Mindful Communication: How to Effectively Manage the Toughest Child and Teen Cases


Thursday, May 25, 2017
The Brattleboro Retreat
Brattleboro, Vermont

AGENDA
 
8:00 AM - 8:30 AM Coffee and Registration 
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM Awakening Change: Mindfulness and Positive Psychology with Challenging Kids    
  • The anatomy of the therapeutic alliance with young clients
  • What makes for a communication breakdown and what are its negative treatment effects?
  • What makes the “top 5” difficult to treat?
  • Understanding why great, evidence-based techniques can fail
  • The brain-basis of toxic reactivity in clinical work
  • Recognizing the costs and ripple effects of unaddressed reactive interactions
  • The power of the present moment for enhancing the therapeutic alliance between caregivers and teens
   
10:00 AM -10:15 AM Break & Refreshments
 
   
10:15 AM - 11:30  AM Intervention: Mindful Communication for Alliance Enhancement and Management of Young Clients

    Step 1: Cultivating clinician presence with core mindfulness skills 
    Step 2: Compassionate communication of kid experience 
  
   
11:30 AM - 11:45 AM Break and Refreshments
   
11:45 AM - 12:45 PM      Step 3: Responsive leadership of the alliance with structuring, guiding and containing interventions 
    Step 4: Empowering choice in the child or adolescent with strengths-based communication 
   
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM Lunch (in the Retreat cafeteria and included with your registration)
   
1:45 PM - 3:45 PM Intervention:   

        Implementation: 
  •          The Angry-Volatile-Defiant Client: Problem Solving Training and Parent Training
  •           The Chronically and Suicidally-Depressed Client: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
  •            The Highly Anxious and Avoidant Client: Exposure
  •            The Substance Abusing Client: Motivational Interviewing
  •            The Trauma Reactive Client: Narrative work
Putting it into Practice
Merging Compassion with Challenge                                                                           
   
3:45 PM - 4:00 PM  Questions and Answers