Workshops

We invite you to take advantage of this unique gathering of distinguished teachers to educate yourself and gather CEU's for professional credit. Congress is the only time all these leaders are available in one place. (CEU details are listed in the congress brochure available from the APPPAH office.) Below, please find highlights of the workshops and their leaders.

Pre-Congress Workshops

It is not surprising that early developmental stages play a crucial role in the ability to form satisfying and creative partnerships . Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, married to each other for a couple of decades, have explored this in their own relationship and in their internationally acclaimed trainings. Their 2-day workshop on Thursday and Friday (December 2 and 3) is Struggling Toward the Light: The Pre- and Perinatal Dynamics of Relationship Transformation. Understanding pre- and perinatal issues enables therapists help people resolve relationship issues much more rapidly. Gay reports, "We worked with a couple who had been agonizing over a money issue for months. They had wrestled with it unsuccessfully by approaching it through budgeting savings plans and other strategies. In our first session when we discussed the issue, he displayed what we call birth flags, body language suggestive of the birth process. In other words, a conversation about money was not about money. It was a replay of his birth trauma. Once the birth issue was addressed and resolved through breath and movement work, the actual issue about money resolved itself very quickly." In this experiential workshop, participants will learn key flags, the body signals that point to conception, prenatal, and birth issues that indicate early trauma. Kathlyn says, "The body-language of a conception issue looks very different from that of a prenatally-influenced issue or a birth issue." Using a series of handouts and experiential processes, the pre- and perinatal paradigm will be applied to common relationship issues such as sex, money, control, communication and child rearing. These processes are designed to produce shifts in consciousness and transform relationships.

On Thursday, December 2nd, Judyth Weaver and Sally Clark present an innovative workshop, Sandplay, Movement and Sensory Awareness: An Interactive Approach. Judyth, an international teacher and pioneer in the field of somatic psychotherapy, reminds us, "Symbols are a powerful doorway to the unconscious and when we embody the symbols. When we write, draw, talk, and/or move them, a felt shift and deeper understanding can be experienced. Let the symbols, the creation, speak to you, and through you. In this workshop this will be done with both individual and group sandplay." Using the principles of sandplay, you will integrate symbolic language, sensory awareness, movement and interactive modalities. In this workshop, Judyth and Sally offer you an experience of sensing, building awareness, and integrating this awareness into the therapeutic structure. Theoretical principles and clinical applications for adults and children will be given on traditional, prenatal, and interactive sandplay. You will have time to create your own sandplay and explore it through expressions of writing, drawing, and movement.

Terry Levy, innovator in the attachment field, returns to the APPPAH congress with this pre-congress workshop on Friday, December 3rd, Understanding and Treating Attachment Disorders in Children and Families. Terry explains, "Traumatic events such as abuse and neglect compromise the normal attachment process. These children are at risk for becoming oppositional, impulsive, aggressive and incapable of genuine trust, empathy or affection." Corrective Attachment Therapy, the treatment program presented in this workshop, focuses on methods of addressing the child's trauma and negative belief systems and teaches prosocial coping skills, respect and resourcefulness while promoting secure parental attachment and supporting family-community systems. Treatment is goal-oriented and solution focused and is founded on the biological and evolutionary basis of attachment, as well as longitudinal, developmental and family research findings.

On Friday (Dec. 3) pioneer Bob Mandel will lead the workshop, Rebirthing: Return to Primal Pleasure. This workshop explores rebirthing as it relates to quantum psychology. It offers a theoretical and experiential understanding of dynamics underlying belief systems and how "false identities" that are formed prenatally and at birth affect interpersonal relationships. Exploring the false identities we form at birth, you will learn how the rebirthing process can help you return to your essential self. You will have an opportunity to experience healing these disassociated identities through a rebirthing session and "the identity process." This process can help you access and integrate the primal pleasure that pre-dates the trauma of birth.

Aletha Solter presents a pre-congress workshop, Helping Babies Heal, on Friday, December 3rd. Aletha's books on babies and parenting have helped thousands of professionals and parents and now you have an opportunity to learn her innovative methods. She will review the major sources and symptoms of trauma and stress from conception to two years of age. These can include pre- and perinatal trauma, unfilled needs, over-stimulation developmental frustrations, physical pain, and frightening experiences. Creating an atmosphere of emotional safety in which healing can occur is of primary importance. The focus will be on recognizing and assisting babies' spontaneous stress-release mechanisms, their efforts to heal themselves with particular emphasis on the therapeutic value of play, laughter, crying, and raging.

Post Congress Workshops

On Monday afternoon and evening, another set of workshops will begin. Please plan to extend your stay to be with these outstanding teachers, and to obtain additional continuing education credits. (See details in the congress brochure.) You will never find such an illustrious gathering of leaders in this field all in one place. The Monday workshops will have afternoon and evening sessions and the Tuesday workshops will have morning and afternoon sessions.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, world-renowned pioneer in the human potential movement and best selling author, will present a workshop on Monday December 6th (afternoon and evening), The Evolution, Biology and Development of Spiritual Intelligence. In this exciting presentation, you will learn the interactional relationship between the role of conception and pregnancy and the roots of violence, environmental influence on DNA and the genetic process, and theory of innate and acquired capacities. You will become acquainted with the three elements in neuroscientist Paul MacLean's "family triad of needs" that are found in all mammals and the role the old mammalian brain plays in childbirth. You will learn the concept of "brain-heart" dynamics that is currently being addressed in the field of neuro-cardiology, and its role on fetal development as it relates to the three parts of the brain.

Author Jeannine Parvati Baker will be presenting Pysche's Midwife: The Soul in Birth Y2K (Monday afternoon and evening, Dec. 6.) This experiential workshop will weave myth and metaphor, theory and practice with ceremony to inform and inspire participants. It begins with a discussion of themes in conception, pregnancy birthing, and family processes. Next, it unfolds the myth of Psyche and Eros, how the psyche experiences perinatal life and how this imprint is imposed upon our vision of the future changes at hand. An exploration of the psycho-sexuality of the perinatal period is explored as well as how "the wound reveals the cure." The workshop will close with a ceremony celebrating the "afterglow" of our Congress as a planetary state and creating the "possible" family.

Norma Wilcox and Tim Hammond present a post-congress workshop Healing Circumcision Shock and Trauma on Monday afternoon and evening. Through lecture, video, and experiential processes, you will learn the anatomical and sensory development of the most erogenous tissue of the body, the foreskin; the latest research revealing the severity and long-term effects of neonatal circumcision shock; how circumcision decreases sexual sensitivity and pleasure; and how to heal the wounds. Norma Wilcox, R.N. teaches at Stanford, UCSF and Tauro Schools of Medicine. Tim Hammond is founder and director of NOHARMM, the National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males.

On Tuesday, Dec. 7, we are privileged to offer a morning and afternoon experiential workshop by Ray Castellino, D.C. and R.P.P., The Primal Impulse: Discovery of the Self, and Other Tools for Healing Prenatal and Birth Trauma. The practical focus will be on learning to use contact and facilitated movement with infants and adults. Ray's clinical research and teaching ask the important question, "How can we best support infants to develop their nervous system, proprioception, and what are the links to healthy personality development, self esteem and relationship with self and others?" You will learn about facilitated movemen and what it takes for a practitioner to sit with a baby and a family (and an adult client), slowing your own process, tracking yourself and the client and doing accurate somatic, emotional and verbal reflection. In the context of contact and bonding, this supports the integrity of the developing nervous system and, therefore, the being. This is the core of healing shock trauma from early experience. Ray will use lecture, video, demonstration and experiential processes.

The experiential workshop, Gentle Recovery of Prebirth and Birth Memories will be led by Jon Turner and Isabella Barajon. Jon has been doing this work for a quarter century in all parts of the world. The elegantly simple method used will demonstrate that we are conscious before, during and after birth. The importance of bonding will be clear. Jon says, "We discover that the trauma often described of a traumatic birth is actually the memory of mother's laboring and birthing." You will be guided in discovering and healing memories of prebirth, birth and the inheritance encoded from mother's labor during the birth process. A simple process for gently releasing these inherited patterns will be given. Jon and Isabella will offer therapeutic tools that can gently release us from the belief and guilt in which we are trapped by fate or chance, and help us discover the reason for this life.

Please register early. If you need copies of the Conference brochure to give colleagues, call the APPPAH office at (707) 857- 4041. You can complete your Registration Form On Line. Return to the menu for this column and choose Registration Form. Reserve space at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, San Francisco as soon as possible. Special conference rates will not be offered after Nov. 2nd.