There will be 2 free, 6 hour seminars on alternative approaches to what gets called "psychosis" on April 8th and 9th, 2013!  These seminars will offer CEUs to those who need them.

The first seminar will be on the cognitive therapy approach to psychosis, with a strong emphasis on how psychosis can be a normal and understandable response to stressful human events especially trauma, and how to work collaboratively with people to help them actively recover rather than just wait passively for medications to "work."  I will be the only presenter for that one.

The second seminar will be on spiritual issues in psychosis, and will explore how psychotic experiences, far from being meaningless symptoms of illness, typically involve people struggling with some of the most fundamental questions of human existence, those which traditionally have been called spiritual.  It will explore how to conceptualize psychosis as not inevitably all bad, but as possibly a mix of helpful and unhelpful experiences, and how staying open to the possibility of positive transformation may be associated with recovery.  For this seminar I am honored to be joined by Michael Cornwall Ph.D., a man who has had the experience of working in a ward where people were allowed to work through psychotic experiences without medication.

Details are below.  Also below is information about two seminars later this week in Berkeley CA:  however the Berkeley seminars are not free!

Ron Unger

Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis: An Individualized Psychological Approach
          Presented by Ron Unger, LCSW
          Monday, April 8, 2013
           2:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
                  @ MHCAN
1051 Cayuga St., Santa Cruz, CA 95062
**This training counts toward 6 hours of Cultural Competence credit**
 
Please register in advance by contacting Balvina Collazo at 454-4519 or e-mail your RSVP to:
mhsastraining@health.co.santa-cruz.ca.us

Learning Objectives:
    Refute misconceptions that previously discouraged attempts at psychotherapy for psychosis
    Normalize psychotic experiences by seeing them on a continuum with other reactions to distressing circumstances
    Utilize a collaborative-empirical style to explore psychotic experiences and beliefs
    Develop formulations that promote hope and provide direction
    Engage in guided discovery of solutions to distressing psychosis-related problems
    Integrate this psychological approach with existing treatment methods
 
MFT’s and LCSW’s:  Course meets the qualification for 6 hours of continuing education credit for MFT’s and/or LCSW’s as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.  Provider: Alicia Nájera, LCSW; Provider No. 1109.

In order to receive credit for MFT/LCSW CEU’s, you must sign-in & out, and complete a course
evaluation.
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Spiritual Issues in Psychosis     Presented by Ron Unger, LCSW & Michael Cornwall PhD
      Tuesday, April 9, 2013
       9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
1080 Emeline Ave., Large Auditorium
**This training counts toward 6 hours of Cultural Competence credit**
 
Please register in advance by contacting Balvina Collazo at 454-4519 or e-mail your RSVP to:
mhsastraining@health.co.santa-cruz.ca.us

Learning Objectives:
     Explore how to integrate spiritual language and metaphors with scientific and psychological language and approaches
     Understand how the core issues in trauma and psychosis are commonly framed in spiritual terms, and how these relate to basic human dilemmas
     Conceptualize psychosis as involving attempts to resolve such dilemmas using ways of thinking and feeling that step outside the terms of “mundane” reality, and explore approaches to helping people complete these attempts successfully
     Develop cultural competence in addressing spiritual issues within a recovery oriented approach to psychosis while working with individuals from a variety of traditions and subcultures
MFT’s and LCSW’s:  Course meets the qualification for 6 hours of continuing education credit for MFT’s and/or LCSW’s as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.  Provider: Alicia Nájera, LCSW; Provider No. 1109.

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Seminars in Berkeley CA:  On April 5, 2013 I will be presenting on cognitive therapy for psychosis at JFK University in Berkeley CA.  Then on April 6, 2013, also at JFK, a second seminar will cover the relationships between trauma and psychosis and how to help people who have been affected by both.  Details are at the links - Ron Unger