This workshop focuses on two seemingly contradictory challenges in contemporary therapy:

(1) how to make therapy briefer and more effective; and
(2) how to make therapeutic work more soulful and connective with life-affirming energies.

Based on Dr. Gilligan's most recent book, The Courage to Love: Principles and Practices of Self-relations Psychotherapy, the presentation will emphasize the self-relations approach to psychotherapy. Symptoms are seen as awakenings of a person's soul or center, and therapeutic conversations are seen as mediums for midwifing these awakenings to full realization. This deep life affirming approach describes methods and techniques for transforming a problem complaint into a solution outcome, in ways that clients learn how to recognize the "non-rational" and unexpected events in their lives as gifts to be opened and enjoyed. It is based in part of the revolutionary work of Milton Erickson, the last psychiatrist who developed many ways to utilize even the most negative parts of a person's life as resources.

In this workshop you will learn:

--six principles for bringing "soul" into brief therapy
--3 exercises for accessing inner wisdom (in yourself and clients)
--how to develop and maintain mindfulness and bodymind centering
--the generative principle and methods of sponsorship
--a six-step brief therapy method for transforming a symptom into a solution.

The workshop will include presentations, group exercises, demonstrations, dyadic exercises, and clinical examples and discussions. It promises to be a clear, effective, invigorating, and soulful experience.