Mastering Eco and Climate Conscious Therapy: Skills, Ethics, and Community

Journey Wellness is offering an Early Bird Discount for those who register for the event by Monday, September 1, 2022. Please see the fee schedule below:

Climate Anxiety Early Bird Registration Fee:  $125.00

Climate Anxiety Full Registration Fee (Starting September 2, 2022): $150.00

SCHEDULE

8:30am arrival/snacks/registration

8:50am Greetings to Attendees / Overview of Day / Site Logistics

9:05am: Dr. Thomas Doherty: Mastering Eco- and Climate Conscious Therapy: Skills, Ethics, and Community

Content Description:

Dr. Thomas Doherty guides participants through an introduction to counseling and therapy approaches focusing on environmental and climate change concerns and impacts. A foundation of effective eco- and climate conscious therapy is familiarity with your “environmental identity.” This self-concept and sense of relationship with nature intersects with a person’s other identities in unique ways and provides the base on which to build client-specific eco and climate therapy interventions. Join Dr. Thomas for an active, large group presentation with personal exercises and small-group discussions.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore one’s environmental identity, ethics, and values
• Adapt your existing therapy orientation and skill set to address clients’ environmental and climate concerns in a culturally aware manner
• Unpack your clients’ sources of environmental well-being and resilience as well as their sense of environmental traumas or injustice
• Stay mindful of professional ethics, context, and messaging when applying environmental interventions with diverse individuals

10:30am Break / Outdoor Time

10:40am Resume Large Group Session with Dr. Thomas Doherty

12:00pm Lunch / Outdoor Time

1:00pm: Panel: Dr. Justin Panneck, LPC; Amy Halloran-Steiner, LCSW, CADC I; Emily Lake, LPC; and Lesley Smith, LCSW – Ecotherapy in Practice – What does your practice look like/how do I incorporate ecotherapy into my practice?

Content Description: Each panelist will describe how they have incorporated Ecotherapy and climate conscious interventions into their clinical practice. Audience members will be able to ask questions of the panelist related to implementation of climate conscious therapy tools, strategies, and interventions.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn 4 different approaches for integrating ecotherapy and climate conscious therapy into their clinical practice.
• Participants will reflect on ways they already incorporate ecotherapy concepts and clients for whom ecotherapy may be beneficial.
• Participants will engage with panelist through Q&A to increase their understanding of how practicing clinicians are structuring their ecotherapy work with clients.

2:15 Break

2:30pm Breakout Sessions #1

Tracks:

1. Dr. Thomas Doherty: Practice Building: Ecotherapy Case Studies and Group Supervision

Content Description:

Dr. Doherty will provide description of eco-therapy case studies and will provide facilitation for group supervision on the topic of ecotherapy in clinical practice.

Learning Objectives:

• Will explore 2-4 clinical case studies from an ecotherapy perspective.
• Will identify personal biases and blind spots when working from an ecotherapy perspective
• Will build skills for case conceptualization from an ecotherapy informed lens.

2. Cara Sams, LPC, EAGALA – Equine Therapy Session #1

Content Description: Cara will provide an overview of equine therapy principles and practices as well as experiential activities designed to illustrate benefits and contraindications for equine therapy.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify benefits and contraindications for utilizing equine therapy with clients
• Participants will explore issues related to the human/horse bond and the ethics of utilizing animals in therapeutic settings.
• Participants will learn foundational principles of equine facilitated psychotherapy

3. Dr. Pilar Hernandez-Wolfe – Vicarious Resilience And Animals

Content Description:

This presentation examines the results of an exploratory study that focused on the positive impacts that helping injured animals recover had on the helpers, and these impacts are related to the concept of vicarious resilience. We will examine the themes that emerged: perspective taking, expansion of sensorial awareness to respond to nonhuman communication, persistence and faith in the animal’s resilience, inspiration and hope, patience and consistency, contributing to something greater than yourself, views on life and death, and compassion fatigue. These themes suggest that some humans learn and grow in important ways from the animals they help to recover from abuse perpetrated by other humans. We will discuss implications for eco-therapy.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine the process of vicarious resilience in the relationship between humans and rehabilitated animals
• Examine the meaning of reciprocity in the relationship between humans and rehabilitated animals
• Understand the meaning of the human animal bond at the level of larger ecological and social systems, family dynamics and attachment.

3:30pm Break / Outdoor Time / Networking

4:00pm Breakout Sessions #2

Tracks:

1. Anna Schaum, LPC, TEP – Our Bodies as Instruments: Science based sound healing approaches for adapting through climate change

Content Description: Anna will describe the science related to music and sound therapy/healing and will provide examples of interventions clinicians can use with clients as it relates to decreasing climate related anxiety.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to define vagal tone.
• Participants will be able to describe one way that intentional vocalizing may decrease anxiety symptoms.
• Participants will utilize at least one vocal sound healing technique for personal and client care.

2. Cara Sams, LPC, EAGALA – Equine Therapy Session #2

Content Description:

Cara will provide an overview of equine therapy principles and practices as well as experiential activities designed to illustrate benefits and contraindications for equine therapy.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify benefits and contraindications for utilizing equine therapy with clients
• Participants will explore issues related to the human/horse bond and the ethics of utilizing animals in therapeutic settings.
• Participants will learn foundational principles of equine facilitated psychotherapy

3. Aimee Frasier, LPCA – Walk And Talk Therapy

Content Description: Aimee will outline experiential ecotherapy, its benefits, and therapeutic depth.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand 2 benefits of walk and talk therapy.
• Receive an outline of how to implement walk and talk therapy within a therapy practice.
• Understand best practices for consent, logistics, and liability within the walk and talk format.

5:00 PM Afternoon Wrap Up – evaluations, thank you’s

5:15 Adjourn