Online Conference: Therapy on the Wild Side – Depathologizing and Working with “Psychosis” and Extreme States of Consciousness

CEU’s available for professionals.

Conference: “Therapy On The Wildside: Depathologizing and Working with “Psychosis” and Extreme States of Consciousness”  

This can be helpful for anyone who has dealt with difficult mental states and the professionals that help folks who deal with them.

Ron Unger shared this program with me and it’s a wonderful opportunity.

Thanks to the work of those who have recovered from extreme states of all sorts and also to those who have assisted them on their journeys, there now exists an ever growing resource of humane and humanizing strategies that can allow us to help folks who often have psych labels in ways that bring all of their uniqueness and personhood into the world – without stigma and without pathologizing.

It can often be difficult to make it to seminars where such strategies are taught.  Now you can access “Therapy On The Wildside: Depathologizing and Working with “Psychosis” and Extreme States of Consciousness“

Hearing voices can seem bizarre and disorienting, but much less so when people find ways to calmly explore the experience, instead of desperately trying to suppress it or distract from it.  In two different presentations, you can learn how to do a voice profile, and how to carry on a dialogue with a person’s voices or parts of their personality, in a way that increases coping and integration.  The presenters for this part are Ron Coleman, Karen Taylor, and Rufus May, all of whom are leaders in the international Hearing Voices Movement.

Have you ever wondered what the relationship might be between the deliberately induced altered states and dissociation induced by hypnosis, and the more chaotic states we see in people coming in for help?  Gabrielle Peacock, MD from Australia is trained in Ericksonian hypnosis, but you don’t have to be a hypnotist to learn and benefit from the approaches she teaches, approaches that  honor these individuals abilities in ways that shamans or witch doctors do in other cultures, approaches that can “bring clarity, enlightenment and peace to an individual who feels lost in our western world devoid of such useful cultural guides.“  She also has a second presentation about working with young people who may be on the verge of slipping into problems with psychosis.

Ron Unger has a presentation in the conference too “Understanding Extreme States and “Psychosis” as Attempts to Solve Problems:Integrating Perspectives on Trauma, Spirituality and Creativity.”  Ron’s emphasis is on finding ways to shift away from trying to suppress psychotic or extreme experiences (a method which often backfires and makes them worse), and instead focusing on understanding and making peace with such experiences, using discretion, so that healing can begin.

There are other presentations as well.  You can learn from Brad and Hilary Keeney about how to “minimize the handling of narrative, causal understanding, explanation, and sideline commentary in favor of plunging directly into the live, unfolding interactive stream of therapeutic interaction,”   Dr. Jeffrey Zeig offers ideas about how to work with the person and not the label, and Bill McLeod, MD shares advice about what does and doesn’t help derived from 50 years experience working inside mental hospitals.

While the presentations are geared toward helping people with “extremes” I think you may find what you learn may be helpful in working with a wide variety of people and experiences.

And psychologists, social workers and professional counselors can earn up to 6 CE credits for no additional fee.

Register here:  “Therapy On The Wildside: Depathologizing and Working with “Psychosis” and Extreme States of Consciousness”  

Once you register, you can access the presentations whenever you want, or download them to your computer.

Please do check it out and share it too.

Participation supports all the presenters and Beyond Meds too.