An in-house workshop with tutor: Pamela Woodford
Workshop outline:
A fifth of children enter school with emotional problems – sometimes very severe. There are children who tell their teachers they want to die now – and mean it. Some commit suicide. Others say they feel trapped. Some as young as six bang their heads on walls to stop ‘the voices’ from telling them to do terrible things – like killing babies. Others take dangerous drugs to block out emotional pain.
By working creatively 'in the moment' with such young people, we can go beyond the 'pathalogical label' and help them to get their lives back. This inspiring workshop shows you how.
| What you will gain from the day: | |
• |
Ways to connect with severely distressed young people in order to help them immediately |
• |
Knowledge of how to recognise and unpack children’s nominalisations |
• |
Creative ways to cure phobias and resolve traumatic and intrusive memories |
• |
Examples of ways to explain how the brain can drive us to do things that ultimately harm us in a way that young people ‘get’ |
• |
New tips for accessing your own intuition when connecting with children |
• |
Demonstrations and practice in applying appropriate metaphors, stories, sensory perceptions and fun to therapy |
• |
Greater confidence when working with disturbed and disturbing children. |
Who should attend?
This workshop has been designed for child psychotherapists, health care professionals, parents, teachers, carers and youth workers… and anyone else who wishes to become more effective when responding ‘in the moment’ to disturbing child behaviour.
Workshop programme:
The Workshop Day:
Registration: 8.30am to 9.30am (Tea or coffee before 9.25am)
9.30am – What can go wrong for children
A look at the fundamental needs of children and why the human givens approach to helping them is so powerful. Connecting creatively using magnets: exercise. Capturing imagination: how to ensure that even the most distracted or withdrawn child becomes involved. How to devise a therapy session with a child by using the RIGAAR model. Keeping a clear head: decoding language (exercise). Breakdown of exercise.
11.00am — Break
11.30am – Creative use of the rewind technique
The importance of patterns. We deconstruct two case histories in which the rewind technique was used creatively to help a girl with emetaphobia and Tourette’s syndrome, and a boy traumatised from nearly drowning. How to help children imagine a ‘safe place’ if they have never experienced one. Exercise: creative use of the rewind technique. We share the results of the exercise.
1.00pm — Lunch break
2.00pm – Working ‘in the moment’ with older children
Working with frustration, anxiety, anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, addiction (heroin/cannabis), OCD and anorexia. Saying what you see – deconstruction of a case history of a suicidal girl who was subsequently imprisoned for a stabbing. Working with addiction: polarities exercise.
3.15pm — Break
3.45pm – How to change and enrich a child’s expectations
We show a creative animation of the brain that explains how the ‘expectation theory of addiction’ can be used to help young addicts. A stimulating exercise in creating new expectations that can transform your own life as well as the young person you are dealing with. We share the results of the day – the insights gained and the skills learned.
4.45pm — Day ends