SPRING 2011 sEMINARS

I. Become an Informed Clinical Supervisor: Clinical Supervision For Mental
- Health Professionals Who Provide Supervision--

II. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Health Care Professionals--

III. Object Relations Theory: A Key to Developing Your Practice--

IV. Relational Psychotherapy--

Seminars format:
Our seminars are an interactive forum where learning takes place through discussion and dialogue. Applying critical thinking to the readings is essential for learning and metabolizing of the material. Participants are encouraged to raise questions, personal reactions, as well as work experience.

Who can benefit from our seminars?
Our seminars are designed for mental health practitioners - psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, social workers, nurse practitioners, and mental health counselors.

I. Become an Informed Clinical Supervisor: Clinical Supervision For Mental Health Professionals Who Provide Supervision

Instructor: Amira Simha-Alpern, Ph.D.
Seminar Time:  Monday, 9:00 - 10:15 AM
8 meetings beginning March 7, 2011 (no meeting on April 18 & 25)
Tuition $ 300*

This seminar reviews the basic concepts and models of supervision with an emphasis on the relational one. The goal of completing this seminar is to help participants use relational thinking to facilitate their supervisory work. In particular, the seminar is designed to help participants develop the ability to identify prominent issues in supervisory relationship; provide them with skills to assess core struggles of supervisees and create safe supervisory relationships that facilitate supervisee’s ability to optimally share difficulties and struggles; as well as ways of addressing them in order to advance the therapeutic work of supervisees.  

Who can benefit from this seminar?
This seminar is designed for licensed mental health practitioners who are providing clinical supervision or are interested in becoming supervisors.  

II. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Health Care Professionals

Instructor: Cheryl Kurash, Ph.D.
Seminar time: Wednesday, 5:30 - 7:30 PM
8 meetings: March 23, 30, April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4, 11, Half day retreat  (on a Saturday, date TBD)
Free Orientation Session: March 16, 5:30 - 7:00 PM, required for all participants.
Location: Setauket Neighborhood House, 95 Main Street, Setauket, NY 11733
Tuition: $ 375 (including handouts & CD’s)

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a structured 8-week seminar that uses mindfulness meditation to teach people how to take better care of themselves and live healthier, more adaptive lives. Over 25 years of research have demonstrated that people who practice meditation on a regular basis recover more quickly from stressful events, resulting in numerous emotional and physical health benefits. Participants have found help with anxiety, depression, headaches, chronic pain, insomnia, high blood pressure and the self-regulation of moods. In addition, mindfulness can improve concentration and attention, and thus work performance, enhance the ability to relax, improve self-esteem, and boost energy and enthusiasm for life.

Mindfulness - the practice of developing awareness, presence, and intention - is relevant for both health care practitioner and client and can be significant in facilitating an effective context for healing and self-care. This seminar is modeled after the highly successful Stress Reduction Program founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and adapted for mental health and health care providers. The program is described in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s best-selling book, Full Catastrophe Living, and is featured in the Bill Moyers PBS documentary Healing and the Mind . Teachings from Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression ( Segal, Williams, & Teasdale) and readings relevant for psychological work are also incorporated.

The seminar is intensive and experiential. Classes include instruction in formal mindfulness practices (sitting meditation, body scan, mindful yoga, and walking meditation) and group discussions to address the experiential component. Weekly practice assignments are given to help participants develop mindfulness skills and bring mindfulness into everyday life. Didactic components and selected readings emphasize the application of mindfulness in dealing with stress and link experiential learning with conceptual understanding and extension to both psychotherapy and health care.

Who can benefit from this seminar?
The seminar is designed for mental health and health care practitioners who are interested in learning mindfulness tools for use in their daily life and bringing mindful presence to their professional work. The heart of the program is experiential and practice-based; latter sessions will include readings and discussions on incorporating mindfulness skills into professional work. Anyone who would like to respond with more skill and creativity to the stress in his/her life and is willing to make a commitment to regular practice and class attendance is welcome to participate.

III. Object Relations Theory: A Key to Developing Your Practice

Instructor:  Samuel R. Taube, Ph.D., LCSW
Seminar Time: Wednesday, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
4 meetings beginning March 9, 2010
Tuition $ 180*

The seminar will be based on the works of Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairbairn, and D. Winnicott. Through reading and discussion of these prominent theorists and secondary sources by contemporary analysts, seminar participants will develop a deeper understanding of their patients’ inner lives. Through readings and case examples, participants will gain skill in recognizing how these inner experiences shape their patients’ lives and play out within treatment. In applying these theories to the reality of the treatment room, participants will gain valuable practical insights and enhance their therapeutic skills.

Who can benefit from this seminar?
This seminar is designed for mental health practitioners who are interested in becoming familiar with object relations theory. No previous knowledge of object relations theory is required.

IV. Relational Psychotherapy

Instructor: Amira Simha-Alpern. Ph.D.
Seminar time: Friday, 12:30 – 2:00 PM
8 meetings beginning March 4, 2011 (No meeting on February 19)
Tuition $ 325*

This seminar reviews the basic concepts in relational psychotherapy. It provides historical perspective on the origins of relational thinking and examines the basic concepts in this theoretical viewpoint. The readings were carefully selected to include representations of a wide spectrum of relational psychoanalytic thinking and practice. In particular, it focuses on (but not limited to) the relational thinking of Harry Stack Sullivan, Stephen Mitchell, Lew Aron, Philip Bromberg, and Jody Davies). The focus is on becoming familiar with basic relational concepts and theory of the mind. The material will review the controversies around the concept of multiple self states, as well as the use of enactment, self disclosure, and therapist’s emotional presence in clinical practice. The focus is on understanding interpersonal exchanges between patients and therapists, as well as the mutative aspects of therapeutic relationships from a relational perspective. The goal of completing this seminar is expanding participants' knowledge of a range of concepts in contemporary relational thinking, as well as applying relational principles in their own psychotherapeutic work.   

Who can benefit from this seminar?
This seminar is designed for mental health practitioners who are interested in becoming familiar with the relational psychology thinking.

*An additional fee may be required for the reading packets and/or audiovisual material