Patrick Faggianelli PhD EHI:7 Session Outline

Aikido and Psychotherapy

Patrick Faggianelli, PhD     90 minutes

Aikido is a Japanese martial art that has the stated aim of resolving conflict without violence and in such a way that no one gets injured. Aikido literally means the way of harmonizing (loving) energy. One of the important aikido philosophies is that one must “embrace one’s opponent with love.” In terms of this workshop, if anxiety and worry is “one’s opponent” the aiki approach is to love one’s anxiety and worry. Embedded in the practice of aikido are many concepts including physical self defense, the nature of the universe, the importance of partnership practice, the importance of developing a practice designed to align oneself with the energy of the universe. This seminar will explore underlying contextual elements which inform aikido and discuss, as well as experience, how those principles and practices can be understood and utilized in the practice of Existential, Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology and psychotherapy particularly in relation to the ability to befriend anxiety and worry.

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John Ingle, MA EHI:7 Session Outline

Somatic Trauma Therapy Insights From Near Death to Gentle, Everyday Ecstatic Living

John Ingle, MA    90 minutes

Outline:
Teaching process work on somatic trauma therapy in Russia for 15 years.
Stories of survival and enlightenment.
Insights and new possibilities.
Sensory guidance and resourcing insights to get through reliving near death experiences.
What to do with fear of existence exercise.

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Ali Miller, MFT EHI:7 Session Outline

Befriending Difficult Emotions through Self-Empathy: Nonviolent Communication as a Tool for Self-Compassion

Ali Miller, MFT    90 minutes

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), developed by Marshall Rosenberg, is deeply congruent with Carl Rogers’ humanistic, person-centered counseling approach. Much more than a communication or conflict resolution tool, NVC is an approach to being with others that offers the opportunity for tremendous healing and transformation. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to NVC principles and tools, with a focus on how NVC can be applied in the therapeutic setting. Particular attention will be given to teaching the skill of self-empathy for dealing with difficult emotions. Didactic and experiential components will be offered.

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Ken Bradford, PhD EHI:7 Session Outline

Rude Awakening: Trauma as a Portal to Authentic Presence

Ken Bradford, Ph.D.    90 minutes

This will be a contemplative inquiry-conversation considering how trauma – both extraordinary and ordinary – breaks us open to unwanted existential givens of insecurity, unpredictability, and impermanence. Broken-open, we find ourselves at a portal at which we can pause, recoil, or pass through. Daring to closely observe our own and others’ defensive reactions to trauma allows us to better bear what has seemed unbearable. This felt attention is a great power of depth psychotherapy as we know and practice it. Yet, in allowing psychological self-reckoning to deepen, trauma has the further, rude potential to attune us to a more fundamental awakeness as we come face to face with naked, unconstructed, and unconstructing presence.

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Janet Jacobson, ACE, CNA/HHA, RNA EHI:7 Session Outline

How Dancers Think and Feel

Janet Jacobson, American Council on Exercise(ACE), CNA/HHA, RNA    90 minutes

My cousin Richard contracted Parkinson’s when he was 63, which was 10 years ago. His daily determination to exercise keeps him from succumbing completely to this disease. In a recent conversation, I moaned that I was worrying too much and needed to let it go. “No!” he quickly replied. “That’s energy, use it.” Of course, he is so right! I’ve had amazing turnarounds within a moment of anxiety. Rather than try and “let go” of this surging emotion I directed its energy toward an immediate task and simultaneously experienced movement possibilities.

It helps to have a Dancer’s frame of mind when flushed with worry or anxiety. My proposal for this session is to give attendees an intimate introduction to the way Dancers think and feel so they may expand their kinesthetic sense and befriend anxiety and worry.

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Ilene Serlin, PhD, BC-DMT, Sarah Kass, PhD, Candice Hershman, MFT and Eleanor Criswell, PhD EHI:7 Session Outline

The Art of Embodiment

Ilene Serlin, PhD, BC-DMT, Sarah Kass, PhD, Candice Hershman, MFT and Eleanor Criswell, PhD    90 minutes

Anxiety is a natural response to the storms of life; embodiment can provide a calm center from which to experience and find courage and strength in these storms.

In this workshop, several approaches to embodiment will be explored. Kinaesthetic Imagining is a process by which participants awaken consciousness in the body (“incarnate perception”), develop the language and symbols of nonverbal experience (“kinetic melodies”), and discover meaning in their experience (“action hermeneutics”).

Another approach will explore the therapeutic body, the process of meaning-making with the abstract mind versus with affect and emotions, and the connections between ancient practices of yoga and modern somatic practices.

Embodiment is a crucial dimension of existential/humanistic psychology, but has not been as developed as the theoretical and philosophical ones. This workshop, therefore, aims to address this gap by contributing to the articulation of the “felt experienced” dimensions of an existential/humanistic psychology, while forming closer connections to related fields of somatic psychology and creativity studies.

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Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. and Joyce Catlett EHI:7 Session Outline

Creating a Meaningful Life: Through Facing the Anxiety of Being an Adult

Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. and Joyce Catlett    90 minutes

Most people are unaware that they are conducting their lives more from a child’s frame of reference than in an adult mode. Although men and women mature physically and become more capable in their practical lives, they often fail to achieve full emotional maturity and strength. From a Separation Theory perspective, a theory that integrates psychodynamic and existential systems of thought, the primary barriers to maturity are unresolved childhood trauma, the defenses the child forms to ward off emotional pain and existential dread. The latter refers to a core anxiety related to growing up, facing the fact that time is passing, and giving value to life in spite of death’s inevitability. This workshop outlines six major aspects of the adult approach to life: acting rational, formulating and implementing goals, equality in relationships, being active versus passive, being non-defensive and open and realizing one’s personal power and strength. We will explore the psychodynamics underlying the tendency to hold onto a child’s perspective despite the emotional turmoil, maladaption and unhappiness it creates. The principle barriers to living an adult existence are the fears and anxiety associated with becoming adult. There are five major aspects to the fear of growing up: Symbolic separation from one’s parents and other individuals who have offered some sense of security, preference for fantasy as a defense mechanism over reality considerations, the threat of feeling one’s aloneness and death anxiety.

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Michael Guy Thompson, Ph.D. EHI:7 Session Outline

Existential Freud: Converting Neurotic Misery Into Common Unhappiness

Michael Guy Thompson, Ph.D.    90 minutes

This presentation will review Freud’s inherently existential take on the human condition as depicted in his seminal and most popular work, CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (originally titled: “Culture and Unhappiness”). The paper teases out the paradox of our all too human condition, that in order to achieve self-confidence and inner peace amidst the everyday turmoil of modern living we must come to terms with the observation that most of our endeavors end in failure and disappointment. My thesis is that the willingness to take chances in the face of these disappointments is the surest way of obtaining the happiness we aspire to.

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Koke Saavedra, Psy.D. and Galia Schechter, Psy.D. EHI:7 Session Outline

The Freedom to Choose in the Presence of Our Fears and Anxieties: Mindful Acceptance or Mindful Inquiry

Koke Saavedra, Psy.D. and Galia Schechter, Psy.D.    90 minutes

Over the last decade, mindfulness practices promoting a friendly relationship with our fears and anxieties (and other difficult psychological experiences) have become more central to existential–humanistic (such as gestalt, emotion-focused, somatic, etc) and experiential-behavioral(such as acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, etc) psycho therapeutic work with fear- and anxiety-related challenges. This momentous development has raised a fundamental question as to the distinct roles in psychotherapy of mindful inquiry, on the one hand, and mindful acceptance, on the other.

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Jeff Sharp, Ph.D. EHI:7 Session Outline

Addressing Grief and a Looming Abyss: Uncertainty, Terror and Unexpected Rewards

Jeff Sharp, Ph.D.   90min

This presentation will initially focus on a critical, pivotal discussion I had with my Mother about nine months before her death. A discussion, that is, that required both of us to face considerable anxiety—and which greatly strengthened our relationship and provided us with immense opportunities to live in a more meaningful and fulfilling manner. I will look at two separate yet interwoven grieving processes: hers, and mine. Reflections on these processes, informed by Existential/Humanistic themes, Kubler’s Ross’s insights on death and dying, and Attachment Theory, will be shared. Following an initial narrative and theoretical presentation, we will have small group discussions in which participants can discuss related grieving processes and decisions in their own lives. We will create a safe context in which participants can explore, if desired, the risks inherent in addressing specific grieving issues in their own lives, and the risks inherent in avoiding these matters.

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Candice Hershman, MA, LMFT, Doctoral Candidate and Sonja Saltman, MA EHI:7 Session Outline

Befriending Each Other: Befriending Agency & Meaning Through Community

Candice Hershman, MA, LMFT, Doctoral Candidate and Sonja Saltman, MA    90 min

In a world that is becoming increasingly technological and globalized, people have adapted to both the advantages and disadvantages of rapid access to information and communication. However, people are additionally becom- ing more isolated and disconnected from each other. The unfortunate result is waning empathy that results from estrangement of the whole-bodied self and the whole experience of others. However, when we entrust our interac- tions to the basic existential principles of relationship and presence in the here and now, we re-establish intra and interpersonal awareness, strengthen empathy, and meet each other, no matter how different our perspectives may be. Hegel’s model of “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis” becomes possible when we become present to the experience of a diverse community in an intimate, heartfelt setting. This sets the tone for problem solving on a local, grassroots level that will hopefully impact our global world. This is the center where our personal empowerment begins.

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Heatherlyn Hoffman, PsyD, Louis Hoffman, PhD and Theopia Jackson, PhD EHI:7 Session Outline

Cultural Competency & Existential Psychotherapy

Heatherlyn Hoffman, PsyD, Louis Hoffman, PhD and Theopia Jackson, PhD    90 minutes

Existential-humanistic psychology, as commonly represented in the professional literature and practice, is heavily steeped in Western and Euro-American culture and its assumptions. Despite this, it has great potential to be practiced in a culturally sensitive manner in diverse contexts and with diverse clientele. To accomplish this, existential therapy must be aware of its biases and assumptions that may be problematic to certain individuals and cultural groups while developing strategies to be adapted in varied settings and contexts. Cultural competency is generally defined to include self-awareness of one’s own cultural views, attitude toward cultural and other differences, knowledge of different cultural worldviews, and skills for working in cross-cultural settings. This presentation explores what it would mean for existential-humanistic therapy and its practitioners to be culturally competent.

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Elva Hoxie, PhD, RN, MPH EHI:7 Session Outline

The Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) on the Survivor’s Spouse/Partner From an Existential-Humanistic Perspective

The research is based on three methods used in the nursing research: concept analysis (Morse, 1995; Walker & Avant, 2005), concept advancement (Penrod & Hupcey, 2005), and integrative review, (Broome, 1993). A main tenet and value of the chosen theorectical designs are two-fold: (1) the methods are based in health research, and (2) the conclusions promote practical utlization for clinical application.

Elva Hoxie, PhD, RN, MPH    90 minutes

The critical review of the literature on traumatic brain injury shows the complexity of brain function and illustrates how damage can negatively affect the survivor’s daily existence  (Kandel, 2006; Greve, 2009; Werner & Engelhard, 2007). Trauma to the brain frequently causes  pervasive cognitive dysfunction and a variety of personality changes, including impulsivity,  unpredictability, anger, lack of critical thinking, lack of empathy, and lack of awareness about one’s own impairments (Godwin, et al., 2011; Saunders & Struchen, 2011). These problematic issues have a negative impact on the marital/couple relationship, family dynamics, and relationships in general. Yet, a meaningful and supportive relationship can contribute to the TBI-survivor’s healing from TBI related life changes and psychological trauma…

The purpose is to help facilitate the process of learning to live with the challenges and transcend the psychological pain into existential meaning.

Speakers and sessions are being highlighted here on our blog. Read more about the EHI7 sessions here.

New Article by Bob Edelstein on How Our Identity is Fluid, Subjective and Chosen.

Authenticity and Identity

In this most recent article Bob Edelstein, L.M.F.T., M.F.T discusses how discovering who you are in the moment modifies your already established identity.

From the intro to the article:

In every moment we can rediscover and recreate ourselves. From an Existential-Humanistic perspective, this change takes place when we discover that who we are in the moment is not congruent with how we have identified ourselves. We then have the opportunity to redefine ourselves in order to align with what is most true in the present. To do so, we may need to reinterpret what cannot be denied from our past (George Kelly, Ph.D.). We may also begin to re-envision who we want to be in the future in a more congruent way as we shift this part of our identity into what is authentic in the present. This is an ongoing process because our authentic identity changes throughout our life in response to the impact of our life experiences.

Read the full article on Bob Edelstein's blog Authentic Engagement on the PsychologyToday website published on September 28, 2013.

Related Articles:

• AskimoTV Interviews with Bob Edelstein on Existential Humanistic Psychotherapy

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Bob Edelstein, L.M.F.T., M.F.T., is an Existential-Humanistic psychotherapist based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to being a therapist for over 36 years, he also provides consultation, supervision, and training for professionals, including a one-day workshop entitled Deepen Your Therapeutic Work Using an Existential-Humanistic Perspective. Bob is a founding member of the Existential-Humanistic Northwest Professional Organization and the Association for Humanistic Psychology - Oregon Community. He is a board member of the San Francisco based Existential-Humanistic Institute.