Power of Presence Sessions and Panels EHI 8th Annual Conference

EHIin Partnership with CIISPresents:

THE POWER OF
PRESENCE 

Nov 14th & 15th, 2015 San Francisco
TWO FULL DAYS OF EXISTENTIAL HUMANISTIC SESSIONS AND PANELS

EHI Power of Presence SESSIONS*

Updated as of October 25, 2015:
Dr Maureen O'Hara will be unable to join us this conference due to personal reasons. We wish her the best and look forward to having her join us for next year's conference.

• CHRISTINE ARMSTRONG & LOUIS DANGLES
  Dancing Dragons: Working with Couple's Core Wounds
  “Behind the wound lies the genius.” - C.G. Jung
  Dragons guard treasure. Like the serpents of the caduceus, they carry both maleficent and beneficent aspects, and they are associated with healing. Dragons protect our core wounds. Left unattended they can also prevent us from getting to the treasure behind the wound. We will present an approach to engaging dragons in the here and now.
  Couples often arrive in therapy with a compelling legal brief documenting grievances and the other’s egregious behavior. It is not uncommon that they also arrive with a hope (conscious or not) that if they can demonstrate to the therapist how the other guy is the problem, the road to resolution will open. We will present an approach that emphasizes an empathetic recognition of partner’s mutual contributions to relationship difficulties. Didactic elements and case material reinforced by experiential exercises will provide participants with a conceptual frame to formulate relational problems and practical here and now interventions which promote a collaborative process between partners.
  Objectives
  Participants will be able to:
  Utilize therapist presence/empathic attunement to help facilitate client’s recognition of core wounds and the self-protective behavior patterns that arise from that wounded place.
  Identify how partner’s core wounds lead to self-protective behavior patterns that are mutually reinforcing.
  Help partner’s cultivate a collaborative approach to interpersonal problems grounded in a compassionate attitude towards each other’s core wounds.
  Christine Armstrong MFT (Lic 7529) and Louis Dangles MFT (Lic 8207) established private practices in 1976, specializing in individual, couple, and group psychotherapy from an existential perspective. They frequently present on clinical issues at various community mental health agencies. Over the past 25 years they have studied and consulted with two of the seminal teachers and practitioners of the existential perspective; James F. T. Bugental Ph.D. and Irvin Yalom M.D.
• SUZAN BOLLICH
  Radical Intersubjectivity: Attunement Through as a Portal to Authentic Existence
  There is a rather numinous way that attunement through, rather than attunement to words, experiences and emotions, can illicit for the opened, sensitive therapist a stirring clarity of clients’ living experience. With regard to intersubjective attunement, Bugental (1976) stated, “I open myself to experience within myself what these people [clients] tell me they’re experiencing within themselves” (p. xi). Employed therapeutically and relationally, such clarity can function as a portal to greater authentic existing for both client and therapist.
  This presentation aims to demonstrate a more radical approach of intersubjective work with (a) an enthusiastic talk that integrates actual case vignettes from Dr. Bollich’s clinical work with relevant short quote selections from Jim Bugental’s writings, and (b) an experiential exercise to demonstrate radical intersubjective attunement.
  Suzan Bollich, PhD is an existential clinical psychologist specializing in adult and geriatric clinical psychology, death, dying and bereavement, behavioral medicine for individuals with medical and psychological concerns, and psychotherapy with retired Catholic sisters. She is an adjunct psychology professor at Diablo Valley College and John F. Kennedy University, and co-teacher in the Existential-Humanistic Institute’s certificate training program.
  Her clinical work is grounded in existential sensibilities to how humans relate to the living experience and to the dying experience. Such sensibilities have come rather naturally to her as a native of south Louisiana, where she came of age curiously attuning to the movements of its natural world, from listening to hurricane-force winds, to observing with awe diverse bayou creatures.
  She also has enjoyed the good fortune of receiving and participating in extensive training, supervision, and consultation in Existential-Humanistic philosophy and psychotherapy with Drs Kenneth Bradford, Orah Krug, and Kirk Schneider, to all of whom she is in deep gratitude.
• PAUL BRACKE & BRUCE MCBEATH
  Raising the Stakes: Increasing Client Presence and Commitment in Living Moment
  A central concept in James Bugental’s Existential Psychotherapy is the significance of the client’s concern. It is “concern” that brings the client into therapy and this concern or issue is often accompanied by a subjective degree of urgency. The strength of the relationship between the client and therapist contains and focuses the client’s concern and evokes greater commitment to his/her own growth.
  The presentation will include fresh perspectives from Bugental’s original teaching, clinical case examples and participant interaction.
  The presenters are members of The Masters Group, the original group of therapists who trained with Dr. James F. T. Bugental in his professional training course: The Art of the Psychotherapist (1987-2005). The Masters’ Group continues to meet annually to broaden and deepen Dr. Bugental’s perspective of Existential Psychotherapy.
  Paul Bracke, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, executive coach, and consultant. During more than 30 years of practice, he has developed a highly effective approach to psychotherapy that combines concepts of existential-humanistic psychology with cognitive-behavioral strategies. He has studied and collaborated extensively with Dr. James F.T. Bugental, an internationally known leader in existential-humanistic psychology and depth-psychotherapy. He has written on the nature and effectiveness of existential psychotherapy and has led professional training for psychotherapists in the United States, Europe and Russia.
  After receiving his doctorate from Stanford where he focused on Type A behavior, cardiovascular disease and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, Dr. Bracke was a senior consultant a the Meyer Friedman Institute (MFI) of Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco, the clinical research institute that completed the original research defining and examining Type A behavior. As a senior consultant at the MFI he led groups that reduced Type A behavior, contributed extensively to the development of the MFI treatment program, and helped train group leaders. In addition, he has written extensively on understanding and elimination of Type A and toxic stress.
  Bruce McBeath, PhD, is a clinical psychologist practicing within an existential-phenomenological perspective with an emphasis on the psychology of aging. He brings this orientation to the "lived experience" of older adults into collaborative work with governmental and non-profit agencies in Goodhue County MN and to his private practice in St. Paul, MN. He has taught psychology of aging courses for the Minnesota Psychological Association and at St. Mary's University of Minnesota, and Existential -phenomenological Dimensions of Aging at the University of Montana. He has also developed a Senior mental health oriented peer counseling program in conjunction with Goodhue County, MN Health & Human Services in Red Wing. His recent book Reflections on Aging: Greeting the Changing Face in the Mirror is a series of essays on the phenomenology of aging, with accompanying photographs by Minnesota photographer Robin Wipperling. His essays also appear in Today magazine.
• KEN BRADFORD
  Beyond the Search for Authenticity: The Natural Freedom of Being
  The search for authenticity occurs along a continuum of personal actualization to nondual realization. Depending on a person’s capability for being fully present in the emerging moment, a therapeutic/awakening continuum extends from practicing a courageous inward search for truth to that of resting in the free and spontaneous play of one’s true nature.
  It is a mark of human existence that we tend to lose touch with the astonishing truth of the nature of being human as a capacity of openness and spontaneous responsivity. As inner searching deepens, one may discover that no particular state of authenticity or selfhood can be found. At this point, one may relax the search for authenticity and rest in its open-ended unfindability. Deepening authenticity becomes a letting be in which there is a release of searching for any particular meaning and a yielding to unconditional liveliness, the ever-renewing source of all meaning.
  Ken Bradford, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, currently offering advanced training, workshops, and lectures in the United States and Europe in Contemplative-Existential oriented psychotherapy and consultation. Formerly, he was in private psychotherapy practice for 25 years, an Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University and CIIS, Co-Director of Maitri Psychotherapy Institute, and a teaching associate with Jim Bugental. Ken has been a practitioner in the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975, and engaged in introducing meditative sensibilities and nondual wisdom streams into the experience-near practice of psychotherapy since 1988. His publications include, The I of the Other: Mindfulness-Based Diagnosis and the Question of Sanity, Listening from the heart of silence: Nondual wisdom and psychotherapy, Vol. 2 (with John Prendergast); and articles addressing “Therapeutic Courage”and “The Play of Unconditioned Presence in Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy,” among other topics at the interface between Existential-phenomenological and Buddhist thought & practice.
• BOB EDELSTEIN
  The Art of Jim Bugental's Psychotherapy
  Jim Bugental was a master at facilitating a client in their self-discovery in what is alive for them in the moment. Through lecture, discussion, an experiential exercise, and demonstration, five key concepts that informed Jim’s work will be explored. The concepts are: inward searching, self-and-world constructs, resistance, subjectivity, and presence.
  I will define and explore five key concepts that are core to both facilitating the client’s self-discovery and needed for in-depth therapeutic change to happen. The five concepts are: Inward searching, self-and-world constructs, resistance, subjectivity, and presence. Through an experiential exercise, the participants will experience subjectivity, inward searching, and presence. Finally, within a brief therapeutic interview, I will work with a volunteer to demonstrate the application of these concepts as the participant explores a concern. Debriefing will follow.
  Objectives
  1. Participants will be able to define and understand five key concepts central to Jim Bugental’s work as an existential-humanistic psychotherapist. 30 minutes
  2. Participants will experience their subjectivity, the inward searching process, and presence through an experiential exercise. 30 minutes.
  3. Participants will observe, through a brief therapeutic interview, the application of the concepts. 30 minutes
  Bob Edelstein, LMFT, MFT, is an Existential-Humanistic psychotherapist. In addition to being a therapist since 1973, he also provides consultation, supervision, and training for clinicians and students. Bob offers a one-day workshop entitled "Deepen Your Therapeutic Work Using an Existential-Humanistic Perspective" and a one-day workshop entitled "Authentic Engagement: A Radical Way of Being in the World". Bob is a blogger for Psychology Today and has published a number of articles on the Existential-Humanistic Perspective. Bob is a former board member of both the Existential-Humanistic Institute and the Association for Humanistic Psychology. He is a founding member of the Existential-Humanistic Northwest Professional Organization.
  Bob read Freedom to Learn by Carl Rogers, Ph.D. in 1971, and has had a passion for both the Existential Humanistic perspective and what it means to be authentic ever since. He is fascinated by the ways in which all of us as human beings construct and discover meaning in our lives and the uniqueness of each person's lived experience.
  After studying the works of the existential humanistic pioneers - Carl Rogers, Rollo May and Abraham Maslow - Bob entered into a mentorship with Jim Bugental. Starting in 1991, Bob participated in Jim's yearly week-long intensive training on "The Art of the Psychotherapist." These trainings served to deepen the participants' work as psychotherapists within the existential humanistic perspective, and within Jim's unique lens. After Jim retired, the trainings became collegial and consultant-led. Bob took what he learned from these trainings to Portland and created an existential humanistic training and case consultation group for professionals and students, which he has provided annually since 1995.
• TOM GREENING
  The Poetics of Psychotherapy
  I will talk about how Jim and I met, the common interests and context that deepened our relationship, and how our relationship evolved over decades.
  AUTHENTIC
  
  I searched for authenticity
  but faked it with duplicity.
  My real, true self evaded me,
  replaced by sheer hypocrisy.
  Jim Bugental showed me the way
  and so you see me here today,
  no longer phony and pathetic,
  but with an act that is “authentic.”
  It’s thanks to Jim that I can pass
  as someone with a touch of class.
  Tom Greening, PhD, has been in private practice in the same office since 1958, offering existential/humanistic/psychodynamic psychotherapy. His earlier training was psychoanalytic, including a personal psychoanalysis, and he has been influenced by the person-centered approach.
  Dr Greening is interested in what makes deep, life - changing psychotherapy work. His concern is with how therapists can be with clients in ways that respect and support their potential for change and active self-development, no matter how obscured it may be by psychopathology. Dr Greening opposes the medical model of "treating" "mental illnesses" and reductionistic depersonalizing theories and methods that over-emphasize bottom-up, biogenetic causation, and neglect top-down, psychological causation. He isconcerned about how social, cultural, economic, political and ideological forces affect individual lives and the practice of psychology, often to the detriment of the field and the people it purports to serve.
  Tom's goal is to help people empower themselves in the face of the external and internal forces that threaten to determine their choices and reduce their freedom and creativity.
• LOUIS HOFFMAN & MICHAEL MOATS
  Poetics Expressions in the Shadows: The Use of Poetry to Facilitate the Grieving and Loss
  Long before psychotherapy, poetry was used to facilitate painful expressions of grief and loss. In so doing, poetry often served roles similar to psychotherapy in promoting the grieving process. Poetic expression allows one to communicate what is evasive in everyday language and, in doing so, often deepens one’s own awareness of one’s experience. Poetry serves at once a way to honor and preserve what is being grieved while beginning the healing path. This presentation will examine ways that poetry can be used to facilitate healing in psychotherapy as well as other contexts. Particular attention will be given to the ways that using poetry to facilitate grieving and loss fits with existential-humanistic perspectives. Bugental, for example, emphasized process and nonverbal communication in therapy. Similarly, in poetry it is often the comas, line breaks, and imagery that go beyond words and create the most powerful impact.
  Louis Hoffman, PhD, is a faculty member and director of the Existential, Humanistic, and Transpersonal Psychology Specialization at Saybrook University. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a fellow/past-president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology. Dr. Hoffman has seven books to his credit, including Existential Psychology East-West, Stay Awhile: Poetic Narratives on Multiculturalism and Diversity, and Capturing Shadows: Poetic Encounters Along the Path of Grief and Loss. Dr. Hoffman also regularly travels to China to engage in dialogues and offer trainings relevant to existential and humanistic psychology.
  Michael Moats, PhD, first and foremost describes himself as a father, a husband, and a friend. His passion as a clinical psychologist lies in working with clients who are learning to redefine their lives and create new meaning, especially those dealing with grief and loss in its many forms (e.g, death, divorce, job loss, recent move, natural disaster, war). His favorite job was working in an in-patient hospice setting, and his research includes a qualitative, cross-cultural study (China and the US) that investigated meaning making and the lessons learned through loss. Additionally, he is credited an author of the book Capturing Shadows: Poetic Encounters Along the Path of Grief and Loss, a published poet, and author of various book chapters and articles, as well as a co-founder of the Zhi Mian International Institute of Existential-Humanistic Psychology, promoting continued international dialogue and training to contribute to a more rounded perspective within the global, psychological community.