Speaker(s):

David Pitonyak, PhD

Presentation: Many people served by our system are relationship impaired. Many have become relationship resistant. This workshop examines the impact of anxiety on each person’s capacity to develop healthy relationships and what we can do to help build self-confidence in the people we serve.

Objectives:

• Describe the positive role anxiety can play in our lives in helping us to process social information and organize ourselves in time and space
• Explain how too little or too much anxiety can disable our ability to process information
• Explore strategies for building self-confidence in people who lack relationships, including short, repeated practice, having concrete things to do, and making a contribution to others

Speaker(s):

Karolyn Senter, MEd, PhD

Presentation: Because the therapist’s primary tool in their work is the self, care of the therapist is extremely important for both the therapist and the client. This presentation will highlight the benefits of managing energy over managing time alone. It will address the functioning of the therapist from 4 sources of human energy (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) and identify ways to improve energy in all areas.

Objectives:

• Reveal why managing energy is more important than managing time
• Identify energy thieves in their personal and professional lives
• Describe how to formulate a plan to address self-care on all levels of functioning (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual)

Speaker(s):

Robert Cox, MA, LPC, NCC

Presentation: Trauma is at the root of all addiction and often results in dissociative and personality disorders. When the addiction is comorbid with these disorders, treatment can become difficult. Often treating the trauma that is creating reactivity and dissociative states becomes primary. This presentation covers recent research in trauma, the way it changes the brain and how we can begin rebuilding neural connections by processing the trauma and using mindfulness as a tool to keep the client from dissociating and in the room with the therapist. By using mindfulness and a few basic techniques we can begin expanding the emotional window for our clients while keeping them emotionally regulated and allowing them to reprocess the trauma. Some basic techniques in mindfulness and directed meditations will be discussed for aiding the client through those difficult spaces.

Objectives:

• Identify structures in the brain affected by trauma and how that affects emotional development
• Describe forms of dissociation and potential signs of its occurrence
• Review methods of using mindfulness to regulate through anxiety and keep the client present
• Discuss mindfulness for somatic experiencing in the processing of trauma
• Demonstrate several mindfulness exercises that attendees can use with patients

Slides and Handouts:

MIndfulness, Affect, Dissociative and Person notes

Speaker(s):

Kyra Haney, MS, CRADC

Jessica Zeger, CRADC, CS

Presentation: Research has firmly established that incarcerated populations have experienced traumatic events and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at a much higher rate than the general population and a link between traumatic events and later criminal activity has been established. Of particular importance for correctional substance use disorder programs, is the fact that individuals with PTSD are at a 4 to 5 times greater risk of using or misusing substances than those without PTSD. A woman who is incarcerated may have experienced an average of 6 traumatic events in her lifetime, whereas a typical woman in the community has experienced an average of 2 traumatic events. Incarcerated women also have higher rates of PTSD than women in the community (40% vs. 12%) and are ten times more likely to use substances in response to trauma (64% vs. 6%). This presentation will not just look at the prevalence of trauma, but will provide an overview of how two correctional women’s treatment programs have begun the transformation to providing trauma-informed care. This transformation has included identifying ways to assess participants’ level of trauma at admission and discharge, implementing measures to positively impact trauma, training staff and making a trauma sensitive and responsive shift in culture and practices. Presenters will provide an overview of the steps taken to begin providing trauma-informed care to women in Institutional treatment.

Objectives:

• Provide an overview of how to make the transformation to providing trauma-informed care
• Provide suggestions on how to assess and identify trauma
• Provide suggestions on how to address trauma once identified
• Provide training suggestions for staff
• Provide suggestions on effective collaboration in implementing a trauma-informed approach

Slides and Handouts:

Haney_Best Practices Providing Trauma-Informed Care to Women in

Speaker(s):

Dean Rosen, PsyD

Presentation: There has been a quiet revolution taking place of parents who recognize that their child has strong identification with a gender that was not assigned at birth. Some children are showing this identity as young as three or four, often insisting that they live as that other gender. While psychologists believed in the not so distant past that they could change a child’s gender variance by rewarding the play of more stereotypical boy or girl toys, we now recognize that gender is a more fixed trait that is biologically based and not easily changed. When not allowed to live in their preferred gender, these youth can develop severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, self-harm or other self-destructive escapist behaviors. These children are subject to much bullying for breaking the gender code enforced by peers on how boys should act and how girls should act.

This presentation will inform the attendees on the development of our current concepts of gender, the treatment approaches used to deal with gender dysphoria, and the resources available to help families and their child, including self-help groups, medical approaches, community resources, and counseling or psychotherapy to build self-acceptance and acceptance by parents as well as how schools can support these students to build a climate of respect and tolerance. This presentation will also address what is now called non-binary identities of youth who see themselves on a gender spectrum, somewhere between male or female.

Objectives:

• Review the evolution of our concept of disorders of gender identities
• Discuss the experience of gender variant youth as they develop
• Describe the multiple approaches used to help families and children
• Explain gender as a spectrum and non-binary identities