The Workshop: AEP is an experiential psychodynamic therapy that interlaces the insights of contemporary existential and psychoanalytic/psychodynamic approaches with techniques inspired by Gestalt therapy and other experiential approaches.

AEP takes into account the full spectrum of human experience - body, meaning, emotion, the impact of the past, and the choices that need to be made to create a different future. In this workshop, you will learn to attend to the Here and Now in a way that that produces immediacy and authentic relationship. You will also learn to deepen to emotional states and family of origin issues that move clients to profound change. Body and process are emphasized along with verbal material and content.

Location: 1140 Lehigh St., Boulder, CO 80305
Dates: Friday Afternoons, twice a month, October 2010 to May 2011
Time: 4:00 to 8:15 (first fifteen minutes gathering and social time)
Cost: $1400
Discounts: 10% for early registration by Sept. 15

Register Early - Space is Limited

The Workshop Leader: Betty Cannon, Ph.D., Boulder Psychotherapy Institute President and co-founder, is a licensed psychologist and certified Gestalt therapist. She has worked with individuals, couples and groups for over thirty years and trained psychotherapists for over twenty years. She holds doctorates in both literature and psychology. She is professor emerita of the Colorado School of Mines and adjunct professor at Naropa University. Betty is a member of the editorial boards of three professional journals and an internationally known author, lecturer and workshop presenter. She is the former president of the Colorado Group Psychotherapy Society and former chair of the North American Sartre Society. Her book, Sartre and Psychoanalysis, is considered a classic in existential psychology. She is the author of many journal articles and book chapters, including several on applied existential psychotherapy. She is contributing editor for the section on Existential Psychoanalysis for the prestigious Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis. She is currently writing a book on Applied Existential Psychotherapy.

Topics

History and Influences on AEP: Gestalt Therapy, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Rogerian Nondirectional Therapy, Body Oriented Psychotherapy, Trauma Work, Existential Philosophy

Model of the Psyche: Perls and Sartre - Consciousness as No Thing; Perls - Five Layers of the Neurosis

Direction of Change in Therapy: Spirit of Seriousness to Spirit of Play

Five Pillars of AEP: Un-knowing, Awareness, Contact, Experiment, Choice.

Emphasis on Body Awareness: Mirroring the Body

The Language of Responsibility (Response-ability)

Polarities and the Division between Reflective and Prereflective Consciousness

Typical Stages of an AEP Working: Deepening to Family of Origin Issues and Back Again

Defenses as Boundary Disturbances: Introjection, Projection, Retroflection, Deflection, Confluence, Identification with the Aggressor, Projective Identification, Denial, Dissociation, Splitting, Reaction Formation, etc.

The Cycle of Awareness: Sensation, Awareness, Mobilization, Action, Final Contact, Satisfaction, Withdrawal

“Unfinished Business”: Transference and Countertransference in an AEP Setting

AEP Work with Dreams: Enacting the Dream

AEP Work with Trauma: Meaning and Despair

Psychodynamic Issues in AEP: The Family of Origin and Developmental Conflicts

Existential Issues in AEP: Nothingness as the Ground for Change