THERAPEUTIC ARTISTRY:

FINDING YOUR CREATIVE EDGE WITH YOUR MOST DIFFICULT CLIENT PRACTICE SITUATIONS

At times in our professional careers, all of us have been faced with clinical situations in which we were intimidated by or experienced therapeutic paralysis in reaction to particular clients’ provocative and perplexing presenting problems and extensive treatment histories, families with multiple symptom–bearing members carrying serious DSM–IV diagnoses, and clients and families that seem to thrive on one crisis to the next. With these challenging and nightmarish client situations, it can feel like we are trapped in and neutralized by the gravitational pull of a stellar black hole.

In this hands–on practice–oriented workshop, several effective ways therapists can tap the full range of their inner resources and creative selves for getting unstuck and being the catalysts for therapeutic change with complex and difficult client practice situations are presented. Participants will come away from this workshop with a plethora of therapeutic tools and strategies, feeling inspired, energized, and more confident working outside of their comfort zones with their most challenging clients. As a result of attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Use of reflection–in–action and reflection–on–action to keep an open mind, maintain therapeutic maneuverability, and co–create possibilities with complex and difficult client situations
• Crafting meaningful and imaginative questions to co–create compelling future realities with clients
• Identifying and utilizing our inner resources and talents to further expand one’s therapeutic style and range
• Bringing more humor, drama, and playfulness to one’s therapeutic practice
• Tapping the inventiveness and imagination powers of our clients to co–construct creative and high quality solutions
• Creative use of self in collaborative meetings with highly pessimistic and pathology–minded involved helping professionals from larger systems

The workshop format will combine didactic presentation, extensive use of videotape examples, a live family therapy consultation, and skill–building exercises.