A WMHC member will present a transcript of work with a high conflict couple, and our guest speaker will give direction/feedback on the case. We will also take input from the live audience. If you are planning on attending and would like to participate, please review the case transcript and Treatment History on the Members Only events page. George Faller Prior to a career in the field of mental health, George Faller MS, LMFT spent 20 years as a NYC Firefighter and NYC Police Officer. His experience as a FDNY Peer Counselor, particularly following the events of…

There is an infinite amount of intuitive and empathic wisdom that we cannot access through logic alone. Many of us have felt it at least once. The linear mind plays an essential role in understanding the analytical knowledge specific to diagnosis and treatment in the healthcare profession. Now, we must invite our nonlinear, intuitive mind to create a complete picture of the person we are trying to help. Judith Orloff MD, a psychiatrist on the UCLA clinical faculty, empath, and New York Times bestselling author of The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People…

Speaker Bill Doherty, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Family Social Science at The University of Minnesota. He directs the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project, which developed “discernment counseling” for couples on the brink of divorce, and The Citizen Professional Center, which does community engagement projects on health care and divisive public issues. Following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, he co-founded Braver Angels. This citizen initiative uses couples therapy principles to bring conservatives and liberals together to counteract political polarization and restore…

This conversation will be about the neglected clinical population of adults with a history of the developmental trauma of childhood neglect. These people have truly been largely unseen and un-helped in our field. Although most of us by now have heard of the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experience Survey) conducted by Kaiser in 1995-1997, it took until quite recently for the larger psychotherapy field to even know of it. Neglect as an adverse experience has stayed hidden, at great detriment to the large numbers who have slipped through the cracks. Due to the larger ignorance,…

Helping people worldwide resolve their emotional difficulties and training mental health professionals, coaches, and educators on Emotional Resolution. The unique situation we are currently living in is unveiling hidden anxiety and fear and exacerbating old ones. Let’s use this strange time as an opportunity to resolve our fears, so our emotional responses can be congruent with our actual reality instead of reactions out of fear. Thanks to the work of scientists such as Lisa Feldman Barrett, Joseph LeDoux, or Antonio Damasio, we now better understand how the brain constructs recurring…

“ The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places ,” said Hemingway. Diana Fosha adds: “ There is no better way to capture the ethos of AEDP than to say that we try to help our patients--and ourselves—become stronger at the broken places . . . and to discover places that have always been strong and never were broken .” Until recently, the mental health field, focused on pathology, and lacked concepts to capture the motivational strivings for health. Drawing on neuroscience and developmental research, Accelerated Experiential-Dynamic…

Do escalated couples make you want to quit being a therapist? There is nothing like a bad couple therapy session to train therapists not to want to see couples Join us as we explore those moments of greatest difficulty for couples, from contempt and high reactivity to despair and stone-walling silence. Learn how to keep your focus and go deeper in the face of reactivity. Through a combination of lecture, videotape, and exercises, participants will experience the power of Emotionally Focused Therapy in transforming clients’ defensiveness into openness and safer relationships. George…

Although narcissistic dynamics are universal and often benign, their excesses and enactments (such as narcissistic rage and the sense of entitlement to do harm) can do immense interpersonal, social, and political damage. Because patients with self-esteem problems are highly susceptible to feeling criticized and shamed, clinicians typically find it difficult to address narcissism in psychotherapy. But given the potential destructiveness of some narcissistic conditions, even limited progress in such clients is worth our therapeutic time. Because they depict only one…

Fisher discusses three brain systems that evolved for mating and reproduction: the sex drive; romantic love; and partner attachment. She focuses on her colleagues and her brain scanning research (using fMRI) on romantic passion, rejection in love and love addiction. Then, using her additional fMRI data and a questionnaire taken by 14+ million people to explore four broad basic styles of thinking and behaving associated with four primary brain systems--the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen systems—and the role these temperament dimensions play in mate choice,…

The concept of codependency has defined our views of caregivers and caregiving since it’s pop culture ascendence in the mid 1980’s. But what version of it is best and how is it to be utilized in 2019? This engaging talk takes a fresh, direct look at the 350+ books on the topic, along with related concepts and treatment goals evolved over the past 35 years. Together we will move the discussion from codependence to interdependence using new concepts, new ideas and new therapies. Utilizing an attachment based method of the assessment, evaluation and treatment of family members and loved ones of…