Constructivist Psychology Network Conference, July 19-23, 2006

Pre- and Post-Conference Workshops

We held the following pre-conference workshops on Tuesday, July 18 and post-conference workshops on Sunday, July 23. 

These workshops, as well as some workshops held as part of the regular conference activities, were available for Continuing Education Credit (CEUs).

Workshops on Tuesday, July 18:

Jonathan D. Raskin, "Everything You Wanted to Know About Constructivism But Were Afraid to Ask" Half-day morning workshop

Do you keep bumping into "constructivism," but remain confused about what precisely people are talking about? Well, you're not alone. Constructivist psychology seems to be everywhere these days, even though most mental health professionals and academics have little or no training in it. If you're tired of pretending to know what all the fuss is about, then this half-day workshop is for you. In an informal and engaging atmosphere, Dr. Raskin will provide participants with an overview of major constructivist theories and their relationship to current developments in psychology and psychotherapy. Three specific types of constructivism, and social constructionism will be covered. Special attention will also be paid to helping participants disentangle a lot of the jargon that surrounds constructivist theorizing and often confuses the uninitiated. Implications of constructivist theories for psychotherapy, ethics, and individualistic approaches to psychology will be introduced. Interactive discussions and group exercises will be incorporated into this workshop to assist participants as they master constructivist concepts in comfortable and non-threatening surroundings.

Jonathan D. Raskin, Ph.D.  is Associate Professor of Psychology and Graduate Coordinator at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and is President of the Constructivist Psychology Network. 

Michael Hoyt, "Single Session Therapy:  When the First Session May Be the Last."  Half-day afternoon workshop

Many therapies involve brief lengths of treatment, sometimes a single meeting. Discussion will include productive therapist attitudes, methods for finding a focus, ways of facilitating clients' strengths, and a structure for organizing the tasks and skills involved in the different phases (pre, early, middle, late, follow-through) of therapy.  Numerous case examples, including video, will illustrate brief therapy techniques applicable in both initial sessions and in the course of longer treatments. 
 

Michael F. Hoyt is an expert clinician and internationally renowned lecturer. A senior staff psychologist at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, California, he is also a member of the clinical faculty of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco. Dr. Hoyt is the author of The Present Is a Gift, Some Stories Are Better than Others, Interviews with Brief Therapy Experts, and Brief Therapy and Managed Care. He is the editor of Constructive Therapies, Vols. 1 & 2 and The Handbook of Constructive Therapies and is co-editor of The First Session in Brief Therapy.

Dr. Hoyt has been honored as a Distinguished Continuing Education Speaker by both the American Psychological Association and the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. He has been named a Contributor of Note by the Milton H. Erickson Foundation.

Post-conference workshop Sunday, July 23:

Bruce Ecker, "Coherence Recognition Training Intensive." Half-day afternoon workshop

“Symptom coherence” means that your client produces her/his symptom entirely because of unconscious personal constructs that require its existence. If you want to utilize symptom coherence for zeroing in on your clients’ underlying, symptom-necessitating constructs deeply and promptly, you’ll need to hone certain kinds of thinking and listening. This highly interactive workshop will develop your skills of recognizing the ephemeral appearance of symptom coherence during the therapy hour—the momentary surfacing of key material that is easy to pass right by if your thinking and listening isn’t tuned to coherence. Staying coherence-focused during a session is like watching for a mouse. Suddenly, the tip of the tail of the mouse (or elephant) is there in the mousehole, and then gone. Did you spot it? Can you grab it? Can you get it back? We will go on a coherence-spotting spree by watching one session video after another and catching out coherence as it shows up, for a wide variety of client presentation styles and presenting symptoms. Each time we spot the coherence—some tell-tale tip-off of how the symptom is necessary—we’ll then consider how to respond to the coherent element so as to reel in more and more of what that tail-tip is attached to: the emotional truth of the symptom, the woolly mammoth who remembers everything and knows what it means right now for safety, well-being or justice. A constructivist adventure!

Bruce Ecker's psychotherapy career of two-plus decades follows his fourteen-year stint in physics research, where he first engaged the challenge of identifying patterns of order in complex phenomena. He is co-originator of coherence therapy and coherence psychology (formerly known as depth-oriented brief therapy, or DOBT) and co-author of Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy: How To Be Brief When You Were Trained To Be Deep, and Vice Versa as well as numerous articles and training videos. Bruce is an adept, inspiring, innovative clinician and an enjoyable, thought-provoking presenter. He has taught widely in professional workshops, clinical conferences and graduate courses at John F. Kennedy University. His private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area consists of therapy for individuals, couples and families and case consultation for therapists.

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