IN THIS ISSUE:
Line-up announced for Fall Conference 2011
Trainers needed for new on-site training program
Mindfulness and the pursuit of happiness
Dr. Michael Yapko: Children suffering depression: How depressing!
Books – sales by Web or at your event
Dr. Robert Muller: When traumatized clients cope by avoiding attachment
Scared Stiff – new 10-hour training video from Dr. David Burns
Body resources for therapists
When someone you care about is struggling with addiction

New year – new potential for growth

Dear Colleagues: We were delighted that over 600 profesionals attended our four-day conference, Healing Trauma, Addictions & Related Disorders in November in Richmond. This was really gratifying for me and all the staff at Jack Hirose and Associates. We thank the participants for making it a success, and Edgewood and Edgewood Foundation for co-sponsoring with us.

We headed into the holidays tired but enthusiastic about the opportunities to provide truly first-rate workshops.

The conference was also a chance to hear your comments and suggestions for future presenters. This newsletter brings details about our spring-summer workshops offerings – see column at left – and lots on plans for the fall conference 2011. This early in the going and we've got most of the line-up already confirmed.

One summer event we're looking forward to is Canada's first three-day Collaborative Problem Solving Intensive with Dr. Ross Greene, Ph.D., in Toronto, July 18-20, 2011 at Sam Sorbara Auditorium in Brennan Hall, at University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College, 81 St. Mary Street. We have had great turnouts and enthusiasm for Dr. Greene's one-day workshops. The three-day intensive is a chance to go deeper.

One more item I'd like to bring to your attention: a free evening session Feb. 24, 6:30-8:00pm during the two-day workshop with Dr. David Burns in Duncan, Feb. 24-25, 2011. Lorne Hildebrand, Executive Director of workshop co-sponsor Edgewood, will be speaking on The Science of Addiction. Again. this is a free evening session, open to all professionals and the general public.

Jack Hirose Associates seeking trainers for new on-site training program

Jack Hirose and Associates is looking for top quality trainers in a wide variety of clinical and educational disciplines to help serve organizations and schools throughout the Canada. We receive numerous requests to help fill their training requirements.  Our new on-site training program will allow us to provide a wider scope of workshop topics and offer training in less populated and remote areas throughout the country. The benefits of creating the new in-house training program are numerous. Organizations or schools will be able to receive customized training, held in their respective communities in a way that is cost-effective, time-efficient and convenient.

The Reality of the Workshop Business
Every spring and fall, Jack Hirose and Associates actively market our events using various mediums.  Our main marketing strategy is direct mail. Our graphic designers develop our brochures and inserts.  We work with several large printing companies and mailing houses, which fulfill the mail management process of our mail outs.  We send our brochures to those our on customer list; approximately 32,000 throughout the country.  Our direct marketing costs (graphics, printing, mail processing, postage) are extremely high, a minimum of $150,000 a year. This does not take into account our meeting space, catering costs and administration staffing expenses. Our events are often held at hotels who charge premium prices for refreshments and food. As a result of these high costs, our company is very selective in our workshop offerings.

High attendance numbers are needed since we hire only the most accomplished trainers in the field. Our business model has allowed us to successfully operate since 1998, but has its limitations. We are unable to offer workshops that focus on highly specialized topics that are extremely important in our field, but fail to generate enough revenue to cover expenses. This is the main reason our events are held in Canada’s major urban centres, i.e. Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, etc. Participants must cover not just workshop fees but also other costs including, transportation, hotels, meals, parking etc. This compounds the problem, since training budgets in mental health and education has decreased in recent years while workshop costs have steadily increased.

Despite the challenges in offering top quality training to mental health and education professionals, we feel it is important to serve those who have not had the opportunity to attend training offered by Jack Hirose and Associates.  We feel this new program will help fill a very large void.

Many health agencies, health regions and school districts and individual schools have contacted our office requesting workshops on the following topics:

• Critical Incident stress de-briefing
• Trauma
• Addiction
• Relationships
• Violence
• Depression/Anxiety
• Therapeutic Modalities: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy,
• Solution Focused Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, Mindfulness, EMDR, Motivational Interviewing etc.
• School focused topics:  bullying, the developing brain, anger, aggression, violence, anxiety, depression, play therapy
• Workshop Formats:
• One-day
• Two-day
• Three-day
• Four-day
• Week-end re-treats

We are looking for trainers with the following attributes:  proven experience training in front of professional audiences; Masters, Ph.D., or MD academic credentials required; ability to garner top-notch workshop evaluations and willingness to travel.

If you feel you have what it takes to become an in-house trainer with Jack Hirose and Associates, I would be interested in hearing from you.  Please feel free to send me your resume and cover letter, including information about your particular specialty, workshop topic, workshop description, learning objectives, and videotaped recordings if possible to:  jackhirose@shaw.ca

All the best this year,

    Jack

Top of Page

Mindfulness and the pursuit of happiness

In the video links below, Ronald D. Siegel, Psy.D., assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and editor of Harvard Health Publication's special health report, Positive Psychology, discusses what it takes to be happy and why it's so elusive.

Dr. Siegel spells out a few ways to achieve happiness, one of which is mindfulness. In two-day workshops in Vancouver, May 9-10 and in Calgary, May 12-13, he will lead an exploration of mindfulness – awareness of the presence with acceptance – as both a path to personal fulfilment and a powerful tool in clinical therapy.

You can view the entire interview [9 minutes, 15 seconds] or just specific questions in roughly one-minute clips:

What is positive psychology?

Why is happiness so hard to achieve?

Do people hold misconceptions about how to achieve happiness?

Why is it sometimes difficult to become happy?

What are some ways to achieve happiness?

What is mindfulness?

How do you practice mindfulness?

Top of Page

When traumatized clients cope by avoiding attachment

By Robert T. Muller
Ph.D., C.Psych; Toronto, Canada

Since the publication of Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery in the early 90s, trauma therapists have emphasized the importance of remembrance and mourning as key elements in the healing of trauma. Talking about, or journaling one’s personal traumatic experiences, and then looking at them through a different lens is now known to be enormously helpful. But what do we do when our traumatized clients go to lengths to deny and minimize the effects of their cruel past? How do we reach those individuals who have learned to pretend that everything is okay, when nothing could be farther from the truth?

One client, with a profound history of intra-familial trauma, with whom I had been working for several years, recently described himself as burdened by the role of “guardian of the secret.” That is, “to the outside world, we pretended everything was normal, but beneath the surface it was anything but.” | Read more

Top of Page

Children suffering depression? How depressing!

Acclaimed presenter Dr. Michael Yapko, Psy. D., will be presenting workshops in Vancouver, May 16-17, and Calgary, May 19-20, on the topic, Depression is Contagious: Why Depression is Rising in Children and Adolescents. Here's a recent article he wrote on the subject.

Children of depressed parents are at least three times more likely to develop depression than others, but there are early warning signals that help you spot depression developing and preventive steps to take to reduce a child’s vulnerability.

The World of Children is No Longer Fun and Innocent
The quality of family life presents many difficult challenges for kids: high rates of divorce, two (or only one) hard-working and often physically and emotionally unavailable parents, single parents who have no interest in or intention of having a stable partner to help raise a child, parents who risk their very lives in the selfish pursuit of thrills in extreme sports, parents who are too depressed or substance-dependent to function, parents who are too self-absorbed to really be there emotionally for their kids, parents who don’t set limits with their kids or have the energy to tangle with them. With parents like these, kids are the big losers. They can only try to survive such bad, even hostile environments, without being damaged by them too much. | Read more

Top of Page



Edgewood's Lisa Stockston and Bonnie Bartlett at the conference registration desk.

Fall 2011 conference line-up follows quickly on heels of 2010's success

Edgewood executive director Lorne Hildebrand addresses the conference.

Colleen Ward, executive assistant, at the Edgewood Foundation's booth.

For the Fall 2011 conference we have added topics relevant to managers, supervisers, human resource professionals and employee assistance professionals in the workplace.

Here are the details we can confirm.

Day 1: - Pre-Conference Workshop, Nov. 29, 2011 (Tuesday)

8:30am to 4:30pm and evening session 6:00pm to 8pm
Dr. David Burns, M.D. “And It’s All Your Fault”: How to Overcome Anger and Interpersonal Conflict

Second Pre-Conference Workshop, 9am to 4pm
Dr. Joan Boryshenko, Ph.D.: Minding the Body and Mending Mind: The Quest for Self and Mind/Body Connection.

Day 2: Nov. 30, 2011 (Wednesday)

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. John Bradshaw, Ph.D.: The Primacy of the Affect System: What it Means for the Formation of the Self and Therapy; Embracing Our Shadow: Unconscious Blocks to Rigorous Honesty

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Scott Miller, Ph.D.: Supershrinks: Learning from the Field’s Most Effective Practitioners

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring, Ph.D.: A Radical Approach to Treating Intimate Wounds; The “New” Trauma – Caregiving: Does it Have to be this Hard?

Afternoon workshop
Dr. Mel Vincent, MD – Substance Abuse and the Workplace

Day 3: Dec. 1, 2011 (Thursday)

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. John Briere, Ph.D.: The Pain Paradox: Mindfulness, Resilence and Compassion in the Treatment of Complex Trauma

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Michael Yapko, Ph.D. keynote and afternoon workshop: Depression is Contagious: The Social Aspects of the Most Common Mood Disorder in the World and the Implications for Experiential Treatment Strategies

Speaker
Dr. Stephanie Covington, Ph.D.: Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy; The Addiction/Trauma Connection: Spirals of Recovery and Healing

Evening Session – 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Dr. Cardwell Nuckols: Meditation and Self Care

Day 4: Dec. 2, 2011 (Friday)

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Reid Wilson, Ph.D.: Treatment of Worry and Generalized Anxiety”

Confirmed, keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Janina Fisher, Ph.D.: Healing the Broken Bonds: Traumatic Attachment and Affect Dysregulation”

Keynote and afternoon workshop
Dr. Rick Hansen, Ph.D.: Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

Afternoon workshop
Dr. Cardwell Nuckols, Ph.D, topic: Identifying and Managing Substance Abuse in the Workplace"

Top of Page

Penny Allport
What are body resources for therapists?  How can we resource ourselves in the body, as therapists?  How can this serve our personal health and vitality, as well as our capacity to sit with others?

These are some of the questions I asked as I answered the call to create a class entitled Body Resources for Therapists at the Conference in November.  Here are the beginnings of what the inquiry delivered.  I intend, in the following articles, to continue to deepen and expand this inquiry and offer, in this spirit, resources that might support you in your daily life and in therapeutic practice.  I welcome your questions and feedback.

I think we can all agree that what we call a “body” is a mystery we will never fully understand. When we allow ourselves to be with this great unknown, already we have tapped a resource that can expand the potential of something fresh to arrive in our experience – the spirit of inquiry. | Read more

Top of Page

BOOKSTORE WITH A FOCUS: We specialize in books and DVDs related to mental health, education and wellness. At our workshops we offer a broad range or books specialized for professionals in the mental health/education fields.  If your organization is planning a large conference or event, we are willing to come and sell books at your event. We can tailor a selection of book titles to the educational needs of your participants. Your organization will receive 10% of the event gross book sales. For more information visit our website: http://bookstore.jackhirose.com. You can also download our complete catalog of books and DVDs for mail order.

REGISTRATION CHANGES: We have also restructured our online registration system for our workshops.  We understand that our limited office hours may not match with your schedule.  Our tracking system indicates that the majority of our customers are registering online and outside work hours;  often during the evenings and weekends.  With our online registration system you can go online, type in your contact information and pay at your own convenience, at home or at work and at any time of the day.

Top of Page

From chaos to serenity: When someone you care about is struggling with addiction

By Candace Plattor
It’s not something most of us like to talk about. And if we don’t talk about it we are even less likely to reach out for help. But admitting that someone you love has addiction issues can begin the process of your own healing. It is important to realize that you are affected and you do need to heal, because the healing journey is not only for those experiencing the actual addiction.

When someone close to us is engaging in addictive behaviours we can easily become engulfed in his or her needs, scurrying around doing whatever we can to ‘help’. We may do this for years, wearing ourselves out, putting our own needs and wants on hold, yet experiencing no change to the status quo; the addicted person remains addicted and we find ourselves living a life in shambles with our hopes, dreams, aspirations and desires nowhere on the radar.

Added to this cycle of living our lives like a hamster on a wheel, guilt often rears its ugly head. The guilt we feel can be quite debilitating, and we often take on that emotion when someone we love has addiction issues. We may even go so far as to think the addiction is our fault, asking ourselves questions like: “If I had spent more time with my son when he was younger, would he be addicted to the Internet now?” or more loving partner, would my spouse be having affairs?” | Read more

Top of Page