Course Descriptions
Diagnosis and Treatment of the Personality Disorders
Motivational Interviewing
Advanced Motivational Interviewing
The Practice of Clinical Supervision
Advanced Group Counseling Skills
DSM IV
Treatment of the Borderline Client: Brief and Interminable
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Substance Abuse
Differential Assessment of Substance-Abuse and Co-Occurring Disorders
Treatment of the High-Risk Client: Advanced Relapse Prevention
Harm Reduction: Theory and Practice
Advanced Treatment Planning for Motivational Interviewing



Diagnosis and Treatment of the Personality Disorders

Audio-tape "Brief  Treatment of the Personality Disorder Client: The Possible and the Impossible."

Clients with personality disorders have the uncanny ability to identify the therapist's unique vulnerabilities faster than the therapist will diagnose the personality disorder. Due to the ego-syntonic nature of the client's symptoms, therapists invariably find themselves struggling with countertransference reactions in the midst of the treatment. In addition, most experts suggest effective treatment of these clients is a long-term proposition at best, while managed care provides limited benefits. In this course you will learn to determine long-term and short-term treatment plan goals for these clients. Course can be taught as a one-day or a two-day class.  



Motivational Interviewing
Motivational interviewing is the state-of-the-art technology for treatment of addictive behavior disorders. The conceptual framework in motivational interviewing reframes denial as ambivalence, redefines confrontation and emphasizes the use of motivational strategies designed to resolve ambivalence impasses. Based on the work of William Miller and Stephen Rollnick. Can be taught as an introductory one-day or the skills-building three-day class.

More on Motivational Interviewing

Advanced Motivational Interviewing
A three-day intensive skills-training course in which participants practice the use of basic-advanced motivational interviewing skills. In this class, you will learn to find the motivational carrots and remove the obstacles to change by matching interventions to the client's stage-of-readiness for change. Class is based on videotape practice and critique. Maximum enrollment: 12.

The Practice of Clinical Supervision
Clinical supervision is the process that ensures your agency's vision is implemented with a high degree of fidelity. Unless clinical staff deliver an integrated, cohesive model of treatment, uneven outcomes can result. Uneven outcomes are what you cannot afford in today's health care environment. This three-day skills-training workshop trains clinical supervisors in the eleven core knowledge and skills competencies that characterize effective supervision.

Advanced Group Counseling Skills
This three-day, intermediate-advanced skills-based training focuses on helping group leaders develop the skills and conceptual framework needed to elegantly manage different aspects of group process including identification of overt and covert agendas operating at any time in the life of the group; how to surface covert agendas that interfere with the group's task, dealing with difficult people, activation of the here-and-now experience of the group, and how to manage conflict through the group process. This is an experiential workshop in which members rotate as group leaders and as members of a group.

DSM IV
Although the structure of DSM IV remains unaltered, most clinicians are unaware of the surprising number of substantive changes in this new edition. This two-day course helps students navigate through the seventeen major diagnostic categories of DSM, including changes in the multiaxial system, the differential decision trees, and the Appendix B categories.

Treatment of the Borderline Client: Brief and Interminable
Once clinicians understand that borderlines have no intention of using therapy to change, treatment can begin. This one-day workshop focuses on diagnosis of borderline personality, dynamics underlying the disorder, and three approaches to treatment depending on whether the clinician is delivering brief or longer-term interventions. Six stages of readiness-for-change will be presented to help guide the clinician's understanding of the borderline client's motivational status and belief system about the treatment endeavor. With borderline clients, it is important to keep in mind that the explicit treatment plan goal is often not the same as the implicit unspoken agenda. Workshop participants learn to identify unspoken agendas that can impede treatment progress. Survival tips for working with these clients are also presented.

Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Substance AbuseCognitive-behavioral interventions are one of the few treatment approaches with positive outcomes in the treatment of addictive behavior disorders. Participants in this two-day class learn to apply key components of the cognitive-behavioral model including the impact of the client's belief system, the role of conflict and decisional stress in behavior change, and the roles of social support, reactance effects and self-efficacy on the decision to drink or to use drugs.

Differential Assessment of Substance-Abuse and Co-Occurring Disorders
This course focuses on assessment and treatment of the dual diagnoses that are most common for clients with addictive behavior disorders. Failure to identify and treat underlying conditions is a large part of the poor outcome often quoted for addictions treatment. Course content includes assessment of major mental illness, personality disorder, affective disorders, anxiety disorders and childhood disorders that correlate with adult substance abuse.

Treatment of the High-Risk Client: Advanced Relapse Prevention
Relapsing clients are characterized by high levels of dual diagnosis, poor compliance, uneven motivation, and a chronic course to the disorder. Participants learn to identify a social-learning model of relapse to identify factors that shape, perpetuate, and maintain self-destructive behaviors. Workshop includes discussion of how relapse prevention strategies can be designed to anticipate potential stumbling blocks on the road to recovery and integrate this information into the treatment plan before they actually become a problem. Relapse prevention can enhance brief treatment of any DSM disorder that is characterized by chronicity and tendency to relapse. Based on the work of Judith Gordon and Alan Marlatt.

Harm Reduction: Theory and Practice
Harm reduction principles and strategies are designed to minimize the destructive consequences of illicit drug/alcohol use and associated high-risk behaviors. Rather than insisting on abstinence as a prerequisite to continued treatment, proponents of the harm reduction approach aim to meet drug users as their stage-of-readiness for change with community-based interventions that empower a diversity of clients to set and meet their own treatment goals. Current applications of the harm reduction model include needle exchange, methadone maintenance programs, college campus alcohol-use reduction interventions, and AIDS prevention campaigns.

Advanced Treatment Planning for Motivational Interviewing
The client's treatment plan provides the road map that guides the entire treatment experience. Participants learn to use the treatment plan document to individualize and tailor interventions to the client's unique strengths and vulnerabilities. This workshop focuses learning to develop treatment plans that incorporate an understanding of the client's stage-of-readiness-for-change and the principles of motivational interviewing. Focus is on development of treatment plans that assist the client in resolving behavioral, environmental, and emotional (ambivalence) impasses typical of each stage of readiness-for-change from precontemplation through relapse. Students are welcome to bring descriptions of places where they are stuck in treatment planning with their clients. Prerequisite: Must have completed at least the three-day motivational interviewing course.