Self-awareness, the mindful attending to ourselves and the ability to reflect on our experience, are key capacities required for the therapist to succeed in this work. All our treasured techniques and theories are hollow without them. To foster these essential capacities in the therapist requires an ethic of care that encourages openness, curiosity and exploration, free from judgment or shame.

In the morning session we will speak to:

• The mindful attention to the inner world of the therapist
• Implications for understanding countertransference enactments, meaning-making and deepening empathic connections
• The ethics of self-care and self-disclosure

We will break for a buffet lunch with our small group sections to foster community and deepen the discussion for the afternoon. In small groups we will have the rare opportunity to discuss aspects of our life experience have changed our understanding of ourselves and others and have informed our work. If these experiences are not held in our awareness, they lie submerged in the therapy room with the potential to derail us.

Small group sections will include:

• The Survivor Therapist: Claiming Wisdom and Vulnerability
• The Grieving Therapist: Honoring Our Needs and Those of Our Clients
• The Pregnant Therapist: Transference and Countertransference in the Therapeutic Relationship
• Work-Life Balance Plus: For Therapists Who Are Also Parents of Children with Special Needs
• The Challenges of Surviving: Clinical Practice in Agencies and Mental Health Organizations
• Spiritual Transformation and Challenges in Clinical Practice

Many therapeutic dilemmas and disasters described in clinical literature are with trauma survivors. The interpersonal terrain of these therapeutic relationships is filled with opportunities for the therapist inadvertently to retraumatize the client.

On the other hand, the awareness and the successful management of traumatic transference and countertransference opens doors that can deepen our understanding of the client's dissociated traumatic injuries and associated affects. We believe that the provision of safety in trauma therapy is intimately connected to the management of traumatic transference and the traumatic countertransference engendered in the therapist.

In this workshop we will explore therapeutic opportunities and challenges presented by this transferential field. We will pay special attention to the particular difficulties of both erotic and sadistic transference and countertransference with clients who have experienced relational traumas. 

Cutting and other self-harming behaviors raise many questions and dilemmas for professionals. This workshop will investigate the role and treatment of self-harm in adolescents, and will include a brief didactic presentation as well as opportunities for participants to share their insights and questions.

This workshop will address:

• Providing safety while avoiding battles over power and control
• The complex meanings and functions of self-injury
  
• Helping others respond to the behavior constructively
• Self-injury and the dynamics of the family system
• Techniques for working with clients and families
• Building skills for self-soothing and healthy interaction
• The challenging of moving from self-injury to self-care

With increasing awareness of boyhood sexual victimization, we as therapists are faced with the challenge of breaking down the silence and fear that often surround the ways adolescent boys show us their trauma. Statistics show that boys are much less likely to report sexual abuse than girls and are often given little to no room in society to be seen as victims of abuse. This workshop will help therapists make meaning of how teen boys show us their trauma and outline ways to facilitate their healing.

This workshop will address:

• The impact of gender on abuse narrative
• The core affect of shame and its effect on sense of self and masculine identity
• Reframing acting out behaviors as dysfunctional coping skills
• Ways to get in relationship with abused adolescents

Please check back soon for a detailed description of this new workshop.

What happens in a family when there is a child with special needs? Often, the whole dynamic of the family shifts in dramatic ways, as they become immersed in a world of acronyms, medical needs, therapy appointments and financial and emotional strain. Typically developing siblings end up feeling pulled in multiple directions, and often don’t feel permission to discuss their own conflicted emotions or fears. As a result, they may carry hidden, or not-so-hidden, currents of depression, anxiety or anger. However, research shows that, when given appropriate space and support to reflect, siblings may grow in very positive directions. In this workshop we will explore the experience of a typical sibling of a child with special needs, and discuss the ramifications of different family dynamics. We will discuss ways to address these concerns both individually and within the family system.

This workshop will address:

• A family systems framework around children with special needs
• Sibling issues 
• Ways to support siblings' healthy emotional and psychological development
• Methods of addressing roles within family system

We are pleased to announce our third annual Summer Institute on the Relational Treatment of Trauma. This six-session institute is intended for therapists fairly new to the treatment of trauma who value the therapeutic relationship as foundational to change. We recognize that participants may encounter the many faces of trauma in their work: the abused child, the rape survivor, the vet returning from combat, adults struggling with the aftermath of a difficult childhood...

In this training we will introduce concepts, incorporating discussion and case examples, that will provide both an initial framework and skills for better work with trauma clients. Presented by experienced trauma clinicians and designed to be accessible and affordable, the institute will address:

• Conceptualizing Trauma, PTSD and Complex PTSD
• The Relational Model and Its Application in Treating Trauma
• Assessment, Creating Safety, Boundaries
• Pacing, Stabilization and Affect Regulation
• The Grief Process in Trauma Treatment
• Trauma and the Therapist: Ethics of Self-Awareness and Self-Care