All Webinars

The term trauma is used to describe the challenging emotional consequences experienced by someone who has lived through a distressing event. These consequences can involve Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which has been identified as a global health issue, with prevalence rates ranging from 1.3% to 37.4% (and even higher in clinical populations). But what happens when the trauma occurs early in life, and/or involves on-going or repetitive exposure to traumatic events? In these cases, individuals will often experience Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), and/or dissociative disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
 

As our understanding of trauma continues to evolve, so does our understanding of how to treat it. In this webinar, Sheri Van Dijk will teach some essential perspectives and skills to help you and your clients get unstuck in treatment. In this webinar you will learn leading edge, evidence-based principles in the treatment of clients experiencing the sequelae of trauma, including the difference between PTSD and C-PTSD; theories to inform treatment of clients with complex trauma histories; and skills to help clients ground and regulate emotions.

Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a serious mental health problem that typi­cally creates chaos in an individual’s life, often leading to risky and impulsive behaviors, damaged relationship and careers, substance use problems, hospitalization, and even suicide. Because of the complexi­ty of this disorder – the different episodes, variability of symptoms from person to person as well as from episode to episode within the same individual - Bipolar Disorder can be difficult for clinicians to recognize; improper diagnosis leads to improper treatment, which can cause worsening of symptoms for individuals. Once an accurate diagnosis has been made, however, it’s often equally as difficult to help our clients to accept and understand this diagnosis, which con­tributes to difficulties following prescribed treatment recommenda­tions.

In this webinar you will learn about bipolar disorder, including the different diagnostic categories of BD and its causes. Participants will learn about the disorders that often co-occur with bipolar disor­der and the difficulties people experience in living with this and the co-morbid disorders. In gaining a greater understanding yourself as a clinician of bipolar disorder, you will be in a more effective position to help your clients to understand and accept their mental health problems, which will typically lead to improved outcomes for clients.

Chronic pain extends far beyond the body—it reshapes how clients think, feel, and engage with the world. This workshop invites therapists to examine the complex interplay between physical pain and psychological health, exploring how conditions such as anxiety and depression intersect with the lived experience of chronic pain. Participants will gain a clear understanding of the brain–body connection, including how the brain processes pain and how emotional and cognitive factors influence its intensity and persistence.
 

Through a blend of science and practice, attendees will learn to differentiate between structural pain and neural circuit–related pain, and explore treatment strategies from evidence-based interventions such as Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Designed for immediate clinical application, this workshop moves beyond theory to offer tangible tools, case examples, and experiential exercises that therapists can bring directly into their sessions.
 

Participants will learn how to tailor pain management strategies that address both the physical and emotional dimensions of pain, integrating multiple therapeutic approaches to deliver holistic, mind–body care. By the end of the training, therapists will leave with practical frameworks and interventions to help clients reclaim agency, reduce suffering, and improve quality of life through a comprehensive, integrative approach to pain treatment.

In racialized societies, race divides people, prioritizes some groups over others, and directly impacts opportunities and outcomes in life. Racism is a pervasive problem in Western society, leading to mental and physical unwellness in people from racialized groups. Psychology began as a racist discipline, as many prominent early leaders in the field actively promoted eugenics and the use of intelligence testing to prove the inferiority of people of color, which creates a problematic foundation for a science that is now tasked with embracing diversity. As such, most clinical training and curricula do not provide an anti-racist framework, which is long overdue for a profession that began with many openly racist ideals. This workshop will discuss how therapists can embrace an anti-racism approach in their practice and their lives in general as an essential prerequisite for authenticity in the work of supporting clients of color. This webinar will address harmful fallacies about race and genetics, explain the development of aversive racism, detail the difference between being a White ally versus a White savior, and share new research of what it means to be a genuine racial justice ally. 

Racial problems are evident at every level of society, and are prominent in political messaging. The problem of racism cannot be corrected merely by good wishes of individuals – purposeful actions and interventions are required. To create equitable systems, civil courage is vital. Therapists can play an important role in tearing down barriers and facilitating change. People who are racial justice allies demonstrate civil courage despite awareness of the consequences and social costs but choose to persist based on a moral imperative. After defining allyship and providing contemporary and historical examples of civil courage, this presentation will explain the difficulties and impediments inherent in implementing racial justice. The presenters will describe exercises based on cognitive-behavioral approaches to help individuals increase their awareness and ability to demonstrate racial justice allyship in alignment with valued behaviors. She explains how these approaches can be utilized, how they can help individuals grow, why they can be difficult, and how clinicians can make use of them for their clients and society.

Group therapy is a treatment modality in which unrelated people meet together with a therapist, in contrast to individual therapy or conjoint family therapy. Groups are not a second-rate approach to helping people change. In fact, groups are often the treatment of choice - especially when a client’s problem has an interpersonal component (which is usually the case). Groups offer a natural laboratory in which people can experiment with new ways of being and receive feedback from numerous others. There is great power in groups: members actually experience their interpersonal dynamics playing out in the group. A group therapist can implement techniques from other modalities in a group format. However, there are dynamics, processes, and stages of groups that are not shared with individual approaches and which offer distinctive benefits. Because so many of the problems that people seek mental
health services for involve dysfunctional interactions between people, having group members actually interact with others in the group affords an opportunity for deep, experiential learning and development that is not possible in individual therapy. This seminar will emphasize how to facilitate such “here and now” interactions and processes in group work.

Group therapy is a treatment modality in which unrelated people meet together with a therapist, in contrast to individual therapy or conjoint family therapy. Groups are not a second-rate approach to helping people change. In fact, groups are often the treatment of choice - especially when a client’s problem has an interpersonal component (which is usually the case). Groups offer a natural laboratory in which people can experiment with new ways of being and receive feedback from numerous others. There is great power in groups: members actually experience their interpersonal dynamics playing out in the group. A group therapist can implement techniques from other modalities in a group format. However, there are dynamics, processes, and stages of groups that are not shared with individual approaches and which offer distinctive benefits. Because so many of the problems that people seek mental
health services for involve dysfunctional interactions between people, having group members actually interact with others in the group affords an opportunity for deep, experiential learning and development that is not possible in individual therapy. This seminar will emphasize how to facilitate such “here and now” interactions and processes in group work.

In the field of counseling/psychotherapy, there are few topics that are more pervasively misunderstood than the nature of emotions and their significance to human health. Even the founders of many influential approaches (i.e., Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis) believed that emotions are best controlled - rather than deeply experienced, reflected upon (processed), and communicated; fields such as affective neuroscience have demonstrated that this is simply false. Just as thoughts can be accurate/adaptive or inaccurate/maladaptive, emotions can be “on target” or “off-base”; they can also be primary or secondary (the latter is often an emotional defense of the primary emotion). Moreover, all human beings—and especially therapy clients—use defenses to avoid experiencing and dealing with their emotions. Most therapists are not taught basic knowledge of emotions and defenses. Rather, they are often taught to simply “follow the client’s feelings.” However, many feelings are actually defenses against the underlying (primary, true) feeling (i.e., sadness covering anger). If a therapist does not recognize which emotions are primary and which are defensive/secondary emotions, then one may be encouraging a client to heighten their defenses, which is almost always anti-therapeutic. Clients who defend against their emotions lose the important information that emotions can provide. This webinar will teach you how to bypass your clients’ defenses and to work directly with their emotions, because emotions are fundamental sources of information and knowledge about one’s self and the world around them.

In the field of counseling/psychotherapy, there are few topics that are more pervasively misunderstood than the nature of emotions and their significance to human health. Even the founders of many influential approaches (i.e., Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis) believed that emotions are best controlled - rather than deeply experienced, reflected upon (processed), and communicated; fields such as affective neuroscience have demonstrated that this is simply false. Just as thoughts can be accurate/adaptive or inaccurate/maladaptive, emotions can be “on target” or “off-base”; they can also be primary or secondary (the latter is often an emotional defense of the primary emotion). Moreover, all human beings—and especially therapy clients—use defenses to avoid experiencing and dealing with their emotions. Most therapists are not taught basic knowledge of emotions and defenses. Rather, they are often taught to simply “follow the client’s feelings.” However, many feelings are actually defenses against the underlying (primary, true) feeling (i.e., sadness covering anger). If a therapist does not recognize which emotions are primary and which are defensive/secondary emotions, then one may be encouraging a client to heighten their defenses, which is almost always anti-therapeutic. Clients who defend against their emotions lose the important information that emotions can provide. This webinar will teach you how to bypass your clients’ defenses and to work directly with their emotions, because emotions are fundamental sources of information and knowledge about one’s self and the world around them.

Traumatic grief occurs when the pain of loss is compounded by the impact of trauma, often disrupting emotional processing as well as a person’s sense of meaning and identity. These losses—frequently sudden, violent, or distressing—can overwhelm the nervous system and shatter core as sumptions about safety, attachment, and coherence. Clients may present with intrusive imagery, avoidance, emotional numbing, and difficulty ac cessing memories of the person who died, leaving clinicians unsure how to effectively support both trauma and grief within treatment. While clini cians may often seek training in treating trauma, rarely is it coupled with understanding how grief and trauma intersect, leading clinicians to inadver tently miss half the picture. Trauma must be treated first to allow grief to emerge and healing to begin. 

This training offers a grounded, meaning reconstruction approach to work ing with traumatic grief, drawing from grief and trauma theory, trauma informed care, and meaning-oriented perspectives. Participants will explore how trauma responses can interfere with the natural processes of grieving, constrict access to the relationship with the deceased, and disrupt iden tity and meaning-making. Attention will be given to a range of loss expe riences, including sudden, violent, ambiguous, stigmatized, and disenfran chised grief, as well as common themes such as regret, guilt, and shame. Using an evolving case study woven throughout the training, participants will engage in applied clinical thinking while building skills in pacing, regula tion, and intervention. Practical strategies will include trauma-informed stabilization, narrative approaches, and meaning-oriented interventions that support integration without overwhelming the client.