Advanced Empathic Attunement: A Workshop for Psychological Practitioners

Wednesday 12  – Friday 14 October 2016, 09.30 – 17.00

Venue:  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

 Facilitated by Robert Elliott and Lorna Carrick 

Therapist empathy is an essential but complex aspect of the practice of counselling and psychotherapy and one of the best-evidenced and most consistent therapeutic change processes.  This three-day training on Advanced Empathic Attunement goes beyond content empathy and basic empathic understanding by offering a general framework for understanding the empathic process and mastering a wide range of empathic responses. These responses reflect developments in Experiential and Emotion-Focused Therapies and offer new possibilities for practice across a wide range of theoretical approaches, including CBT, Psychodynamic and Family/Systemic therapies.

We begin by presenting a set of theoretical frameworks that underpin therapist empathy, including Social Neuroscience, an expanded Empathy Cycle, and the Empathy Channels model.  Most of the workshop will involve skill practice using your personal material, starting with the classic Opening Channels of Receptivity exercise, and progressing through separate sessions on Empathic Resonance, Evocative Empathy, Exploratory Empathy, Empathic Affirmation, Process Empathy, and Empathic Conjecture responses.  Each of these will be clearly described and concretely illustrated by a video or live demonstration, followed by skill practice and self-reflection.

Objectives:

1. Learn how to access and enhance your natural ability to empathically resonate with clients.

2. Be able to locate the range of Empathy Responses within the Empathy Channel framework.

3. Be able to tell the difference between Empathic Affirmation and Evocative Empathy responses and successful use both kinds of response.

4. Be able to use Empathic Exploration responses to help clients explore their unclear experiences.

5. Be able to use Process Empathy responses to help clients become more aware of their in-session process and to deepen relational contact with clients.

6. Be able to use Empathic Conjectures to help clients deepen their experiencing during chair work and at other times in session.

• This course could be taken for continuing professional education credit.

Cost: On or before 12 September 2016: £245; after 12 September 2016: £295

In order to keep costs to a minimum, catering is not included.

                               Register via our online shop at: http://onlineshop.strath.ac.uk/

Contact: jan.bissett@strath.ac.uk or 0141-444 8415 for further information on this course