The Master Therapist’s Toolkit

Addictive Behavior as the Problem

Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

It’s no secret that many therapists consider the field of addictions treatment to be dangerous foreign territory with its own special language and methods. But increasingly, therapists and substance abuse professionals alike have begun to recognize the connection between addictive behavior and traumatic life experience. In this video, Janina will present an approach to addictive behavior that:

• Focuses on the interactive relationship between the underlying trauma symptoms and the impulse to “use” to regulate unbearable feelings and sensations
• Provides a meaning-making component that lessens shame and offers inspiration to live a “life beyond trauma”
• Integrates Sensorimotor Psychotherapy techniques that teach clients how to regulate their nervous systems, decrease anxiety, tolerate sadness and loneliness, and ground themselves both physically and emotionally
• Engages the client’s right brain through drawing, diagramming, movement and gesture, as well as utilizing traditional cognitive interventions

Mastering the Anxiety Game

Reid Wilson, Ph.D.

Therapists are supposed to make clients safe and secure, creating a cozy haven from a cruel world, right? Well, when it comes to treating anxiety, there’s growing evidence that the quickest, most effective approach involves instructing them to ramp up their fears while telling themselves how much they welcome the experience. In this video, you’ll learn how to help clients shift their relationship with their fears and override the responses that perpetuate them. After this session you’ll be able to:

• Explain how to rapidly engage anxious clients in the therapeutic alliance and change their mindset toward their fears.
• Identify why the first step to changing an overwhelming response to anxiety is accepting the perceived threat as something the client can approach and change.
• Implement strategies to help clients transform their fear into a challenge to be met or a puzzle to be solved.

The Challenge of Treating Complex PTSD

Mary Jo Barrett, MSW and Linda Stone Fish, MSW, PhD

When working with trauma cases do you often see clients go into flight, fight, and/or freeze? Do they yell at you, insult you, or leave the session? Are there times you find yourself angry at your clients or just downright don’t like them? Do you recognize your own flight, fight, and/or freeze response? Welcome to the messy, often confusing world of trauma treatment. In this video, you’ll explore practical in-session techniques as well as a framework to help you recognize what’s happening when things heat up and get intense. After this session you’ll be able to:

• Describe how to assess the client’s motivation, stage of change, and preferred mode of learning and how to build a therapeutic collaboration around it
• Summarize the importance of therapist transparency
• Explain how to empower clients by making the therapy process as safe and explicit as possible
• Explore intra-family violence or include additional family members in your sessions