REMINDER * Last Call

May 30, 2009 *** Baltimore, MD

Baltimore Behavioral Health, Inc.

Training and Conference Center

On Line Brochure: CLICK HERE

Therapeutic metaphor – telling stories is an extraordinarily powerful technique for helping people grow and change. Stories work so well because they can communicate directly with the unconscious. The listener frequently experiences spontaneous flashes of insight, fresh perspectives, solutions to problems, and discovers new ways to utilize personal resources for coping and living life more successfully. Therapeutic metaphor has many applications in psychotherapy and is used by good communicators in every profession.

The material in this workshop is derived from the work of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., the renowned hypnotherapist, and other tellers of teaching tales throughout the ages. Erickson is noted for his innovative approach to psychotherapy. He utilized therapeutic metaphor and story telling as well as hypnosis extensively, and coined the term Brief Therapy for his approach of bringing about therapeutic changes for his patients, often in just a few sessions. Dr. Erickson thought of the unconscious as having its own unique awareness, interests, responses, and learning and that it is resourceful, creative and solution oriented.

This Workshop to Help You:

• Create and deliver effective therapeutic metaphors
• Learn to use anecdotes, jokes and humor
• Use storytelling to create change in your clients
• Change the metaphors people live by
• Acquire metaphors and stories from books, movies, and
other sources for your professional use

To read the online brochure and register, CLICK HERE

Posted by Ron Klein at 6:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.

A recent article by Dorothy Rowe in the June 16 issue of New Scientist gives a new perspective on the recent increases in ADHD and Bipolar Disorder among children and young adults. She writes that "In the U.S. nearly a million people, mostly children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetamine-like drugs for ADHD." She also cites the observations of psychiatrists Gabrielle Carlson and Joseph Blader of Stonybrook University, New York, that "...in 1996 just 13 out of every 100,000 children in the U.S. were diagnosed with bipolar disorder [and] in 2004 the figure had leapt more than fivefold to 73 in 100,000.

Rowe states that the symptoms of these two disorders resemble those of a person who is afraid. She offers that psychiatrists and psychologists often diagnose children as having ADHD or Bipolar Disorder on the basis of a reports by parents and teachers. In some cases the doctors have not obtained additional information about the child's home life, nor have they actually sat down for detailed conversation with the child. Rowe writes that perhaps, instead of suffering from ADHD or bipolar disorder, many of these children might actually be experiencing fear---fear of adults---adults with power over their lives; the power to inflict hurt.

Rowe states that "In saying this I have broken a powerful rule: namely, that parents and those in loco parentis must not be criticized. If a child behaves badly, the child is at fault. If she or he can't be regarded as naughty and must be punished, she or he must be mad and the madness treated with drugs, the effects of which on the developing brain are still largely unknown. Blaming and punishing the child are also ubiquitous in cultural practice...Diagnosing children with ADHD and bipolar disorder requires collusion. Parents and doctors must agree the fault is in the child. So parents fail to mention their own economic, social, or personal problems, or underplay them, while doctors don't ask because they lack the skills and resources to help the parents. Thus parents can go on believing they are good parents faced with an inherently flawed child..."

Judith E. Pearson Ph.D. maintains a private counseling practice in Springfield, Virginia, specializing in hypnotherapy and NLP. She is the Executive Director for Certification for the National Board for Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists. She has recently published The Weight, Hypnotherapy and You Weight Reduction Program: A Manual for Hypnotherapists and NLP Practitioners (Crown House, Ltd.). Her web site is www.engagethepower.com.

Posted by Ron Klein at 8:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An article in the Washington Post newspaper describes the way we experience one very interesting psychological bias. Seems it may explain why it was so hard for our field to accept the notion of brief solution-focused psychotherapy (2-8 sessions). Think about your present bias when considering the possibility of single session therapy as preposed by Moshe Talmon in his book, by the same name.

To read the Washington Post article, click here .

To puchase the book Single Session Therapy, click here .

Posted by Ron Klein at 6:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By: Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.

Potential clients ask, "What is your success rate?" To me, knowing my success rate means tracking clients and maintaining statistics on them over time. In a solo practice, that is just not feasible, even though I do encourage client feedback when our sessions together have come to an end. I know that my programs for smoking cessation and weight control have high success rates, because the results are immediately available, and I see many clients in those two programs. In fact, a minimum weight reduction of 12 pounds is built right into the structure of my Motivational Strategies weight reduction program!

Usually, when new clients ask about my success rate, they are usually asking about my success rate for their particular problem. I see such a wide variety of people in my practice that trying to keep statistics for every type of problem would be a momentous task indeed, and would not yield data that could be considered "scientifically significant."

I tell clients It makes more sense to me to spend my time seeing clients, marketing my services, and improving my skills, than keeping statistics. I can tell you that most of my clients report good results, refer their friends and family to me, return for additional services, and send me letters and cards year after year thanking me for my help.

Continue reading "Maximize Your Results!" »

Posted by Ron Klein at 6:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By: Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.

To me, counseling and coaching is about helping people not only solve some problems of daily living, but about helping people get more out of living. Do you want a life that is rich, meaningful, and fulfilling? Do you want to take charge of your choices and live life "on purpose" with a sense of direction? If so, then it might help you to take some quiet time to answer some really big questions.

Continue reading "The Ten Most Important Qestions You'll Ever Answer " »

Posted by Ron Klein at 2:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The perception of the client the therapist holds in mind is the prophecy the client will fulfill.

When the client and the therapist hold the same perception of the client in mind, the fulfilling of the shared prophecy is inevitable.

Posted by Ron Klein at 2:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By: Phyllis Watts, Ph.D.

Psychology and managed care are engaged in a conversation. It is a national conversation and an incredible one. The discussion, conversation, argument is not only about economics or the industrialization of health care. It is, at its deepest level, a conversation about soul--a fight for the soul of our profession. And, I believe that unless we can come to see that, we will miss the essence of what is happening and our deeper role in this unfolding drama.

Continue reading "Are We Becoming a Soulless Profession " »

Posted by Ron Klein at 8:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Timmy was in the 4th Grade and not doing very well. He seemed to be a very unhappy little boy. His teacher, Mrs. Thompson, found him distracted, and gave him "Ds" and "Fs" throughout most of the year.

Just before the Christmas recess, Mrs. Thompson suggested the children exchange cards. On the day they were to share the cards, many of the kids gave Mrs. Thompson brightly wrapped gifts. Timmy's was poorly wrapped in plain brown paper that he had fashioned from a grocery bag. When Mrs. Thompson opened it, she found an old costume jewelry bracelet with several stones missing and a half-full bottle of perfume.

Continue reading "Becoming a Teacher" »

Posted by Ron Klein at 11:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By: NBCCH Staff

The Eye Movement Integration(tm) (EMI) method for treating phobia, anxiety and PTSD originated with the work of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., the renowned hypnotist, in what he referred to as "breaking habitual sets." Robert Dilts, a student of Dr. Erickson's work, introduced habitual set or eye movement pattern interruption interventions in
1980-1981.

The eye movement pattern interruption and reprocessing approach was further developed by Steve Andreas, M.A., and Connirae Andreas, Ph.D. in 1989-93, when they conceived the use of directed eye movements and therapeutic dissociation as a way to reduce the anxiety associated with phobia, PTSD and critical incident stress . It was the Andreas' who coined the phrase "Eye Movement Integration(tm) ." EMI, as developed by the Andreas, utilizes Erickson's pattern interruption and adds an innovative application of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming eye movement cues described by Richard Bandler and John Grinder (1979)2. The fundamental NLP idea underlying eye movement cues is that they disclose which parts of the brain are being activated as the eyes move in various directions at any given moment in time ( Bandler and Grinder reported that as people move their eyes, the patterns can indicate the kind of thinking, or mental processing, they are doing.

Continue reading "The Eye Movement Integration(tm) " »

Posted by Ron Klein at 2:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)