AEDP™ in Action: Moving through Emotional Suffering into Transformational Change

A 2-Day Workshop hosted by BCG Counselling Group and Presented by Dr. Richard Harrison, Registered Psychologist, AEDP™ Institute Faculty, Certified Supervisor in AEDP and EFT

• Friday | January 12 | 8:30am to 4:30pm
• Saturday | January 13 | 8:30am to 4:30pm

Registration Details

• Early Bird Rate: $400 (available until November 15 at 6:00pm)
• Regular Rate: $450
• Student Rate: $300 A limited number of student rates will be available for full-time graduate students of counselling. For student rate eligibility, please email workshop@counsellinggroup.org (“AEDP in Action: Student Rate” in the subject line) with a verification of your full-time status and inquire within.

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Workshop Description

AED­­P psychotherapy is a proven, clinically effective, healing-oriented, experiential therapy with a dual focus: the transformation of suffering and the fostering of flourishing. Incorporating knowledge from attachment research and theory, contemporary neurobiology, emotion theory, and body-based therapies, AEDP is highly integrative, yet unique. This two-day training explores AEDP’s transformational arc through emotional pain into meaningful positive change and enhanced wellbeing. The workshop features extensive video examples from AEDP therapy sessions with clients who differ from each other in terms of salient aspects of identity and history (e.g., ethnic and cultural background, race, age, gender, trauma history, etc.), and who present with varied attachment styles.

Many clients fear and avoid emotions that they have previously experienced as too overwhelming to deal with on their own. When clients successfully face and fully experience these emotions, within the context of a safety-engendering, affect-facilitating therapeutic relationship, this frequently results in an affective shift experienced by the client as positive. AEDP has developed a unique intervention, metatherapeutic processing, to amplify and extend these in-session moments of therapeutic change, thereby engaging positive neuroplasticity.

Diana Fosha, founder of AEDP, identified six distinct positive emotional states that frequently arise in the wake of processing painful emotion. These transformational affects are a crucial component of the AEDP change process: When processed, they fuel the transformational spiral, and promote flourishing in the wake of suffering and loss. As a participant, you will learn to recognize and work effectively with these powerful emotional experiences, in order to expand, deepen, and consolidate therapeutic change-for-the-better.

Together, we will witness, track, and discuss AEDP’s remarkable transformational arc: through the processing of painful core affect (State 2) into the expansive realm of transformational experience (State 3). We will also explore moments of integrative Core State (AEDP State 4), which is energetically distinct from both State 2 and State 3, and is characterized by a sense of calm, compassion, clarity, and integrative truth that is deeply felt within.

The workshop incorporates:

• Didactic lecture
• Clinical video demonstrations from AEDP therapy session
• Interactive discussion in small and large groups

Level: Intermediate

This learning opportunity is well-suited to mental health clinicians with previous experience and training in AEDP /familiar with AEDP who want to deepen and enhance their practice, or refresh and consolidate prior learning. However, clinicians (and students) who are new to the model are also welcome, provided they register for and attend a 2-hour online introductory presentation, which will be offered on the evening of January 8, 2024. Those newer to the model are also strongly encouraged to read recommended material prior to the training. More information here.

Collectively, we will co-create a learning community in which we:

• Delve deeply into the recognizable, yet phenomenologically distinct, characteristics of the six transformational affects that arise from processing painful emotions
• Unpack key interventions that advance the therapeutic process in States 2 and 3, including AEDP’s hallmark intervention of metatherapeutic processing
• Witness transformance in action: the innate healing potential that pulses towards self-righting and resuming impeded growth
• Identify psycho-biological markers that guide the unfolding process and inform therapist choice points, as they arise in clinical work
• Explore opportunities to amplify, extend, and deepen moments of therapeutic change-for-the-better, and thus promote positive neuroplasticity and flourishing
• Build local community and connections between colleagues
• Expand and consolidate prior learning; and
• Foster increased self-confidence and empower you in your AEDP practice!

Learning Goals and Objectives

At the end of this 2-day training, participants will be able to:

1. Summarize key aspects of AEDP theory and the four-state map that guides AEDP’s transformational process.
2. Discuss therapeutic tasks and interventions to help clients tolerate, experience, and express emotional experience.
3. Identify and comment on psycho-biological markers that guide and inform therapist choice points, as they arise in clinical work.
4. Recognize markers of positive-valenced affective shifts affective shifts that arise in session, which can become the focus of subsequent experiential work with ensuing positive emotional states.
5. Leverage opportunities to expand and extend moments of therapeutic change-for-the-better, and thus promote positive neuroplasticity.
6. Describe the steps involved in AEDP’s hallmark intervention of metatherapeutic processing.
7. Utilize metatherapeutic processing in clinical work to deepen and consolidate in-session moments of therapeutic change.
8. Distinguish between six, phenomenologically distinct, State 3 transformational affects.
9. Explain and contrast interventions that advance the therapeutic process in State 2 and State 3, respectively.
10. Discover the potential of judicious therapist self-disclosure to amplify and deepen positive affective states.

About the Presenter

Richard Harrison, PhD, is a faculty member of AEDP™ Institute and a Registered Psychologist with over 25 years’ experience as a clinician and teacher. He was trained and supervised in AEDP by Diana Fosha, founder of the model. He is a Certified Supervisor in both AEDP and EFT. Richard teaches and supervises graduate students in the Counseling Psychology and Psychiatry departments at the University of British Columbia, and maintains a full clinical caseload with individuals and couples in private practice in Vancouver.

Richard has authored peer-reviewed publications on psychotherapy theory and practice; attachment-informed supervision; and therapist self-care; including a 2020 article in Psychotherapy on “Termination in 16-session AEDP: Together in how we say goodbye.” Findings from his 2008 doctoral dissertation research, “Preventing Vicarious Traumatization: Identifying Protective Practices,” were published in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. He is an active member of the AEDP Research team and leads the weekly supervision group for participating therapists in phase two of the ongoing AEDP research study. As a presenter, Richard is valued for his warmth, clarity, and engaging style. He genuinely delights in helping people grow and thrive in their personal and professional lives.

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