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Introduction:

This workshop aims at introducing an integrative model of emotion focused interventions on working with people who have experienced childhood interpersonal complex trauma. Every experienced and seasoned practitioner should develop a unique working model based on his/her attained knowledge base and intervention strategies. The goal is to help the above-said specific clientele becoming a holistic integrative person by resuming a reorganized sense of self.

The model introduced in this workshop is a theoretical integration including attachment theory, person-centered therapy, Gestalt therapy, contemporary emotion theory, neuroscience, mindfulness, and narrative analysis. It is fundamentally a dialectical process-experiential approach. Different intervention strategies based on the above framework would be discussed and demonstrated with case examples.

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Objectives:

This workshop aims at equipping the practitioners with the following emotion focused intervention skills step-by-step:

• How to re-discover safety and stability to support client engagement in re-experiencing traumatic experience

• How to assess client’s readiness for emotion-focused interventions on traumatic experience

• How to re-visit and re-experience trauma memories without re-traumatization

• How to facilitate experiential focusing to enhance experiencing

• How to do two-chair enactment to unlock intrapersonal barriers

• How to conduct imaginal confrontation (IC) procedure for emotional re-processing and transformation

• When to use empathic exploration (EE) as an alternative to IC for accessing traumatic experience

• When and how to conduct self-soothing work for strengthening the distressed self

• How to re-construct personal meaning for integration and consolidation

 

Course Outline:

1. Understanding the characteristics of childhood interpersonal complex trauma

2. ​Indicators and contraindicators for using emotion focused interventions

3. How to prepare and engage clients for re-processing traumatic experience

4. Understanding the role of emotion in traumatic experience

5. Understanding the emotional process of transformation

6. How to use the integrative model for contingencies in the treatment of childhood interpersonal complex trauma

 

Training Format:

•  Didactic presentations

•  Experiential exercises

•  Case presentation and discussion

•  Simulated practice of micro skills

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Medium of Instruction:

Cantonese supplemented with English

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Training Materials:

Mainly in English

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Certificate:

Participants with 80% or above attendance would be granted certificates.

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Trainer:

Mrs. Catherine Poon 潘蔡妍珊女士

• B.A., M.S.W., M.BuddhStud.

• Emotion-Focused Therapist (Individual/Couple Therapy)

• Registered Social Worker

• Certified Counselor (HKPCA)

• Associate Fellow (HKPCA) 

• Approved Supervisor (HKPCA) 

• Certified EFT Trainer (Individual Therapy) recognized by the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy (isEFT)

 

Mrs. Catherine Poon has worked with the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (HKCMAC) for over 20 years as a counselor.  She specializes her clinical work with clients of emotional dysregulation, depression, anxiety, and childhood attachment trauma, and couples with chronic physical/mental illnesses, addictive behavioral problems and extra-marital relationship.  Apart from clinical practice of individual and couple counselling, she has supervised social work students at different universities and family mediator trainees from different social service agencies.  She maintains a humanistic person-centered approach in her clinical practice and supervision.

Mrs. Catherine Poon has been trained in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) with Professor Leslie Greenberg since 2004. She has given presentations, provided skills coaching in the Module Workshops, and conducted monthly supervision groups in the yearly Training Programs in EFT (Individual & Couples) jointly organized by the EFT Clinic of York University and HKCMAC from 2007 to 2017.  Over the years, she has led hundreds of supervision group sessions.  She is recognized as a certified EFT individual therapy trainer since 2016.
 
She is currently in private practice.  She continues to provide individual and couples therapy, training workshops on EFT (Individual and Couples), Advanced Empathy and Mindfulness-informed clinical work, and EFT supervision for local practitioners.  She is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong from 2015 to 2020, teaching Emotion-Focused Interventions and Marital Counseling for Master degree students of counseling and social work.
 

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