2012 ISITDBT Workshops

2012 ISITDBT Workshops

It is with great pleasure that I announce the two workshops that will be presented at the 2012 ISITDBT Conference in National Harbor, MD.  The Planning Committee was given the workshop proposal abstracts, presented anonymously, and the top-rated workshops will be offered in November. I would like to extend thanks to all those who submitted workshop proposals this year, all of which garnered positive attention from the program committee members.

While the workshops were chosen by the committee based upon the applicability to DBT practice of the topics proposed, I am sure you will also be thrilled at the DBT “Street Cred” of this year’s ISITDBT presenters.  We have been generously been granted two workshop rooms for this year by ABCT, due to the high space constrictions of conferences in the Washington, DC area. The two ISITDBT workshops choices for 2012 will be:

Dialectics and Mindfulness: Bringing Awareness, Movement, Speed and Flow to Individual Therapy, presented by Kelly Koerner PhD and Charlie Swenson, MD

In this fun, practice-oriented workshop, participants will strengthen their use of mindfulness and dialectical principles and strategies.  While cognitive behavioral principles and strategies are at the core of DBT and offer precise, effective tools, clients’ chronic, severe dysregulation of emotion, including difficult-to-treat in-session dysfunctional behaviors, require additional therapist skills with mindfulness-based approaches to enhance awareness, attention, and balance, along with dialectical principles and strategies to address impasse and polarization. The presenters will teach how to weave Mindfulness-based strategies and Dialectical strategies into challenging individual therapy sessions and consultation team meetings. The instructors will use role-play demonstrations to teach and model various options for intervention into difficult scripted scenarios, and participants will take part in deliberate practices, with coaching, to learn fine points of utilizing mindfulness and dialectics in treatment.

Cultivating Your Mindfulness Garden, a workshop on therapists’ own practice of mindfulness, presented by Randy Wolbert, LMSW, CAADC and Cedar Koons, LISW.

DBT requires that the Therapist practice mindfully and conduct therapy acting out of Wise Mind. Furthermore an important requirement of therapist certification is mindfulness training and practice.  Most of the behavioral techniques of DBT can be taught, demonstrated, practiced, applied, and evaluated.  The practice of mindfulness is mostly about daily practice.  This workshop will briefly talk about the practice of mindfulness, give some helpful instruction regarding developing or enhancing your own practice, and of course provide opportunity to practice mindfulness.  The workshop will be mostly experiential in nature and is intended for individuals who currently do not have a practice and want to start one and those who have a regular practice and want to strengthen their practice (as well as have an opportunity to “sit” with other DBT practitioners).

Details of the ISITDBT schedule are being worked on to coordinate with the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center’s logistics, so a formal schedule of events will be forthcoming later this month or in early August.

Stay up-to-date on ISITDBT news by following us (with a “Like”) on Facebook. www.facebook.com/isitdbt .  And please bookmark the new ISITDBT website at www.isitdbt.net , which will also provide links for information about DBT Certification and Accreditation, as requested by the DBT Board of Certification and Accreditation (DBT BOCA).  The ISITDBT website will also provide a portal for Eventbrite registration for this year’s ISITDBT conference.  Registration will “go live” on or around September 6, 2012. And also keep an eye on the ISITDBT website as we have a few more fun surprises up our sleeves for this year’s conference.

Thanks again,

Adam C. Payne, PhD, ISITDBT Program Chair

Information about the Presenters:

Kelly Koerner, PhD, is Creative Director and CEO of the Evidence-Based Practice Institute, where she explores how technology can scale learning and collaboration so practitioners get better clinical outcomes. She is a clinical psychologist and an expert clinician, clinical supervisor and trainer in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). She received her PhD from the University of Washington and has specialized training in a number of evidence based treatments. She has served as: Director of Training for Marsha Linehan’s research investigating the efficacy of DBT for suicidal and drug abusing individuals with borderline personality disorder; Creative Director at Behavioral Tech Research where she developed e-learning and other technology based methods to disseminate evidence-based practices; and co-founder and first CEO of Behavioral Tech, a company that provides training in DBT.

Charlie Swenson, MD, graduated from Harvard College and Yale Medical School. He joined the faculty of Cornell University Medical College in 1982, where for five years he directed a long-term psychoanalytically-oriented inpatient program for patients with personality disorders. Beginning in 1987, Dr. Swenson developed and directed inpatient, outpatient, and day treatment programs for borderline patients based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Twice he was voted Teacher of the Year by the psychiatric residents (1990, 1993). While at Cornell, he served as a DBT trainer and consultant throughout the United States and Europe, coordinating statewide implementation of DBT in the public sectors of Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Dr. Swenson has published widely on the treatment of borderline patients, including one article comparing Kernberg’s psychoanalytic approach to DBT (1989), one article describing the inpatient application of DBT (2001), one article identifying the factors leading to DBT’s popularity (2001), and one article identifying the barriers and strategies for implementing DBT in community mental health centers (2002). During 1996 he served as the Coordinator of Clinical Training in DBT. From 1997 to the present he was Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry for the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and from 1997 to 2001 he served as Area Medical Director for the Western Massachusetts Area of the Department of Mental Health.

Randy Wolbert LMSW, CAADC, is the Clinical Director of InterAct of Michigan, Inc., an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Social Work at Western Michigan University, and a DBT trainer for Behavioral Tech, L.L.C. Randy received his Bachelors degree from Calvin College and his MSW from Western Michigan University. He has more than 30 years of Community Mental Health experience including Assertive Community Treatment, DBT, and Integrated Dual Disorders Treatment. Randy attended the 1995-1996 Seattle Intensive taught by Marsha Linehan PhD Randy has presented workshops, seminars, and DBT training at State, National and International conferences. In 2009, Randy was inducted into the Outstanding Alumni Academy of theCollege of Health and Human Services at Western Michigan University.

Cedar Koons, MSW, LISW, is the co-founder and team lead of Santa Fe DBT, LLC, an outpatient private practice group that provides comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and other evidence-based cognitive-behavioral treatment to adults and adolescents in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A senior trainer for Behavioral Tech of Seattle, she has conducted DBT trainings, intensives and consultations all over the United States and in Australia and Japan. While in private practice, Ms. Koons has also developed an adaptation of DBT for the vocational rehabilitation of persons with severe personality disorder and conducted a pilot study of the treatment. A meditation student of Pat Hawk, Roshi, and Sensei Marsha Linehan, Ms. Koons has also taught mindfulness and assisted with many mindfulness retreats. Prior to entering private practice, she was director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy program at the Women Veterans Comprehensive Health Center at the Durham VA Medical Center. In that capacity, Ms. Koons conducted a randomized, controlled study of DBT as compared to usual treatment for women veterans with borderline personality disorder and also started at DBT elective for psychiatry residents at Duke University Medical Center. Ms. Koons was the first president of the Marie Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to training in treatments of demonstrated efficacy for clinicians treating severely personality disordered persons. She has published research, articles, poetry and a blog on mindfulness.

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