Couples/Families/Groups

Most therapists recognize the power of the past as it is revealed in the way partners respond to each other. The therapist can be baffled by emotionally intense reactions that seem way out of proportion to the moment.  Repeated conflict themes also suggest that the ways partners interpret each other’s behavior can only be understood by exploring their individual lived experience. This seminar presents an overview of an object relations approach to working with couples, and describes dynamics that are unique to this clinical approach. You will understand how unfinished business from the past and each partner’s relational past can unfold in patterns and postures that work against intimacy. You will also be able to understand how extreme emotional reactions and black & white thinking create instability and specific relationship problems. The seminar will explain a range of techniques that can help couples acquire new ways of responding to each other and strengthening intimacy. You will also understand how the therapist’s intuition and reaction to partners is an important source of information that allows insight into the core themes and facilitates the partners ability to heal past wounds while forging deeper intimacy.

High rates of adolescent depression and suicide present as a major international public health problem.  Suicidal adolescents are often a daunting population for clinicians to work with given their high-risk. Of the few effective treatments for this population, many are often multi-modal involving individual and group therapy, medication, etc.  An empirically supported family therapy for adolescents struggling with depression and suicide that requires only weekly sessions and which can be conducted on an outpatient, home-based, or inpatient basis is Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT).  ABFT emerges from interpersonal theories suggesting adolescent depression and suicide can be precipitated, exacerbated, or buffered against by the quality of interpersonal family relationships. It is a trust-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy model aiming to repair interpersonal ruptures and rebuild an emotionally protective, secure-based, parent-child relationship. The therapy is trauma-focused while also being brief and structured. Treatment is characterized by five treatment tasks: a) reframing the therapy to focus on interpersonal development, b) building alliance with the adolescent, c) building alliance with the parents, d) facilitation conversations to resolve attachment ruptures and e) promoting autonomy in the adolescent. 

In this workshop, Dr Levy will use lecture and case studies to provide an overview of the theoretical principles, research support, and clinical strategies forABFT. Dr. Levy will review how attachment theory,emotional regulation, and trauma resolution informthe delivery of this treatment approach.  She will review the goals and structureof the five treatment tasks that provide a roadmapfor delivering this interpersonally focused psychotherapy effectively and rapidly in community mental health.

Diminished desire and difficulty orgasming with a partner are the two most prevalent concerns women bring to health-care providers. Additionally, evidence indicates that many women struggle with these concerns, yet only reveal this to clinicians upon being directly asked. Unfortunately, however, too few clinicians have any training in assessing or dealing with these common sexual concerns, even though empirically supported treatments for both exist. This seminar will help you understand the cultural reasons for the high prevalence of these sexual problems among women. You will also become well-versed in the myriad medical, individual, and relational causes underlying both concerns. Most importantly, evidence-based treatments for both diminished desire and orgasm issues will be presented. You will leave this seminar able to assess and intervene with these two common sexual concerns. 

We are a part of a massive social experiment. Sex, gender, and relationship dynamics are changing faster than at any time in recorded history, all within a backdrop of exploding artificial intelligence (AI). Younger generations are increasingly comfortable with technology interfacing all aspects of their lives. The potential risks inherent in human:human sex have been highlighted by COVID-19.  Enter virtual reality porn and yes, sex robots. Experts predict that within 20-50 years, robots that move and interact in humanoid ways will be affordable for many. It is highly conceivable that an infant born today can have their first sexual experience with a robot. Mental health professionals will better serve their clients if they understand the increasingly powerful impact new developments in sex tech and AI have on sex and intimacy. The time is now for us to being this critical discussion.

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.

Diminished desire and difficulty orgasming with a partner are the two most prevalent concerns women bring to health-care providers. Additionally, evidence indicates that many women struggle with these concerns, yet only reveal this to clinicians upon being directly asked. Unfortunately, however, too few clinicians have any training in assessing or dealing with these common sexual concerns, even though empirically supported treatments for both exist. This seminar will help you understand the cultural reasons for the high prevalence of these sexual problems among women. You will also become well-versed in the myriad medical, individual, and relational causes underlying both concerns. Most importantly, evidence-based treatments for both diminished desire and orgasm issues will be presented. You will leave this seminar able to assess and intervene with these two common sexual concerns. 

High rates of adolescent depression and suicide present as a major international public health problem.  Suicidal adolescents are often a daunting population for clinicians to work with given their high-risk. Of the few effective treatments for this population, many are often multi-modal involving individual and group therapy, medication, etc.  An empirically supported family therapy for adolescents struggling with depression and suicide that requires only weekly sessions and which can be conducted on an outpatient, home-based, or inpatient basis is Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT).  ABFT emerges from interpersonal theories suggesting adolescent depression and suicide can be precipitated, exacerbated, or buffered against by the quality of interpersonal family relationships. It is a trust-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy model aiming to repair interpersonal ruptures and rebuild an emotionally protective, secure-based, parent-child relationship. The therapy is trauma-focused while also being brief and structured. Treatment is characterized by five treatment tasks: a) reframing the therapy to focus on interpersonal development, b) building alliance with the adolescent, c) building alliance with the parents, d) facilitation conversations to resolve attachment ruptures and e) promoting autonomy in the adolescent. 

In this workshop, Dr Levy will use lecture and case studies to provide an overview of the theoretical principles, research support, and clinical strategies forABFT. Dr. Levy will review how attachment theory,emotional regulation, and trauma resolution informthe delivery of this treatment approach.  She will review the goals and structureof the five treatment tasks that provide a roadmapfor delivering this interpersonally focused psychotherapy effectively and rapidly in community mental health.

Diminished desire and difficulty orgasming with a partner are the two most prevalent concerns women bring to health-care providers. Additionally, evidence indicates that many women struggle with these concerns, yet only reveal this to clinicians upon being directly asked. Unfortunately, however, too few clinicians have any training in assessing or dealing with these common sexual concerns, even though empirically supported treatments for both exist. This seminar will help you understand the cultural reasons for the high prevalence of these sexual problems among women. You will also become well-versed in the myriad medical, individual, and relational causes underlying both concerns. Most importantly, evidence-based treatments for both diminished desire and orgasm issues will be presented. You will leave this seminar able to assess and intervene with these two common sexual concerns. 

High rates of adolescent depression and suicide present as a major international public health problem.  Suicidal adolescents are often a daunting population for clinicians to work with given their high-risk. Of the few effective treatments for this population, many are often multi-modal involving individual and group therapy, medication, etc.  An empirically supported family therapy for adolescents struggling with depression and suicide that requires only weekly sessions and which can be conducted on an outpatient, home-based, or inpatient basis is Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT).  ABFT emerges from interpersonal theories suggesting adolescent depression and suicide can be precipitated, exacerbated, or buffered against by the quality of interpersonal family relationships. It is a trust-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy model aiming to repair interpersonal ruptures and rebuild an emotionally protective, secure-based, parent-child relationship. The therapy is trauma-focused while also being brief and structured. Treatment is characterized by five treatment tasks: a) reframing the therapy to focus on interpersonal development, b) building alliance with the adolescent, c) building alliance with the parents, d) facilitation conversations to resolve attachment ruptures and e) promoting autonomy in the adolescent. 

In this workshop, Dr Levy will use lecture and case studies to provide an overview of the theoretical principles, research support, and clinical strategies forABFT. Dr. Levy will review how attachment theory,emotional regulation, and trauma resolution informthe delivery of this treatment approach.  She will review the goals and structureof the five treatment tasks that provide a roadmapfor delivering this interpersonally focused psychotherapy effectively and rapidly in community mental health.