DAY 1: May 24, 2023

Workshop #1: Internal Family Systems: Healing Through Compassionate Connection

COUNSELLING-FOCUSED
PRESENTED BY Alexia Rothman, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

After decades of clinical innovation and recent scientific research, the empirically validated Internal Family Systems (IFS) model has been shown to be effective at improving clients’ general functioning and well-being. This effective model provides clinicians with procedures for helping clients with the most challenging mental health profiles to heal the wounded, burdened, and traumatized parts of their systems.

The IFS model provides a compassionate, respectful, non-pathologizing approach to understanding the organization and functioning of the human psyche.

The transformative IFS approach embraces and celebrates the natural multiplicity of the mind. Its assumption is that every part of the system has good intention and valuable resources allows clinicians to approach even the most troubling of “symptoms” with compassion and respect. IFS offers therapists a powerful and effective set of tools for empowering clients with a wide range of clinical profiles to heal the wounded and burdened parts of their internal systems, resulting in:

• a way to enter clients’ inner ecology without the overemphasis on containment and stabilization

• symptom reduction and improved functioning for clients

• deep self-healing within even the most troubled clients

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Comprehensive, compassionate, non- pathologizing treatment approach

• Paradigm-shifting perspective on “psychopathology”

• Easily integrated into other therapeutic modalities

• Teach clients to access inner wisdom and self-compassion to permanently heal traumatic wounds

Workshop #2 Psychotherapy Treatments for Adult and Adolescents Depression: Clinical Considerations for Interpersonal Psychotherapy, ACT and CBT

COUNSELLING-FOCUSED
PRESENTED BY Lillian Gibson, Ph.D

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

Millions of adults and adolescents are impacted by depression each year. There are several factors that trigger depressive symptoms due to one’s biological history, psychosocial stressors, and/or relationship dynamics. This full day workshop will focus on comparing and contrasting IPT for Depression, ACT for Depression, and CBT for Depression allowing clinicians an opportunity to select the best method to treat adult and adolescent depression based on the presenting problem.

Dr. Lillian Gibson’s workshop will provide mental health professionals with a practical framework to assess and treat adult and adolescent depression. Participants will learn how to apply treatment specific approaches to effectively tailor their treatment plans.

This training will use a case vignette to guide the presentation and uncover mistakes that can be made when the best option for depression treatment is not utilized.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the diagnostic criteria for depressive disorders.

• Explain salient factors specific to Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression treatment.

• Explain salient factors specific to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for depression treatment.

• Explain salient factors specific to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression treatment.

• Identify helpful assessment measures to track treatment efficacy.

Workshop #3: Recovery Coaching: Key Competencies to Facilitate Pathways of Recovery

ALL PROFESSIONALS
PRESENTED BY Ray Baker, M.D., FCFP, FASAM, ABAM

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is not available for live stream.

The afternoon session (workshop #8) is a continuation of this workshop.

This workshop will review the roles and competencies of recovery coaches, distinguishing them from the distinct and complementary roles of treatment providers, therapists, system navigators and mutual support group peer mentors or sponsors. We explore the unique characteristics of clients with substance use disorders, some suffering from the effects of trauma or marginalization and techniques to create the conditions necessary for them to establish sustained recovery. We explore the concept of Recovery Capital, its measurement using simple instruments, and its many uses for clinicians, coaches and clients. Finally, we examine essential boundary skills, rules and regulations and ethical considerations for recovery coaches and those who employ their services.

Ray Baker MD, FCFP, FASAM, is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, faculty of medicine. In 2022 he received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine for his work as an educator, consultant and clinician. After training as a recovery coach and recovery coach trainer in Connecticut, he developed an expanded recovery coaching training curriculum that has been used to train over a hundred coaches in BC and Alberta. In November 2022, he published Recovery Coaching Knowledge and Skills, a training manual. This workshop includes essential elements from his recovery coach training curriculum and critical information for therapists, clinicians, counsellors or people interested in learning more about recovery coaching.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the unique cognitive, emotional and behavioural traits of clients with substance use disorders that may require a modified coaching approach

• Define and describe recovery as an objective outcome

• Explore the stages and tasks of long-term recovery from substance use disorders and addiction

• Explain the meaning of the acronyms CHIME, PERMA, and OARS and their application to clients with histories of addiction, trauma and marginalization

• Use the Brief Assessment of Recovery Capital Instrument as a tool for motivation, reinforcement and for progress self-evaluation by the client

• Apply a 5-step model for conducting a recovery coaching session

• Discuss the importance of boundary skills and how they relate to the Recovery Coach Code of Ethics and “staying in your lane.”

• Demonstrate appreciative inquiry and/or motivational interviewing techniques in a brief role-playing exercise

• Describe the concept of assertive linkage to community recovery resources

Workshop #4: Disarming High-Conflict Students in the Classroom: Dealing with the 8 Most Difficult Students in Educational Settings

SCHOOL-BASED FOCUSED
PRESENTED BY Jeff Riggenbach, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

Difficult people are everywhere. And sometimes it seems like this is especially true in our school systems. They are our fellow educators, our administrators, and certainly our students. Sometimes they are even in our families! But they don’t have to push our buttons. Whether you are having difficulty managing the classroom in general, dealing with a particular challenging student, interacting with a fellow teacher, or dealing with an administrator – There are patterns to human behavior. And once we understand where someone is coming from we can equip ourselves with specialized tools to speak their language and deal with them in more effective ways. The good news is we don’t have to allow them to drain our energy and rob us of the joy that drew most of us to the field of education in the first place! This fun, informative workshop not only targets those high conflict students, but also provides strategies to help students reach their full potential. Leave this highly engaging seminar with international personality expert Dr. Jeff Riggenbach feeling empowered to disarm even the most challenging people in your school before they get the best of you.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Discover the 8 types of high conflict (HC) people that make life difficult in educational settings and learn highly specialized strategies interacting effectively with each

• Hone skills in and acquire tips for connecting with students in a way that develops rapport to prevent 90% of classroom behaviour problems before they escalate

• Develop an understanding of how we get our “buttons pushed” and how to maintain our composure when we do

• Learn triggers for each style, how to avoid them, and disarm the bomb before the fuse gets lit

• Arm yourself with knowledge of the 5 specific characteristics that make students “difficult”

• Identify 3“red flag” behaviours common in each HC style for early recognition & intervention

• Learn a 3-step communication process to speak directly to each of the 8 types of HC styles

• Implement personality informed classroom management strategies, including implications for lesson planning, intentional teaching, student discipline, and classroom ecology in a way that promotes learning for the individual student

• Acquire damage control strategies for dealing with meltdowns when they do occur

• Develop your own personalized action plan for each high conflict student in your classroom or person in your life

Workshop #5: The Roots of Resilience & Resourcefulness

SCHOOL-BASED FOCUSED
PRESENTED BY Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am to 12:00pm

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is not available for live stream.

One of the most challenging and crucial questions of our time is why some bounce back from adversity, seemingly unscathed, while others fall apart and become emotionally distraught and dysfunctional. What has become apparent is that it is not what happens to us – good or bad – that explains how we are ultimately affected, but rather something about ourselves that sets the stage for the story that unfolds. But what is this something? Do some have this prerequisite ‘something’ and others not? Or does everyone possess this ‘something’ but it somehow needs to be activated for the potential to be realized?

The pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together and the answer is in this remarkable human attribute called ‘resilience’ or the ability to bounce back. Resilience is the ultimate good news story – that stress in itself is not the enemy and that we need not be brought down by the circumstances in our lives. After years of mistaken focus on the stress part of the equation, the focus is now on uncovering the keys that can unlock the amazing human potential to grow through adversity, to thrive under duress, and to bounce back from trauma.

Resilience is probably the most important topic of our time. It holds the answers to emotional health and well-being, to mental illness, to healing and recovery, to prevention, to addiction, and much more. Resilience is not only the best overall prevention but also the best focus for intervention. Resilience should be everyone’s concern, not only the medical and helping professionals, but also educators, parents, and society at large. Resilience is about ourselves and those we are responsible for.

So where does resilience come from and how are we to make sense of it? The answers lie surprisingly in fresh understandings of emotion, relationship, feelings, play and rest. These pivotal factors have unfortunately been eclipsed by the current prevailing focus on symptoms, syndromes and stress, as well as problem behaviour and dysfunction. The incredible story of emotional health and well-being is not about what has happened to us but rather about what hasn’t happened within us.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• what resilience looks like when distilled to its essence
  the three tell-tale signs of optimal functioning

• the role of true rest in resilience
  the difference between feelings and emotions and why we need to feel our emotions

• the three personal keys that unlock one’s innate potential for resilience

• how to make sense of the typical stress response

• understanding the essence of stress and recognizing it despite the diversity of experience

• the common impact of adversity and how it can be circumvented

• the tell-tale signs of emotional hardening often mistaken for resilience

• the complicated role of attachment in stress and resilience

• the surprising role of true play in resilience

• how child-centered parenting can backfire, resulting in reflected fragility rather than reflected strength