On-demand Webinars

Dr Jackie Amos

Parallel Parent and Child Narrative (PPCN) is a story-based psychotherapy for verbal children and their primary caregivers, developed in New Zealand by early childhood educator and child therapist Heather Chambers. PPCN was developed to address the hurt that can accumulate in parent- child relationships in the face of intergenerational adversity and trauma. John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory, stipulated that to help distressed parents and children it was necessary to work with the parent and child in parallel, at the level of the internal working model. These two principles are at the heart of PPCN.  Taking a strengths-focused approach, the PPCN therapist actively works to uncover the untold story of care and connection, hidden beneath the stories of trauma and distress, whilst also addressing traumatic memories. The parallel narrative sets the relationship on a new path, where understanding precedes action, and parents and children, together, find unique solutions to the shared challenges that they face.

Jackie trained in PPCN with Heather Chambers in 2003. Jackie and Heather still continue to collaborate, with Jackie researching the mechanism of action of PPCN in her PhD. PPCN has been central to Jackie’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatric practice for 20 years. She has successfully used, and trained others in PPCN at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Southern Adelaide. Jackie has more recently supported the inclusion of PPCN into the suite of interventions offered in a family reunification service in Centacare Catholic Family Services. Heather and her colleagues enjoy success working with families in Child and Adolescent Mental health Services and private practice across New Zealand

In this webinar, speaking as highly-experienced PPCN practitioner and trainer (and mother-child relationship researcher), Dr Jackie Amos will discuss the importance of dyadic therapies for parents and their school age children, explain the role of the PPCN therapist, outline the PPCN process with reference to the postulated mechanism of action and talk about how PPCN has been used effectively in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, and in a Family Reunification Service in South Australia.

Dr Lynne Jacobs

The paradox is that the more one tries to become who one is not, the more one stays the same (Yontef & Jacobs, 2008, p329).

Gestalt’s paradoxical theory of change suggests that when people allow themselves to be fully and aware in touch with who they currently are, change and growth then emerge as the inevitable and natural outcome of such contact and genuine self-knowledge. This view represents a radical shift from the more commonly accepted tradition of change which puts emphasis on upon client trying to change to conform. Working with paradoxical theory of change can be challenging for the therapist. The therapist needs to decline the role of traditional change agent and become an active partner to develop a greater awareness of all the forces in the field. In this webinar, Dr Lynne Jacobs will explain this Gestalt model of change.

Dr Kevin Keith

Emotions may indeed be one of the most common experiences in human life, but behind this more obvious reflection lies a rich, fascinating but deeply paradoxical landscape of empirical research. Indeed, the emotions may qualify as one of the Chalmer’s so-called hard problems in cognitive science, alongside mind-body relationship and consciousness. Nonetheless, this highly fluid terrain of emotion research offers mental health workers important depth, breadth and renewed hope when approaching client’s affective experiences, especially subjective states of meaning.

This 1.5 hour ‘emotions primer’ ambitiously seeks to offer practitioners at least three benefits. First, an up-to-date survey of current multidimensional research will provide an overview of both commonalities and important disputes in the field. What are these elusive phenomena that comprise emotional experiences? Included here will be a review of competing theories and the emerging consensus for a pluralistic based component model. Second, after this required conceptual heavy lifting, attention will turn to the central dilemma of unique individual meaning (referenced by the technical terms ‘intentionality’ or ‘aboutness’) versus physiological mechanism. Following an exploration of emotion dysregulation as a factor in psychopathology, focus turns to a surprisingly broad field of emotion regulation. Finally, the introduction of a practitioner’s checklist will offer viewers a chance to integrate the session’s content within their unique practice.

Emotions provide a model of how to embrace a pluralism in our work that may include both relief of suffering and enhancement of personal meaning.

Dr Jackie Amos

This webinar will present an attachment-based model of intergenerational maternal neglect and abuse of children. The model integrates two novel hypotheses with existing evolutionary research in the areas of attachment and interpersonal trauma. The first hypothesis is that ‘shame-without-solution’ is as important as ‘fright-without-solution’ in understanding traumatising attachment relationships in infancy. The second addresses the controlling adaptations to traumatising attachments in middle childhood and the corresponding hostile, helpless states of mind in adults with histories of chronic interpersonal traumatisation in important caregiving relationships. These adaptations are increasing recognised empirically as integral to the transmission pathway, and although attachment theory provides an evolutionary explanation of development during infancy few attempts have been made to extend an evolutionary understanding to these important observations in middle childhood and adulthood.

Dr Amos will outline a second hypothesis that suggests as development proceeds, parents and children ‘utilise’ dominance and submission hierarchies conserved during evolution, to stabilise fear and shame without solution. The model has direct clinical utility and has been used to predict fundamental objectives of any effective treatment approach. These objectives provide a useful structure to guide intervention with families caught in distressing intergenerational cycles of relational trauma, neglect and abuse.

Dr Paul Martin

Therapists often find that their bereaved clients struggle to cope with the death of a loved one in ways that vary greatly between individuals. One person may find it difficult to express the emotional facets of grief whereas another may have a hard time maintaining a meaningful connection to the deceased, and still another will stumble while adapting to changes in their family. A conceptual framework is needed to ascertain what specifically is off kilter and how the individual can cope more effectively with their particular challenges.

In this webinar, Dr. Paul Martin will discuss diagnostic categories that differentiate complicated bereavement from normal grief as well as William Worden’s task model of mourning and how individuals can benefit from managing specific components of the mourning process that are not unfolding well. He will then explore fascinating examples of grief rituals from cultures around the world that facilitate different aspects of mourning.

Dr Jamie Rickord

Trauma increases vulnerability to mental illness and stress related psychopathology. Repeated and sustained activation of stress response systems exert ‘wear and tear’ on the body and brain, referred to as allostatic load, which results from the direct effects of persistent activation of the stress response, together with the loss of systems that normally oppose or buffer the stress response. This process of homeostasis will be discussed along with the concept of entropy in trauma, noting that the biological mechanisms that account for the observed changes in the body and mind, ‘how the body keeps the score’ remains inadequately defined.

Considerable pre-clinical data support critical roles for the endocannabinoid system and its main target, the cannabinoid 1 receptor (the most abundant G protein linked receptor in the mammalian brain) in the adaptation of the brain to repeated stress exposure. Endocannabinoids regulate affective states, participate in memory consolidation, retrieval and extinction and modulate the effects of stress on the brain and may have an important role in the biology of play. The endocannabinoid system is altered by exposure to trauma and current evidence indicates a link between the loss endocannabinoid system homeostasis and maladaptive brain changes after trauma and therefore a mechanism for ‘how the body keeps the score.’

Dr Joan Haliburn

The importance of the therapeutic relationship has occupied scholars, researchers and clinicians for decades; no consensus has been reached as to what comprises the therapeutic relationship; however, a substantial body of empirical research now supports its importance in predicting change in psychotherapy. Transference, countertransference, therapist ruptures and therapist self-disclosure, have been the basis of some studies attempting to describe the process of psychotherapy and the role of the therapeutic relationship, but each is subject to different variables, which need to be further studied. The concept of the therapeutic relationship went mainstream when it moved from psychoanalysis to the field of general psychiatry, namely goals, tasks and bonds and more recently to other approaches, where the relationship is now considered important.

Along with historical information, Dr Joan Haliburn will embark on another aspect of the therapeutic relationship which has not been pursued to any great length, and quoting Bowlby: “the psychotherapist may become a temporary attachment figure for the patient by becoming a reliable and trustworthy person in the patient’s exploration of his/her experiences – a secure relationship”. Dr Joan Haliburn will, with the use of case examples, explore this idea further, drawing from developmentalists – Daniel Stern, Colwyn Trevarthen, Michael Basch and her own interest in this area both as a psychotherapist and supervisor for more than 30 years, and raise discussion around attachment security and the therapeutic relationship – a new experience.

Prof Andrew Moskowitz

When Eugen Bleuler created the diagnostic category Schizophrenia in 1908, psychotic symptoms were not considered a core component. Indeed, Bleuler recognized that trauma could cause some psychotic symptoms and that auditory verbal hallucinations could be dissociative in nature (Bleuler, 1950/1911). Unfortunately, these insights were soon forgotten, and for the past half-century, schizophrenia has been viewed as the paradigmatic psychotic disorder. Researchers and clinicians working with persons diagnosed with psychotic disorders rarely consider dissociative disorders, or even posttraumatic stress disorder, as a differential diagnosis. On the other hand, those working in the dissociative disorders field have long recognized that psychotic symptoms, including voice hearing, are common in dissociative disorders (Moskowitz, Mosquera & Longden, 2017). In this context, it is argued that dissociative and posttraumatic disorders are often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders, with profound clinical implications; importantly, while the treatment of choice for psychotic disorders has long been medication, intense psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for posttraumatic and dissociative disorders.

This webinar will present evidence for the above, along with explanations for the presence of psychotic symptoms in posttraumatic (including ICD-11 Complex PTSD) and dissociative disorders (Moskowitz, Heinimaa & Van der Hart, 2019). While the presence of psychotic symptoms is not useful as a differential diagnostic tool, certain aspects of delusions and hallucinations may aid in differential diagnosis. Dissociative symptoms provide a more solid foundation on which to distinguish between psychotic, posttraumatic and dissociative disorders; the most relevant dissociative symptoms in this regard will be highlighted. These clues to differential diagnosis, and the conceptual and clinical implications of these differences, will be discussed and important unanswered questions raised.

Prof Andrew Moskowitz

For the last half of the 20th century, under the influence of the German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider’s conception of auditory verbal hallucinations as a first-rank symptom of schizophrenia, voice hearing was considered a core psychotic symptom, pathognomic for schizophrenia. However, over the past few decades, this position has been challenged. Research has demonstrated voice hearing to be diagnostically non-specific, common in the general population, and strongly linked to dissociation. According to this view, voices derive from life events which are often traumatic in nature; undermining the concept of ‘pseudo-hallucinations’, the experience of voice hearing appears indistinguishable between groups.

The clinical implications of this changing position on voice hearing have been increasingly recognized. Since voice hearing is now seen as on a continuum with the dissociative identities in dissociative identity disorder (DID), and therapeutically engaging with different dissociative parts has been a cornerstone of DID treatment, clinicians have begun to explore dialogical approaches to working with voice hearers. These approaches – in which the therapist and/or voice hearer has conversations with voices with the goal of improving their relationship (not getting rid of the voices) – will be discussed and the rationale explained. One promising approach called ‘Talking with Voices’, aligned with Compassion-Focused Therapy, will be presented in some detail, as it has been the focus of a series of impressive research studies. At the end, we will consider the implications of this viewpoint on the nature of human personality and identity – whether the notion of a unitary self might be an illusion.

Dr Kevin Keith

We live in troubled times, perhaps very troubled times. This webinar focusses on recognition of the dark clouds that may blur our horizons. How might we feel when considering pressing global imperatives — avoiding climate disaster, reversing accelerating inequality, combatting terrorism, ridding our communities of historical racism, and halting this century’s general decline in democracy? Acute and chronic fear, pervasive uncertainty and near paralysis may represent unavoidable but also dangerous byproducts. Not surprisingly, conducting therapy in these troubled times may also require something extra from each of us. The presentation offers an opportunity to reflect and clarify what that extra might be for each of us.

The webinar also provides an application of three key writings from Erich Fromm to address this challenge: Escape from Freedom (1941); The Art of Loving (1956) & The Art of Listening (1994). Of particular interest are his noted reflections hatred and authoritarianism, as well as his clinical emphases on loving and listening. The latter are particularly valuable when seeking with our clients ‘to look safely and not compulsively look away’. How do we care for healthily love our selves? Practical options for self-care will be explored, including aesthetics, spirituality, meaning-making, titrating our engagement with the news.

Dr Kevin Keith

This webinar explores case formulation as a vital but complex skill in mental health practice, tracing its roots in medical science and examining its challenges in psychotherapy. It reviews five key difficulties outlined by Eells (2007), considers cultural and contextual factors, and addresses the lack of consensus in multi-modality practice. The session concludes with a practical exercise, applying different formulations to a single case from four therapeutic perspectives—CBT, third-wave therapies, psychodynamic, and humanistic—to highlight each approach’s unique contributions.

Dr Nick Bendit

Dissociation is a relatively obscure and often misunderstood area of mental health, surrounded by mystery and controversy. However, over the past decade, there has been a growing body of literature exploring its scientific and clinical aspects. It is far more common in everyday mental health than many realize and can significantly influence treatment outcomes across various psychiatric disorders. This 90-minute webinar explores what dissociation is and how it presents, provides a brief overview of the cognitive science behind both normal and pathological dissociation, examines its role as an adaptive mechanism in human evolution, and discusses its relevance in conditions such as PTSD, borderline personality disorder, and dissociative identity disorder.

Dr Joan Haliburn

In this webinar Dr Joan Haliburn  will attempt to clarify the differences between these terms often subsumed in the term Developmental Trauma Disorder. She will elaborate the aetiology, developmental lines and symptomatology presented and the importance of elucidating these in anyone who presents with a history of trauma. Dr Haliburn will also touch on the history of how BPD began to be seen as a pejorative label by some, with attempts to replace it with PTSD, only to be debated as being too simple when complex trauma was involved, changing this to Complex PTSD. This is a compromise diagnosis – it does our patients a dis-service depriving them of appropriate treatment, which she will discuss with case excerpts.

Prof Andrew Moskowitz

Almost 20 years ago, psychologist Andrew Moskowitz published a pair of articles on the relationship between dissociation and violent crime (Moskowitz, 2004a, 2004b). At that time, the relevance of trauma to violence had been recognized (e.g., The Cycle of Violence, Widom, 1989), but the important corollary role of dissociation had hardly been noted. In these two articles – a broad review of the relationship between dissociation and violence and an analysis of the role of dissociation in different types of offenders – a range of important issues were considered, including: a) the prevalence of dissociation in violence, b) the frequency of amnesia after violent crime and its relation to dissociation, c) violence committed by individuals with dissociative disorders, d) dissociation as a mediator between childhood trauma and adulthood violence, e) peri-traumatic dissociation during violent episodes, and f) the role of dissociation in violent fantasies and Amok-style mass murders. Since 2004, these two seminal articles have been referenced hundreds of times in subsequent reviews and empirical investigations. The continued relevance and importance of the issues raised there will be discussed in the context of recent research and publications, along with implications for research, clinical work and forensic evaluation. Prof Andrew Moskowitz will provide a comprehensive overview of the links and overlaps between the trauma, dissociation and violence.

Prof Warwick Middleton

In some ways, ongoing incest during adulthood constitutes the last frontier in our awareness of extreme and enduring trauma. It has existed as something referred to occasionally in clinical anecdotes, and any form of systematic study of this form of trauma has come very late. That delay suggests an extension of society’s reluctance to accept the reality of the widespread nature of incest itself. Extreme incestuous abuse, though published in the popular press is often underreported. According to research (Middleton, 2013), one in eight adults with a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder were in a situation where they were incestuously abused as adults. Because it is under-reported, practitioners may suddenly find themselves caught unaware when a client trusts them enough to disclose that abuse. Their disclosure will have clinical implications for such practitioners.

This webinar positions ongoing incest during adulthood within the spectrum of extreme trauma and highlights the reality that almost inevitably it also encompasses, some variant of organised abuse. Victims of ongoing incestuous abuse that extends into their adult years, inevitably satisfy diagnostic criteria for dissociative identity disorder (usually in its more extreme forms). In this webinar, Prof Warwick Middleton examines the phenomenology and abuse profiles of such victims, exploring how therapists can work with such challenging clinical cases.

Dr Joan Haliburn

Eating Disorders are common in Australia. The conceptualization of eating disorders has expanded rapidly in the last ten years to include binge-eating disorder (BED) and Avoidant-Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) in addition to the existing Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Bulimia Nervosa (BN). Adolescence is occurring much earlier nowadays and includes children from 10 to 18 years of age and is a time for first occurrence of any of these eating disorders. They are characterised as disabling, chronic and relapsing conditions with high relapse rates, particularly for those treated as in-patients. In this webinar, Dr Joan Haliburn will discuss the clinical features of these disorders and emphasise the need for their early recognition as well as their co-morbidity, the latter often leading to failures in treatment if unrecognized. Treatments will be briefly looked at, and there will be time for discussion.

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Prof Andrew Moskowitz

Delusions are the paradigmatic symptom of psychosis, the essence of irrationality. And yet, is there a way in which they could be understood? If we knew what a person experienced in their early childhood, could we possibly understand their delusional beliefs? This is the thesis put forward in this seminar. Beginning with a discussion of the flawed concept of delusions, we look at the nature of traumatic memories and empirical evidence that delusions can be linked to (adult) traumatic experiences. Pushing back to early childhood, we look at the complicated question of infantile amnesia and the psychological impact of disorganized attachment experiences. The concept of the double bind is also introduced, in a discussion of the psychological purposes that delusions may serve. As an illustration of these ideas, the case of Judge Daniel Schreber, whose father was a famous German pedagogue, is presented; his ‘memoirs’ of his psychosis were analyzed by Freud, Lacan and others to support their theories of mental illness. Others have recognized in Schreber’s delusions the symbolic expressions of experiences of childhood abuse. Finally, the therapeutic implications of these ideas are explored – can delusions be alleviated by accessing memories of the experiences on which they are based?

Dr David Schreiber

Psychoanalytic theory is continually evolving, with deep and lasting changes regularly occurring in the way clinicians conceptualize psychopathology and treat patients. Intersubjective-systems Theory (otherwise known as Phenomenological Contextualism) has played a major role over the past four decades in bringing attention to the contributions of both the analyst and the patient in the clinical setting, cementing into place the two-person psychology mindset which has been concurrently (and at times conjointly) developed in the broader, contemporary, relational psychoanalytic tradition. 

As developed by George Atwood, Bernard Brandchaft, Donna Orange, Robert Stolorow and many other collaborators, Intersubjective-systems Theory has evolved more recently into both a philosophically-influenced understanding of the psychoanalytic process, and a reconsideration from a contextualist and phenomenological perspective of all the major themes in psychoanalytic treatment, including unconsciousness, trauma, psychoanalytic action and affective experience.

In this webinar we will explore the theory itself, along with consideration of the practical implications for treatment. We will also take into account the broader context of the development of psychoanalytic theory, and where Intersubjective-systems Theory differs, and is similar to, other contemporary psychoanalytic models.

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Zern Liew

Men and boys represent 50% of the population who may be overlooked by the therapy industry. The APA released their first ever guidelines for working with men and boys in 2019 – not even five years ago. The level of psychological distress experienced by men appears to be increasing. Suicide levels remain unacceptably high. Men appear less willing to engage with health practitioners. This is especially so when it comes to mental health services. Most practitioners are women. It is not unusual to encounter those who believe that men are alexithymic and uncooperative clients. Men harbour fears, misinformation, and unhelpful beliefs about therapy. This webinar presents what the literature says about men and therapy. Understanding how men cope and seek help is important for practitioners who are serious about serving this population.

Prof Onno van der Hart

Chronic childhood abuse and neglect can be understood as severe attachment or betrayal trauma because it usually occurs in the intimate [trust-based] relationships of parents and/or other caretakers. Consequently, a child may develop so-called disorganized attachment (DA) and/or a complex trauma-related dissociative disorder. In adulthood, those conditions can compromise other intimate relationships, as well as challenge the therapeutic relationship. Dissociative disorders are understood as a division of the personality into distinct dissociated parts. Each part has its own first-person perspective, whereby DA can be understood as [those] different parts perceiving intimate relationships differently, i.e., either as [desperately] longed-for, or as [extremely] dangerous. Those perceptions may test the therapeutic relationship, evoking severe approach/avoidance conflicts among these parts.

Clinical experience has taught us, in such cases, it is better to strive for a collaborative therapeutic relationship—also as a model for fostering collaboration among dissociative parts. In this webinar, Dr Onno van der Hart will discuss the clinical challenges of working with Complex Dissociation, with parts integration as a major therapeutic goal.

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Dr Joan Haliburn

Anxiety disorders are more prevalent than depression during adolescence, a time marked by significant developmental tasks, hormonal changes, and physical growth often referred to as a unique developmental period. Separation anxiety is the earliest form of anxiety and a core issue to recognise in all psychotherapies.While some degree of anxiety can be protective, it can lead to further symptoms when normal discomfort and bodily sensations are misinterpreted – particularly when preoccupation with morbid thoughts and fears occurs concurrently. Consequently, it is essential to differentiate between various types of anxiety disorders, as each requires a distinct therapeutic approach.

Without intervention, anxiety symptoms can amplify, intensify, and persist. Untreated, Somatic Symptom Disorder (previously known as Somatization Disorder) may develop as a key manifestation of prolonged anxiety. In this webinar, aspects of differentiating and treating these different types of disorders will be explored via representative case examples.

Dr Darren Haber

 All language, including that of emotionality, assumes meaning within specific contexts and instances of use.  Our understanding of emotional experience takes shape via mutually created language games that are intersubjectively situated; we learn spoken meaning in lived contexts.  But what happens with patients raised in accommodative or misattuned surrounds, coerced into speaking the scripts of others—alienated from their own mother tongue?  Here the therapist may also find themselves estranged, from familiar language worlds of empathic attunement and curiosity, shunted aside in favor of spoken prescriptions or metaphysical ‘cures.’  ‘Talk therapy’ is a misnomer; we are attempting nothing less than transforming patients’ ways of living, a context lived rather than distantly described or conceptualized.

 In this webinar Dr Darren Haber will explore how Wittgenstein revolutionized our understanding of language, underscoring its bewitchment via our intelligence, when words and phrases carry assumed ‘truth’ through repeated use and familiarity. He will introduce new ways of thinking about the language world of patients, and what hidden assumptions may be at play in what is or is not being said; describe how both participants are vulnerable to reifying bewitchment; and examine how our own theoretical languaging can make us susceptible to becoming frustrated, confused, or otherwise frozen in dyadic processing.

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Dr Joan Haliburn

‘SELF’ and ‘SELF AND OTHER’ are inseparable – whether in early development, or in the psychotherapeutic relationship. Developmental Theory is a Relational Theory and forms the basis of most psychodynamic psychotherapies. The term narcissism is most often regarded as a triad of vanity, exhibitionism and arrogant ingratitude, but it also needs to be seen as a state of developmental arrest, vulnerability, where the sense of SELF lacks sufficient inner resources to give meaning to life, simply through living it fully. The role of relational trauma needs to also be understood in the precocious attainment of autonomy, early idealization and identification with the other, seen in the developmental psychopathology of some narcissistic personality disorders. They occur on a spectrum and cannot all be lumped together. We must develop this understanding in the psychotherapy of Narcissistic Personality Disorders.

In this webinar, Joan Haliburn presents a developmental understanding of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorders and the complexities of psychodynamic psychotherapy in these disorders.

Prof Melanie Turner

Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) is now a pathway of health care available in all Australian States and in New Zealand. The laws are similar Australia-wide, but differ slightly in each State, applying to people who have an incurable, advanced and progressive disease, illness or medical condition, and are experiencing intolerable suffering from that. In this webinar, Prof Melanie Turner will disambiguate the facts and myths surrounding VAD, covering key aspects including a summary of each region’s legislation and key differences; how the VAD process works and how people access it; the diverse teams of health-care professionals who provide VAD; what families and clinicians say about being engaged in the VAD process; as well as areas which need further considerations. The psychiatry/psychology view of ethics, neutrality and possible values-clashes, as well as grief and loss are also covered.

Dr Kevin Keith

In 1997, Elaine and Arthur Aron introduced their initial research on the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). They investigated individual personality differences in both explorative and inhibited responses to the environmental stimuli, especially in the context of adaptive human health. Research suggests HSP individuals may potentially represent 20% of the human population. At the same, the HSP presentation has correlated with higher adult mental health risk—stress, ill health and lower life satisfaction—and is hypothesised to be present in 50% of adult individuals who may struggle with mental health. There are also positive aspects—HSP’s may respond quite well to supportive environments—but these aspects  has not yet been well-researched. 

The session will consider questions along three lines of enquiry:
•    First, the discussion looks at conceptual issues—past and present. What exactly is the current view on the “contents” of the HSP? What are its sub-facets and cohort clusters?  Measures? How does it compare to other personality approaches? 
•    Second, what has the HSP research demonstrated in terms of mental health risks and possible therapeutic implications? What does it mean to say that an HSP is more sensitive to both negative and positive changes in environments? How exactly has therapy with managed? A case example of HSP informed therapy will be provided. 
•    Third, what might be the benefit and challenges of embracing trait or temperament considerations? How might we avoid ‘trait fatalism’, whereby clients’ sense of agency might be enhanced? Why has the field of therapy shied away from trait notions? Can we integrate into our current practices? 

The webinar asks, have we missed something here? The answer is probably less definitive, but the field definitely merits our attention!

Dr Nick Bendit

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) digital psychotherapy services have emerged as a way to improve access to mental health care. However, these services lack adequate regulation, raising concerns about safety, privacy, and accountability. This webinar explores the ethical challenges posed by DTC apps that connect consumers to therapists worldwide or rely on artificial intelligence. The webinar will also discuss therapists’ responsibility when using DTC apps

Dr Nick Bendit

Probably the most difficult patient to provide therapy to is the one who is chronically suicidal. We worry about many aspects of their care, because a patient’s death suicide is one of the worst things we can face. First, and foremost, we want to help our patients, and a death by suicide is the most concrete manifestation that we haven’t.

Not only do we feel we failed them, but we are likely to question our own competence, and the rest of the world is likely to question our competence and the therapy we delivered. This includes family and friends of the patient, our colleagues, the public, and the legal system. This underlying anxiety when working with the chronically suicidal patient has a powerful effect on the therapeutic process.

In the webinar Dr. Nick Bendit will provide some didactic information about suicidality, and then explore why patients become suicidal, and what the function of suicidal thoughts and urges are. Dr. Bendit will develop a general psychodynamic hypothesis about the origins of suicidal thoughts, and the relationship between deliberate self harm and suicidal thoughts. He will then differentiate between acute suicidality and chronic suicidality, and briefly outline the different treatment needs of each group. Dr. Bendit will also discuss how the fear of suicide structures the therapy, and influences the therapist’s response. Finally, some important prevailing myths about suicide prediction, assessment and prevention will be described

Lisa King

It is apparent that many traumatized individuals, as well as those individuals who live with severe mental illness, have suffered, and continue to suffer from symptoms directly caused by perceived threats to their personal power. Their complex problems require creative, individually-tailored approaches synthesized from the examination, deconstruction, and reconstruction of multiple knowledges accessed from the point of resistance (POR) perspective. POR is defined as the point in time and place where questions like “Who am I? Why do I feel so terrible? Can you help me to feel better?” are first posed.

A creative and reflexive interdisciplinary framework recognizes that where there is resistance to oppression, there is the opportunity to learn. By supporting clients to approach their self-narrative with curiosity, the therapist and the client may collaboratively perceive the crucial point at which discourse renders the client simultaneously vulnerable and powerful: the point of resistance. The POR is the starting point for questions, exploration, and dialogue that provides the compass and the means for new direction and change.

Many multidimensional trauma-informed approaches exist “to feeling free to know what you know and feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed or collapsed” (van der Volk, 2014). Personal experience, peer-reviewed literature, and Lisa’s practice-based evidence working with clients with complex diagnoses informs the origins and theoretical development of her Points of Resistance Theory (PORT). Her experience working with PTSD and trauma, schizophrenia and trauma, attachment trauma, personality disorders and dissociative disorders, indicates that the primary objectives of trauma-informed therapy are the restoration or instillation of hope, self-worth, psychological safety, empowerment and relational connection with self. To help the client know what they know and feel what they feel, Lisa will introduce a new, interdisciplinarian practice framework (PORT). She will discuss a case study that demonstrates how PORT may be integrated into all health professionals’ practice, thereby offering their trauma patients/clients a portal to hope, transformation, and post-traumatic growth.

Peter McKay

This webinar dives into the inclusion of the body in psychoanalysis by using a few different theoretical lenses. From a chronological look to a contrasting of aspects, we take a journey examining the evolution of body-related diagnoses from Freud’s theories to contemporary understandings. Primarily, Peter will look at the shift in diagnostic terminology for somatic symptoms – from “Hysteria” to “Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)” through the years in three diagnostic manuals (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5-TR), International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2). These manuals represent the “organisational bodies” prevailing in the therapy room.  This is overlayed with the identification of the different world events and societal needs driving? with these changes, to illuminate context and allow the identification and unpacking of some of these decisions to change terminology and criteria.

How the body may have been disavowed via these taxonomies will be considered next. This disavowal is explored by first contrasting psychoanalytic aspects with somatic aspects and then considering an integrated assimilation of the two. What aspects may have been tyrannical in precluding the body to have a true voice…leading to the current “paradox of inclusion of the human body”. Essentially ticking the “body” box without achieving a truly integrated assimilation of it into psychoanalysis.

What is it about the human body that causes our organisational bodies to disavow?

Finally, the webinar ponders the iatrogenic impact of this disavowal of the authentically embodied body in psychoanalysis. Ultimately asking the question: What needs to happen to allow the human body to truly have a voice in the therapy room

Dr Paul Martin

Loss, grief and mourning are ubiquitous human experiences that pervade the work of therapists, psychiatrists, counselors, and social workers alike. Helping those who have experienced a significant loss can be challenging and confusing. In what ways can we tailor our interventions to accommodate the specific temperaments and psychological needs of our bereaved clients? Dr. Paul M Martin will explore research on the topics of complicated bereavement and attachment theory. He will then share his thoughts on the importance of taking attachment style into consideration when designing treatment plans for bereaved clients. Lastly, Dr. Martin will discuss how grief-focused therapy can be strengthened by working with clients to create personal grief rituals that are catered to their unique psychological needs and grounded in meaning about the specific relationship they are attempting to mourn.

Zern Liew

How often do you pause to contemplate the therapeutic changemaking journey you take your clients on? Therapist training tends to focus on the theory, skills, and other characteristics of therapy. Therapists are not often encouraged to contemplate the delivery of therapy as a series of stages, perhaps for fear of rendering it a rigidly prescriptive and disconnected manualised act. Nonetheless, the research literature does note the presence of broad and fairly distinct stages in the therapeutic changemaking process.

Contemplating your consultation process as a series of interconnected phases, each with unique goals and techniques, can be invaluable without falling into the trap of turning it into a manualised service. Each phase of your service delivery comes with different goals, activities, techniques, and outcomes. The phases must work seamlessly together and support therapy’s dynamic and iterative nature. What phases need to be included or excluded? Which techniques need polishing? Do your phases match your chosen clinical approach? Insights from questions like these can help you improve your service delivery and identify opportunities for innovation.

Your consultation process (distinct from the in-therapy interpersonal/intrapersonal process) also affects your client’s experience of your service and their progression. Insights from walking through your process in your client’s shoes can also contribute to your continual improvement and client retention.

Dr Valerie Sinason

In 1990 Dr Valerie Sinason had a paper published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy, “Passionate lethal attachments” concerned by the lack of progress of three children seen in three different settings, an EBD School (school for children with emotional and behavioural disturbance), a Day Unit for disturbed excluded children and an outpatient Clinic, Dr Sinason noted a particularly destructive constellation in both their inner and outer worlds when the child is left far more at the mercy of internal attachments which can be lethal. Where a child has a severe intellectual disability, it can be even harder to extricate themselves from a destructive relationship. Thirty three years later, after further understanding of the significance of disorganised and lethal attachment patterns, and more long-term work with adults with dissociative identity disorder, Dr Sinason developed the ideas into “Dying for Love; an attachment problem with some perpetrator introjects” (2017) which was published in the Journal of  Trauma and Dissociation, Vol 18, (3).

In trying to understand the problem with the children Dr Sinason found profound answers in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Nancy recognises her lethal attachment to the violent Bill Sykes as a consequence of her earlier attachment to Fagin. She knows it. I am drawn back to him, through every suffering and ill usage; and should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand’. Rose knows that is madness but can do nothing to help. At another point she says to her would-be rescuers I am chained to my old life. I loathe and hate it now but I cannot leave it. I must have gone too far to turn back’. In this webinar,  Dr Sinason will discuss the nature and impact of a disorganised attachment pattern that is in fact infanticidal (Kahr 2007) and the issues this poses for therapy.

Prof Andrew Moskowitz

While hallucinations have long been considered a psychotic symptom, it has also been recognized that hallucinations occur in individuals who are sane, and in situations where they are not pathologized. One of these is grief, or bereavement. These experiences, termed bereavement hallucinations or simply ‘sensory experiences of the deceased’, occur in more than half of adults who lose their partner or spouse, and are often cherished, not feared. They appear to be more common in marriages or relationships rated as highly positive and are not necessarily associated with pathological grief. In this webinar, the prevalence and correlates of bereavement hallucinations are reviewed, and a range of models developed to understand them presented. Such models include attachment-related, trauma and dissociation-based, and continuing bonds theory. Interpreting the experiences as the deceased actually communicating with the living partner is also socially validated in many cultures. Finally, the experience of bereavement hallucinations raises questions as to the extent to which the human mind itself is relationally-structured, or dialogical in nature.

Prof Melanie Turner

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions compromising childhood development. Although it has been conceptualized as a disorder of childhood for about fifty years, up to 90% of children with ADHD continue to experience some symptoms into adolescence and adulthood. In this webinar, Prof Melanie Turner will cover key aspects of diagnosing and therapeutically working with children and adolescents exhibiting symptoms on the ADHD spectrum. Seen through a psychiatric lens, she will also explore the overlap with other causes of similarly presenting challenging behaviours and mood changes, and how to work with those overlaps. 

Prof Turner will also discuss non-medication options for ADHD treatment, especially psychotherapy. In addition to her practice-based experience, she will bring a contemporary research lens to focus on the comparative effectiveness and efficacy of the various medication and non-medication approaches. She will also discuss the significance of working with families, and the importance of communication with schools and Allied Health to align on ADHD treatment approaches.