• 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).

Next offering in May 2019.

• 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: 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).