INTENDED PARTICIPANTS: Participants must receive approval of the faculty member to attend. Licensed mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors) who are personally treating a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder or Dissociative Disorder NOS. Other health professionals, e.g., medical physicians and nurse practitioners, are encouraged to inquire about their interests with Professional Training Program Director, Victor Welzant, Psy.D., to determine if their background might fit the seminar content. While we are not interested in a homogenized group, and like diversity, we also must attend to the need to provide an educational experience where people's basic backgrounds will allow for individual growth in the context of growth for the group as a whole.
Dates: June 24, July 29, September 9, September 30, December 30, 2016 and January 24, February 24 and March 24, 2017
Meeting Time: Fridays 9:30 AM -12:00 PM
Faculty: Kimber Olson, LCSW, BCD (Email:changingtidesalaska@gmail.com)
Location: BP Energy Center Anchorage, Alaska
Continuing Education Credits: CE Learning Systems is a co-sponsor of this event. To earn continuing education credits, participants must purchase credits and complete an evaluation at the end of the course.
Course Description: This program is designed for clinicians in both private and public sectors. This course begins with an introduction to theories of dissociation, and looks at trauma and dissociation in children and adolescents from a historical perspective. The course then covers methods of assessment, assessment tools, and differential diagnosis across the spectrum of dissociative pathology. The psychotherapy section presents a model that integrates child developmental theory, attachment theory and family systems theory with an understanding of how trauma affects the developing brain. The therapy enriches purely cognitive behavioral perspectives with an emphasis on processing emotions related to traumatic events through creative expression and sensitivity to attachment dilemmas in traumatized children. The course addresses techniques for looking at difficult symptoms such as self-injury, trance states, rage reactions and sexual acting out. The course ends with a review of techniques for intervening within the systems that affect the child and adolescent such as family dynamics, social services, schools, and the legal arena. The effect of this work on the therapist through counter-transference will be discussed. Join our team of internationally known experts who have specialized in trauma and dissociation for several decades and learn about how to treat those “resistant cases"!