DAY 1: November 14, 2023

Workshop #1: Internal Family Systems (IFS) Model: Theory & Skills Practice (Evolution of the Model & Composition of the Psyche)

PRESENTED BY Alexia Rothman, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am - 11:45am

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 paradigm-shifting model provides clinicians with procedures for helping clients with the most challenging mental health profiles compassionately connect with 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.

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

• A way to enter clients’ inner ecology without an overemphasis on containment and stabilization

• Symptom reduction, increased internal harmony and improved functioning for clients

• Deep self-healing within even the most troubled clients

Through instruction, video demonstration, experiential exercises and skills practice, Alexia D. Rothman, Ph.D., Certified IFS therapist and consultant and colleague of Dr. Richard Schwartz (founder of IFS) will show you step-by-step how to apply the most effective, empirically validated IFS interventions to help your clients connect with and understand their conflicting parts to facilitate deep, lasting healing.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

• 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

Evolution of the Model

• Development of the IFS model by Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D.

• IFS as an empirically validated treatment: Summary of research support

Composition of the Psyche

• Concept of multiplicity: “We are all multiple personalities.”

• Components of the psyche: o Wounded, vulnerable, parts

  • Protective parts: proactive and reactive

  • Burdens: Negative/extreme emotions or beliefs

  • The Self: compassionate inner leader and internal source of wisdom and healing energy 

• Guide clients to access their own inner wisdom and healing potential

• IFS-specific techniques for in-the-moment emotion regulation, helpful even with panic, flashbacks, and dissociation

The IFS Model

• Assumptions of the model

• Goals of IFS therapy

• Flow of the IFS model over the course of treatment

• Flow of an individual IFS session

Workshop #2: Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: A Trauma-Informed Approach

PRESENTED BY Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am - 11:45am

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

Self-rejection is a survival strategy that maintains children’s attachment to abusive attachment figures by disowning themselves as “bad” or “unlovable.”   This deeply painful failure of self-acceptance is adaptive in an unsafe world but results in lifelong shame and self-loathing, difficulty self-soothing, identity confusion, and complications in relationships with others.

To overcome this alienation from self, the Fragmented Selves approach (Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment or TIST) focuses on cultivating mindful awareness of clients’ disowned selves and disowned experience. As individuals learn to relate to their overwhelming emotions and impulsive behavior as evidence of trauma-related parts, they develop increased ability to observe rather than react and to tolerate distressing affects rather than acting out.  Using strategies inspired by polyvagal theory, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems, we will explore the therapeutic power of fostering clients’ secure attachment to their most deeply disowned selves.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the relationship between attachment trauma and self-alienation

• Recognize signs of trauma-related parts and their internal conflicts

• Identify parts that sabotage self-compassion and self-acceptance

• Describe interventions that create an increased felt sense of compassionate connection to parts

Workshop #3: Fostering Flow States, Peak Experiences & Psychological Richness: A New Paradigm?

PRESENTED BY Jonah Paquette, Psy.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am - 11:45am

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

While many approaches to well-being emphasize contentment and pleasant emotional states, recent research has shed light on how peak experiences, flow states, and psychologically rich experiences offer a new paradigm for understanding psychological well-being and fulfillment. In this workshop, attendees will learn strategies to help clients achieve more flow experiences in their lives, and how to enhance experiences of psychological richness in order to combat stress, find meaning, and increase overall well-being and happiness.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the nature of flow states, and how experiences of flow lead to unique changes in our brain and positive outcomes for well-being.

• Explain the emerging science of psychological richness, and how this represents and alternative dimension of psychological well-being.

• Utilize strength-based approaches to promote flow states and peak experiences in clients.

Workshop #5: Addressing the Emotional Roots of Anxiety & Agitation: An Attachment-Based Developmental Approach

PRESENTED BY Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.

MORNING SESSION | 8:30am - 11:45am

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This session is available for live stream.

There is currently an epidemic of anxiety and agitation affecting children and teens which can take many forms including attention problems, clinginess, eating problems, obsessions, compulsions, phobias, panic, sleep issues, physical illnesses, as well as a host of other perplexing behaviours. Today’s world can create many challenges for children and youth with school pressures, peer interactions, family dynamics, negative self-image, perfectionism, and many other stressors that can impede a child’s ability to learn and mature. Whether it’s the natural, episodic worries or more profound and crippling versions of anxiety, Dr. Neufeld will help make sense of the roots of anxiety and agitation and suggest ways in which we can help bring the anxious and agitated to rest.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Understanding the spectrum of syndromes that are all rooted in the primary emotion of alarm

• Appreciating the attachment roots of anxiety and agitation

• Exposing the emotional root of most attention problems

• Equipping with solutions that are both natural and developmental