LIVE TRAINING: February 10th | 2:00pm-4:00pm

2 CEUs (Ethics credit approved)

Presenter Bio:  Diane Hovey, PhD, a licensed marriage and family therapist, is the CEO and owner of Alliance for Healing and Photo-Insights. Prior to Alliance for Healing, she was the founder and director of the Family Institute for Creative Well-Being. Dr. Hovey is a translator of experience and a creative guide who assists her clients in finding emotional healing, understanding, and clarity of vision. She works with clients to address life-altering challenges such as loss, betrayal, and traumas that impede the ability to navigate life’s uncertainties. Dr. Hovey has been exploring the potential of PhotoTherapy for nearly three decades. Based on her research and clinical applications, phototherapy card sets were developed to be used in various therapeutic settings to address experiences outside common understanding. The images have the potential to convey multiple layers of meanings and aid in reflecting on difficult-to-express thoughts and feelings from the client’s point of view.

Description: The purpose of this workshop is to learn self-care tools that aid in integration and maintaining our congruency that is too often threatened in our emotionally, trauma laden practices. Conventional approaches to self-care often lack the integration of our lived (including work) experiences into new ways of knowing and understanding. When this happens, we need the tools to weave experience with expectation and new ways to fill our empty vessels of self. This is an experiential workshop in which we will practice self-care through the use of poetry, photos & perspective. Participation is required. Come prepared to dive into an experiential process of exploring creative healing tools.

Objectives:

1. Define why congruence is critical to ethical practice.

2. Articulate both the benefits and potential risks of failing to address/practice becoming congruent.

3. Recognize their symptoms of burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress and the importance of prompt and ongoing practices to avoid these practice risks..

4. Prioritize ethical practices that include self-awareness and growth that contributes to congruence.

5. Incorporate insights gained into the work with clients to promote their own becoming.

6. Engage in self-care that promotes ethical practice.

7. Practice the art of becoming congruent.

8. Explore personal blocks/barriers to engaging in self-care.

LIVE TRAINING: February 14th | 10:00am-12:00pm

2 CEUs (Cultural Competency credits approved)

Presenter Bios:  Miriam Cornell (they/them), MA, LMFT, and Shoshana Rivers (they/she), MS, LMFT, are neuroqueer therapists at Transcend Psychotherapy, a Minneapolis-based outpatient clinic that serves predominately queer, trans, and neurodivergent individuals, couples, and families. Miriam specializes in the way that neurodivergence can intersect with issues of religious trauma, gender, and sexuality, and also lead a religious trauma support group. They are a parent of two neurodivergent teens and are passionate about supporting trans and neurodivergent youth in and outside of the therapy space. Shoshana has experience working with neurodivergent couples and sex therapy clients and highly values non-traditional ways of doing therapy. They are passionate about supporting young adults with complex intersecting marginalized identities and mental health challenges with issues related to relationships, self-care, and adulting.

Description: In recent years, an increasing number of clients are showing up in our offices self-identified as neurodivergent (ND), with a formal ND diagnosis like Autism or ADHD, or curious to learn more about whether they too might fall under that spectrum. This increase in diagnosis and self-understanding can be profoundly transformative for a person’s mental health and overall quality of life and therapy is often a pivotal chrysalis for that process. However, clients often struggle to communicate needs, questions, and experiences around neurodivergence to their therapists leading some to feel profoundly misunderstood and even rejected altogether from the therapeutic space. At the same time, therapists can find themselves frustrated and/or under-resourced with neurodivergent clients. There is an acute need for the professional community to come together to better understand how ableism shows up in the therapeutic space so we can create spaces that are safe and welcome for all clients to show up as their whole selves. In this training, we will address select factors that leave neurodivergent clients feeling misunderstood, lost, and alone. Topics that will be addressed include sensory issues and needs, formal and self diagnosis, resourcing ND clients, and managing PDA (Persistent Demand for Autonomy) in sessions. This training will be presented by two neurodivergent therapists through a neuro-affirming lens. There will be space to ask questions throughout.

Objectives:

1. Ideas for cultivating a welcoming and effective therapeutic space for neurodivergent clients

2. Increased facility in assisting clients navigating diagnosis

3. Ability to identify the ways that ableism shows up in the therapeutic space

4. Understanding of Persistent Demand for Autonomy (PDA)