Internationally acclaimed trainer and author Monica McGoldrick will present this workshop, which is designed to help therapists understand clients’ problems and lives “in context” and to facilitate their connectedness to family, friends and community. She will introduce innovative assessment tools and demonstrate useful techniques to help clients bridge “cutoffs” and overcome family conflicts that can contribute to depression, anxiety and addiction. Topics will include sibling conflicts, divorce and remarriage, untimely and un-mourned loss, family secrets and traumatic legacies.

Participants will gain an increased awareness of how their own socio-cultural backgrounds influence the values and attitudes they bring to clinical practice. We will explore the impact of gender, culture, class and race on our therapy, and discuss techniques for working with clients who differ from us culturally.

 Course Learning Objectives:

1. Understand and use a genogram for assessing and intervening in family problems.
2. Understand and use Family Play Genograms to assess families and to help them change.
3. Consider the impact of their own cultural background on their values, ideas, and therapeutic approach.
4. Employ clinical strategies for coaching family members whose relationships have broken down in conflict, enmeshment or cutoff.
5.  Apply systemic concepts to assess and bypass family cutoffs at multiple levels of the system—cultural, generational and interactional.

Location: Retreat Healthcare 350 Linden St, Brattleboro, VT

Cost: $125 early registration; otherwise $140.