Details: In this training, you will learn to attend to the Here and Now in a way that that produces immediacy and authentic relationship. You will also learn to deepen to emotional states and family of origin issues that move clients to profound change. Body and process are emphasized along with verbal material and content.

The workshop includes both experiential and didactic components. Demonstrations, videos, experiential exercises, and practice provide the opportunity to learn the skills of an in-depth approach that facilitates deep-level personal transformation. AEP work can be integrated with other approaches to allow for more immediacy in the therapeutic encounter.

Classes meet three times a month on Friday afternoons (4 to 8:15) from February 2013 to June 2014. Videos allow you to follow the material if you must miss a class.

Modules may be taken individually or together.

Location: 1140 Lehigh Street, Boulder, CO 80305

Dates: Friday afternoons, February 2013 - June 2014

Time: 4 to 8:15 pm (first 15 minutes social time)

Cost: $4500 for all 3 modules; $1500 for each module.

Discount: 15% discount if you register by the first day of class for all three modules; 10% discount if you register for each module in advance

The Trainers: Betty Cannon, Ph.D., Boulder Psychotherapy Institute President and founder, is a licensed psychologist and certified Gestalt therapist. She is the originator of Applied Existential Psychotherapy (AEP). She has worked with individuals, couples and groups for over thirty years and trained psychotherapists for over twenty years. She holds doctorates in both literature and psychology. She is Professor Emerita at the Colorado School at Mines and Adjunct Professor at Naropa University and Regis University. Dr. Cannon is a member of the editorial boards of three professional journals: Sartre Studies International, Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, and Existential Analysis. She is an internationally known author, lecturer and workshop presenter. She is the author of many journal articles and book chapters on existential therapy. Her book, Sartre and Psychoanalysis, is considered a classic in existential psychology. She is the executive contributing editor for the section on Existential Psychoanalysis for the Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis. She and Reed Lindberg, BPI Managing Director, are currently writing a book on Applied Existential Psychotherapy.

Robyn Chauvin, M.A., L.P.C., is a senior member of the teaching faculty at the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute. She has 17 years experience and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, certified AEP therapist, and Board Certified Music Therapist. She has varied experience in hospice, inpatient psychiatric, and private practice psychotherapy. She is adjunct faculty in the Graduate School of Psychology at Naropa University. Her approach and methodologies include Gestalt, Applied Existential Psychotherapy, Psychodrama, and The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. Of particular interest is working towards wholeness with persons facing internalized oppression or complicated trauma. Ms. Chauvin is currently writing a book on Gender Construction and Freedom: An AEP Approach.

Topics

Module I AEP Individual Therapy (60 hours) - February-June 2013
History and Influences on AEP: Gestalt Therapy, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Rogerian Nondirectional Therapy, Body Oriented Psychotherapy, Trauma Work, Existential Philosophy


Model of the Psyche: Perls and Sartre - Consciousness as No Thing; Perls - Five Layers of the Neurosis


Direction of Change in Therapy: Moving from the Spirit of Seriousness to the Spirit of Play


Five Pillars of AEP: Un-knowing, Awareness, Contact, Experiment, Choice. 


Emphasis on Body Awareness: Mirroring the Body


The Language of Responsibility (Response-ability)


Polarities and the Division between Reflective and Prereflective Consciousness


Typical Stages of an AEP Working: Deepening to Family of Origin Issues and Back Again


Defenses as Boundary Disturbances: Introjection, Projection, Retroflection, Deflection, Confluence, Identification with the Aggressor, Projective Identification, Denial, Dissociation, Splitting, Reaction Formation, etc.


The Cycle of Awareness: Sensation, Awareness, Mobilization, Action, Final Contact, Satisfaction, Withdrawal


Unfinished Business: Transference and Countertransference in an AEP Setting


AEP Work with Dreams: Enacting the Dream


AEP Work with Trauma: Meaning and Despair


Psychodynamic Issues in AEP: The Family of Origin and Developmental Conflicts


Existential Issues in AEP: Nothingness as the Ground for Change

Module II AEP Relational Therapy (60 hours) - August-December 2013
An Existential Approach to Relationships: Bad Faith and the Couple's Dilemma
Being Yourself While Being with Another: Authentic Relatedness
The Therapist's Impact: The Therapist as a New Kind of Third
Dialogue: Getting the Couple to Talk to Each Other
Working Interpersonally with the Body and Process over Verbal Material and Content


Working with Defenses Interpersonally: Interlocking Projections and Other Defensive Stances


Working with Transference Relationally: The Impact of the Family of Origin
The Therapist's Response: Working with Countertransference
Gender and GLBT Issues in Relationship
Working with Sexual Issues
Working with Trauma and Its Interpersonal Impact
Existential Issues: Recreating the Relationship and Working with the Emergence of Existential Anxiety
Two and More: Working with Alternative Lifestyles

Module III: AEP Group Therapy (60 hours) - February-June 2014

An Existential Approach to Group Therapy
AEP History and Influences: Existential, Gestalt, Psychodrama, Psychodynamic, and Body-Oriented Approaches
Group Therapy as Revolutionary Praxis: A Sartrean Approach
Group Themes and Paradoxes


Beginning and Maintaining a Group
Encouraging Interaction and Working with Conflict


Stages of Group Development


Levels of Intervention: Intrapsychic, Interpersonal and Group


Projecting the Family of Origin: Transference in Groups
The Therapist's Response: Countertransference in Groups
Working with Dreams and Images in Groups
Co-leading Groups
Ethical and Multicultural Issues in Groups
Working with Trauma in Groups
Distinguishing between Psychodynamic and Existential Issues in Groups