All Webinars

“Sheri did a great job of keeping my attention. Time flew all the while I felt I was learning something of use.  I've been teaching clients mindfulness for years but there are those clients that are still difficult and haven't been responsive. This seminar gave me brand new tools/approaches and hope for helping some of my existing clients.”-Laura D., Social Worker, Arkansas

Over 75% of mental illnesses described in the DSM are related to emotion dysregulation – the inability to manage emotions effectively. Given that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was initially created to treat Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), of which emotion dysregulation is a primary problem, it only makes sense that DBT would be effective in treating other disorders, and research in recent years is supporting this.

This seminar will provide an overview of the DBT Core Mindfulness skills. Participants will learn about these skills, including an introduction to mindfulness, the States of Mind, and the “What” and “How” skills. Discussion will be around how to use these skills ourselves in both professional and personal lives, and how to teach these skills to clients struggling with mental illness.

“The instructor was very likable, which increased my enjoyment. Obviously very experienced and used those experiences to bring the content alive.”-Susan B., Psychologist, Delaware

In recent decades, researchers have been learning that Mindfulness not only helps us live healthier lives, but reduces emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, and anger; helps with sleep difficulties; improves concentration, memory, and immune system function; and generates changes in our brain that helps to counteract the problems in thinking we start to experience as we age. 

This experiential seminar will provide an introduction to mindfulness. Participants will learn about the different ways mindfulness is helpful for both physical and mental health. They will be introduced to some different ways of practicing mindfulness, and will learn some tips to help them teach these skills to clients, as well as problems clients often encounter when first learning about mindfulness. 

“Strong and knowledgeable instructor. Highly responsive to questions. Explained each component clearly and was great at putting it all together especially tying in the theories with clinical implications. This webinar inspired me to learn more about DBT, and use it with my clients.”-Liat Z., Professional Counselor, New York

Over 75% of mental illnesses described in the DSM are related to emotion dysregulation – the inability to manage emotions effectively. Given that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was initially created to treat Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), of which emotion dysregulation is a primary problem, it only makes sense that DBT would be effective in treating other disorders, and research in recent years is supporting this.

This seminar will provide an introduction to DBT, including the origins of the therapy, and the Biosocial Theory of how emotion dysregulation develops. You will learn about some of the research demonstrating that DBT is effective in treating disorders other than BPD. Finally, you will learn about Dialectics, and the importance of balancing validation with change with the dysregulated client; and how to effectively use validation to help clients re-regulate in session, as well as how to teach them to practice this skill on their own.

Psychological functioning is always embedded within a cultural context.  Maladaptive patterns that bring clients to psychotherapy are often learned in response to sociocultural macrosystems.  In order to promote a unified approach to treatment, this seminar will highlight how cultural contexts shape cognition, emotion, and behavior.  When clients move into a new culture or subculture, they engage in a process of adaptation that can be more or less successful.  Cultural adaptation will be described as a possible focus in psychotherapy.

This seminar will teach both cultural conceptualization and intervention methods.  Cultural conceptualization will be described as way to understand clients using the following concepts: (1) Ecological systems, (2) Social location, privilege, and oppression, (3) Multiple identities, (4) Identity development, and (5) Acculturation.

Foundational cultural skills will be described and demonstrated with role-play videos.  These skills will address three general processes: (1) Exploration and functional analysis of cultural expereinces, (2) Guided discovery to uncover more adaptive functioning, and (3) Enacting adaptation outside of psychotherapy. 

At a more advanced level, this seminar will introduce the concepts of cultural humility and decolonization.  Participants will be encouraged to consider how these ideas can inform the practice of psychotherapy with diverse clients.

This seminar is part of Level Two of Training in Unified Psychotherapy (TUP), focusing on working contextually with external contexts and internal influences.  An essential part of a unified approach to treatment is understanding the impact of cultural contexts on dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and actions and fostering more adaptive responses.

Psychological functioning is always embedded within the context of social systems.  Maladaptive patterns that bring clients to psychotherapy are often learned within the family-of-origin.  Psychotherapy can help clients explore and understand systemic patterns and social roles that may contribute to current psychological distress.  Clients can learn to recognize and modify maladaptive cognitions, emotions, and behaviors that may have been learned within their families. A systemic focus in individual psychotherapy can help clients function in new social systems in more effective ways.

This seminar will teach both systemic conceptualization and intervention methods that can be used in individual psychotherapy.  Systemic conceptualization will include looking at family structure, roles, and beliefs systems.  Webinar participants will learn to consider how homeostasis, family life cycle, and multigenerational patterns shape individual functioning over time.  In order to promote a unified approach to treatment, the webinar will highlight how families and other microsystems shape the way people think, feel, and act.

Foundational interpersonal skills will be described and demonstrated with role-play videos.  These skills will address three general processes: (1) Exploration and functional analysis of systemic patterns, (2) Guided discovery to uncover more adaptive social functioning, and (3) Enacting systemic adaptation outside of psychotherapy.  Practical skills that can be learned and utilized with clients will be described for each of these three phases of treatment.

At a more advanced level, this seminar will explore the way clients internalize aspects of the people who raised them in ways that continue to influence current functioning and affective states.  Current dysfunction is often related to the way family members and family experiences have been internalized in a manner that shapes schema modes.  Diversity is addressed in this seminar by describing the way cultural contexts shape families and other social systems and how families serve as a conduit for cultural socialization.

This seminar is part of Level Two of Training in Unified Psychotherapy (TUP), focusing on working contextually with external and internal influences.  An essential part of a unified approach to treatment is understanding the impact of systemic patterns on dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and actions and fostering more adaptive responses.

Threats and violence in the workplace are an unfortunate reality that can occur at any moment- no workplace is immune. Be it the domestic violence offender that find his or her spouse at work, the disgruntled employee that is offended by being disciplined for violating a work policy, the supervisor that stalks his or her subordinate and lashes out when rebuffed, or the customer that believes he or she has been treated unfairly- these acts do take place. Those in leadership positions also have an obligation to provide safe work environments. In this course we will review some of the development of threat and workplace violence understanding and assessment, visit actual case examples, identify guidance to support the development of workplace violence prevention programs, learn what to assess in working to prevent workplace violence, and explore how to build your own workplace violence prevention program.

According to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, approxi­mately 10% of US adults fill one or more antidepressant prescriptions each year, with many of these prescriptions coming from non-psychiatrists. They are some of the most widely prescribed medications of our generation. As more and more patients are prescribed antidepressants and other psychotropic medications, an increased need and responsibility is raised for non-prescribing therapists to be knowledgeable enough to work more effectively with patients and their prescribers in this arena. The follow­ing webinar is intended to be an introductory course that offers general, yet comprehensive information about psy­chopharmacology, including understanding neurobiological underpinnings of how medications work, commonly pre­scribed drug categories, how to work more effectively with patients, and how to work more effectively with prescrib­ers. Unique to this webinar will be the inclusion of how to maximize treatment outcomes and effectively use collab­orative care strategies.

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.