This presentation provides techniques, techniques, and more techniques, and yes, there are plenty of strategies as well.  There is very little theory here.  You can get lots of theory in graduate school.  The primary purpose of the strategies and techniques presented is to help the counselor or therapist make that vital, crucial, initial breakthrough, in which a change in attitude manifests and the client becomes motivated toward positive change.  Substance abusers are renowned for the difficulty they present to counselors and therapists.  This presentation directly addresses that difficulty by showing how to address resistance, defiance, apathy, and that fierce desire to avoid being controlled, and redirect all of this toward positive change. 

In the context of substance abuse counseling, attendees will learn techniques and strategies designed to bring about that initial breakthrough in attendant issues such as stealing, anger, lying, anxiety, depression, emotional pain, attention seeking, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emptiness, self-mutilation, violent impulses, and lack of impulse control.  While academic training programs usually focus on the willing client, this presentation focuses on how to achieve therapeutic change with the client who is unwilling, uninterested, and unmotivated.  In other words it is a seminar on how to bring the unwilling to the state of being willing, to change.

The techniques and strategies presented are described and illustrated through concrete sometimes dramatic examples, and are designed to be used immediately.  Many can be done in five to fifteen minutes.  A pivotal point of the entire presentation is how to more quickly establish the relationship and how it can then serve as a platform to support techniques.  Examples of techniques presented are the rehabilitation of empathy, addressing the hurt, addressing sub-personalities, the freedom challenge, therapeutic button pushing, and many more.

To Register or for questions about the Bensalem conference: Call Linda Taylor at 215-638-5200, ext. 141

Cancellations with a full refund are possible if made more than three (3) business days before the date of the conference. The registration fee, less a $15 processing charge, will be refunded if cancellation is made less than three (3) business days before the conference. No refunds will be made for cancellations on or after the conference date.

Act 48 PDE Application Forms available at registration table.