Presentations
Dr. Dawn is available to offer various types of presentations, including presentations to agencies (e.g., schools, hospitals, community agencies) on a variety of counselling related topics. She is also available to give keynote addresses, and plan and facilitate customized professional development presentations/workshops for agencies. Below are some of the presentations she is excited to offer (click on the title for a brief description).
Deepening Therapy by Shifting Away From Content and Managing Strong Emotions in Therapy
A dynamic, interactive workshop focused on how to process heavy feelings in a session. An example would be learning how to use the SIBAM processing model and increasing the “inside awareness” to facilitate resourcing and change.
CBT Refresher
Making Sense of Clients' Struggles
Filial Play Therapy
This workshop focuses on increasing the bond between the child and their parent/guardian. The content of the workshop can be curated to your agency's preference.
Who Is Driving Your Car? A Powerful Counselling Strategy Adapted From Transactional Analysis
Learn about a practical, easy-to-understand, powerful therapeutic counselling intervention that focuses on using a metaphor of a car (drawn from transactional analysis theory). This culturally adaptable tool can be used to help clients (e.g., couples, families, individuals) gain insight into how their thoughts, feelings, and actions may be contributing to their depression, anxiety, anger, or interpersonal conflict.
Reducing the Spiral of Anxiety: Creative and Innovative Counselling Strategies
to Treat Anxiety
A full day will be devoted to exploring and practicing a wide and rich variety of interventions to help clients (of all ages) tolerate, manage, and reduce their anxiety symptoms. Anxiety will be conceptualized, in client-friendly terms, as having roots in poor regulation of the nervous system (e.g., in the brain the amygdala is easily hijacked promoting defense responses such as fight, flee, and freeze actions), poor tolerance of affect states, and faulty belief systems that limit insight and cognitive reflection.
Objectives:
-
Explain what is anxiety from a variety of perspectives, including how anxiety has roots in: (a) poor regulation of the nervous system (e.g., the role of the amygdala; 3F defense responses), (b) restricted window of tolerance for affect, and (c) distorted belief systems. -
Provide a rationale for the value of using creative-based and brain-based interventions to reduce chronic symptoms of anxiety. -
Identify interventions appropriate to reduce anxiety by promoting: (a) affect tolerance, (b) affect state change, (c) cognitive insight, and (d) grounding activities to address the ABCs of regulation. -
Describe various protocols on how to use creative expressive interventions (e.g., art, poetry, metaphors). -
Practice some of the interventions before trying them with clients.
Making the Most of Supervision: Strategies with Supervisees
This training is offered 1:1 in the form of coaching. However, a workshop can be created. Feel free to see the articles Dr. Dawn has written on providing competent and comprehensive supervision.
Emotional Regulation and Self-Harm Across the Lifespan (those who hurt themselves on purpose): Understanding It, Assessing It, and Treating It. Part I of II
- Identify the range and function of the types of self-harm behavior (e.g., cutting, overeating, picking skin, taking unnecessary risks with one’s life).
- Distinguish between a suicide threat and self-injury.
- Explain why self-harm is used – from an emotional regulation perspective, using at least 2 different frameworks (e.g., cycle of self-injury & the 3Fs). Some of the material may be applied to gaining a deeper understanding of why people abuse substances and may hurt others on purpose.
- Explore the rational and range of creative expressive strategies suitable for those who need help with emotional regulation – such as those who engage in self-harm - especially in the early stages of treatment.
- Describe the 4 Cs approach when responding to disclosures from those who hurt oneself on purpose. *very valuable for parents and teachers.
Emotional Regulation and Self-Harm Across the Lifespan (those who hurt themselves on purpose): Understanding It, Assessing It, and Treating It. Part II of II
- List the guiding principles of treatment including a bill of rights – re: self-harm.
- Identify assessment questions, across three different domains, to understand and learn about the person’s need to hurt themselves on purpose. In addition, explain how purposeful assessment questions can help clients gain insight into their behaviour and how they can gain skills to predict and control their behaviour.
- Describe several counselling interventions within four different counselling domains - affective, somatic, cognitive, creative, and behavioural - that are designed to help clients’:
- increase their emotional awareness,
- express themselves without having to engage in traditional “talk” therapy such as the use of props,
- build their tolerance for emotional & cognitive distress,
- gain a solid understanding how the connection between thoughts, feelings and actions, using the user-friendly, visual 3BE model by McBride.
- reduce the frequency and/or the intensity of their self-injuries.
- Describe some strategies to engage parents when working with a youth who engages in self-harm behaviour.
Customized Training - Will Design A Training To Suit Your Needs
Deepening Therapy by Shifting Away From Content and Managing Strong Emotions in Therapy
A dynamic, interactive workshop focused on how to process heavy feelings in a session. An example would be learning how to use the SIBAM processing model and increasing the “inside awareness” to facilitate resourcing and change.
CBT Refresher
Making Sense of Clients' Struggles
Filial Play Therapy
This workshop focuses on increasing the bond between the child and their parent/guardian. The content of the workshop can be curated to your agency's preference.
Who Is Driving Your Car? A Powerful Counselling Strategy Adapted From Transactional Analysis
Learn about a practical, easy-to-understand, powerful therapeutic counselling intervention that focuses on using a metaphor of a car (drawn from transactional analysis theory). This culturally adaptable tool can be used to help clients (e.g., couples, families, individuals) gain insight into how their thoughts, feelings, and actions may be contributing to their depression, anxiety, anger, or interpersonal conflict.
Reducing the Spiral of Anxiety: Creative and Innovative Counselling Strategies
to Treat Anxiety
A full day will be devoted to exploring and practicing a wide and rich variety of interventions to help clients (of all ages) tolerate, manage, and reduce their anxiety symptoms. Anxiety will be conceptualized, in client-friendly terms, as having roots in poor regulation of the nervous system (e.g., in the brain the amygdala is easily hijacked promoting defense responses such as fight, flee, and freeze actions), poor tolerance of affect states, and faulty belief systems that limit insight and cognitive reflection.
Objectives:
-
Explain what is anxiety from a variety of perspectives, including how anxiety has roots in: (a) poor regulation of the nervous system (e.g., the role of the amygdala; 3F defense responses), (b) restricted window of tolerance for affect, and (c) distorted belief systems. -
Provide a rationale for the value of using creative-based and brain-based interventions to reduce chronic symptoms of anxiety. -
Identify interventions appropriate to reduce anxiety by promoting: (a) affect tolerance, (b) affect state change, (c) cognitive insight, and (d) grounding activities to address the ABCs of regulation. -
Describe various protocols on how to use creative expressive interventions (e.g., art, poetry, metaphors). -
Practice some of the interventions before trying them with clients.
Making the Most of Supervision: Strategies with Supervisees
This training is offered 1:1 in the form of coaching. However, a workshop can be created. Feel free to see the articles Dr. Dawn has written on providing competent and comprehensive supervision.
Emotional Regulation and Self-Harm Across the Lifespan (those who hurt themselves on purpose): Understanding It, Assessing It, and Treating It. Part I of II
- Identify the range and function of the types of self-harm behavior (e.g., cutting, overeating, picking skin, taking unnecessary risks with one’s life).
- Distinguish between a suicide threat and self-injury.
- Explain why self-harm is used – from an emotional regulation perspective, using at least 2 different frameworks (e.g., cycle of self-injury & the 3Fs). Some of the material may be applied to gaining a deeper understanding of why people abuse substances and may hurt others on purpose.
- Explore the rational and range of creative expressive strategies suitable for those who need help with emotional regulation – such as those who engage in self-harm - especially in the early stages of treatment.
- Describe the 4 Cs approach when responding to disclosures from those who hurt oneself on purpose. *very valuable for parents and teachers.
Emotional Regulation and Self-Harm Across the Lifespan (those who hurt themselves on purpose): Understanding It, Assessing It, and Treating It. Part II of II
- List the guiding principles of treatment including a bill of rights – re: self-harm.
- Identify assessment questions, across three different domains, to understand and learn about the person’s need to hurt themselves on purpose. In addition, explain how purposeful assessment questions can help clients gain insight into their behaviour and how they can gain skills to predict and control their behaviour.
- Describe several counselling interventions within four different counselling domains - affective, somatic, cognitive, creative, and behavioural - that are designed to help clients’:
- increase their emotional awareness,
- express themselves without having to engage in traditional “talk” therapy such as the use of props,
- build their tolerance for emotional & cognitive distress,
- gain a solid understanding how the connection between thoughts, feelings and actions, using the user-friendly, visual 3BE model by McBride.
- reduce the frequency and/or the intensity of their self-injuries.
- Describe some strategies to engage parents when working with a youth who engages in self-harm behaviour.
Customized Training - Will Design A Training To Suit Your Needs
