understand the content within the five modules of DBT skills: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness and walking the middle path.
• Learn how to run a DBT skills group both in structure and guiding principles.
• Understand how to deal with therapy interfering behaviour in a group setting.

Notes 

• This is an advanced level course that requires a basic understanding of DBT. Participants must have completed a foundational DBT workshop (such as An Introduction to DBT) before registering as an overview of DBT will not be provided.
• This workshop has been pre-approved for 12 continuing education credits by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

Full course name: Examining the Therapeutic Alliance in Single Session Therapy: What it looks like, why it is important and how it can be achieved

• Date: May 1, 2018 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
• Cost: $80
• Instructor: Catherine de Boer, MSW, PhD

Over the past 10 to 15 years, single session therapy (SST) has emerged as both an efficient and effective method of facilitating change. One can wonder though, if the emphasis on efficiency has come at the cost of the therapeutic alliance (i.e. the development of good helping relationships) and if so, what the implications may ultimately be for service participants. More importantly though is discovering if there may be a remedy.

In this interactive workshop, Catherine will briefly describe what the therapeutic alliance is and how it is predictive of therapeutic success. She will argue that not only is the therapeutic alliance essential to ensuring the effectiveness of SST, it is possible to achieve. Building on her research in the area of helping relationships and her experience establishing a drop-in counselling clinic in St. John's, NL, Catherine will outline what a therapeutic alliance can look like within a SST service modality and she will outline its defining characteristics. She will showcase how SST can both challenge and support what we (think we) know about the therapeutic alliance. Finally, through the use of practice examples, video clips and skills exercises, participants will have the opportunity to discuss and further their relationship-building skills for SST.

Learning Objectives

• To learn what a therapeutic alliance can look like within single session therapy (SST), why it is essential to effective practice and how it can be achieved.
• To understand how the process of service delivery and the structure of the single session can foster or work against the development of the therapeutic alliance.
• To introduce evaluation tools that can be used to measure the strength of the therapeutic alliance.
• To learn how to apply and extend relationship building skills to SST.
• Practice relationship-building skills.