Training for Therapists with Bret Lyon, Ph.D.

After being a featured presenter at every CAMFT chapter in the Bay Area, I am now offering training designed especially for therapists who want to bring awareness of breathing and body "armoring" into their therapy practice -- and to learn to create safety and build empathy with their clients.

My approach is based on the work of Wilhelm Reich, the father of all somatic therapies. Reich developed a mind-body therapy which works directly with the clients' breath and energy flow. Breathing, Reich found, is the key element which connects mind and body.


Creating Safety and Building Empathy through Reichian Breathwork, Focusing & Non-Verbal Communication

Some studies suggest that up to 93% of communication is non-verbal. Yet as therapists, we often give great emphasis to words -- ours and our clients'. While words are indeed important, much of the work in therapy takes place in silence. Indeed, in creating safety and building empathy, much of the conversation is non-verbal. When words are feeling-based and body-based, arising out of the non-verbal, they are fewer and more effective. Often, our challenge with clients is to bring them out of their heads and into their bodies -- and to slow them down so they can find words for what is really going on. In this workshop, you will learn new skills which will help both you and your client gain the benefits of increased body awareness and full, free breathing. When you are breathing fully, your very presence will make clients feel more comfortable and open. Noticing variations in the clients' breathing and body language can lead to new insights. You will learn to use subtle, non-verbal communication to help clients stay in their feelings and in their bodies. You will explore new ways of creating safety, building empathy, increasing rapport, and reducing anxiety -- while avoiding the stress and exhaustion that comes from trying too hard to be helpful.


One Day Workshop:

Sunday, April 29, 2007
11:00 am - 6:00 pm
earn 6 CEUs
in Berkeley (just off I-80)

Healing Shame

Shame is perhaps the most painful of all emotions.  Many people go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging or even feeling it.  Shame also binds with other emotions, such as anger and fear, so that it is often hard to detect.  Also, revealing shame can be in itself shameful.  The difficulty we feel in dealing with shame carries over into the therapy situation.  For many clients who don't get better in therapy, shame - unacknowledged and not worked through - is the primary factor.

Shame can be viewed as developmental trauma.  It causes much of the same physical and emotional freezing as trauma does.  Not only do we lose tonus and energy, but it becomes hard to think clearly in a shame state.  And shame often accompanies trauma, forming a downward spiral that is hard to break. Both therapist and client need to be educated about shame -- how it develops, what it is and how it works.  And therapists need help in developing a working model of how to help their clients identify, work through and heal their shame.

In this workshop, we will learn what shame is and how it is created -- and how to help our clients recognize shame, work through it and move on.   We will become more sensitive to the shaming often implicit in the therapy situation and learn how to counter shame in therapy.  We will be able to help clients separate feelings of shame from other emotions.  And we'll learn how to take clients back to  early shaming situations and reverse the outcome -- helping clients move their energy powerfully outward rather than turn it against themselves.

This workshop developed out of my own life-changing experience in discovering and exploring my own bypassed shame - and my extensive reading of the shame literature developed by Sylvan Tompkins and his followers.  While my main focus continues to be the connection between body, breathing and emotions, my new ability to identify and explore shame has vastly expanded my capacity to help clients to heal shame and come to peace with themselves.

One Day Workshop:

Saturday, May 31, 2008
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
earn 6 CEUs
in Berkeley (just off I-80)

 

Monthly Training Groups with Bret Lyon, PhD:

earn 3 CEUs per session
One Sunday or Saturday per month in Berkeley
10:00 am - 1:30 pm

If you are interested in joining the training or know someone who might be, or would like further information about my work, please call me at 510-420-1441 or email me to discuss it. Space is limited.



CEUs for MFCCs and LCSWs
All weekend workshops meet the qualifications for continuing education credits (CEUs) for MFCCs and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. 6 CEUs for each Workshop. PCE #1015.

Nurses may qualify for CEUs. Please Contact Bret Lyon directly.


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