Introduction:

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Depression is one of the most common and debilitating mental health problems in Hong Kong. An estimate of 1 in 7 people in Hong Kong will experience a common mental disorder at any given time (Mind HK: 2021).  People suffer from depression are not only overwhelmed with a cluster of feelings such as sadness, anxiety, suppressed anger, discouragement, helplessness, alienation, and hopelessness, but also experience an embodiment of poor self-image, diminishing sense of identity and pessimistic worldview. People with depressive symptoms disclaim their emotions and try to stay away from their core painful emotions. This dysfunctional way to cope with the painful emotions is how depression becoming problematic.

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This workshop aims at introducing how to use a transdiagnostic emotion focused approach to work with people manifesting depressive symptoms. Most people, who suffer from mental health difficulties like depression, usually present symptomatic disturbances, such as prolonged low mood, lack in motivation, insomnia, suicidal ideation, etc. Emotion Focused Therapy is not just working on symptoms treatment or reduction of presenting symptomatic emotions, but addressing underlying feelings and needs with the goal of transforming core painful feelings.

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This workshop aims at equipping participants with practical emotion-focused intervention skills in the process of therapeutic change using transdiagnostic emotion focused case conceptualization. 

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Objectives:

This workshop aims at equipping the following emotion-focused intervention skills step-by-step:

• how to cultivate therapeutic presence with people with depressive symptoms

• how to enhance empathic attunement with people with depressive symptoms 

• how to do emotion assessment and to select differentiated empathic responses 

• how to measure productive and unproductive emotions in session

• how to enhance clients’ awareness of internal experience

• how to give a rationale for working with emotions

• how to establish a collaborative focus in each session

• how to facilitate chair dialogues

• how to build up support for contacting emotions

• how to evoke and arouse maladaptive feelings

• how to remove interruptions to emotional experience

• how to facilitate accessing primary emotions

• how to transform core maladaptive emotions

• how to encourage reflection on emotional experience

• how to consolidate the newly emerged sense of self

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Course Outline: 

1. Understanding the phenomena of depression from an emotion focused point of view

2. Transdiagnostic emotion focused case conceptualization

3. Understanding the role of emotion in depression

4. Importance of therapeutic presence

5. Empathic attunement and validation 

6. Principles of treatment

7. Therapeutic process of transformation 

8. Different variations of chair dialogue

9. Other clinical issues related to depression: suicide, bereavement, couple relationship

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Training Format:

• Didactic presentations

• Experiential exercises

• Case presentation and discussion

• Simulated practice of counseling sessions

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Medium of Instruction:

Cantonese supplemented with English

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Training Materials:

Mainly in English

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Course Code:  PT-240701

Date:                9 & 16 July 2024

Time:                9:30 am to 5:00 pm

Venue:             Rm 906, 9/F, Caritas Jockey Club Tsuen Wan Social Service Building, 9 Shing Mun Road, Tsuen Wan, NT.

Target:             Social Workers, Counselors, Clinical Psychologists, and other helping professionals 

Course Fee:    2 Person or more together: 2,000
                          Early Bird: 2,200 (on or before 18 Jun 2024)
                          Original: 2,400

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About the trainer:

Mrs. Catherine Poon

B.A., M.S.W., M.BuddhStud.
Emotion-Focused Therapist (Individual/Couple Therapy)
Registered Social Worker
Certified Counselor (HKPCA)
Associate Fellow (HKPCA) 
Approved Supervisor (HKPCA) 
Certified EFT Trainer (Individual Therapy) recognized by the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy (isEFT)

Mrs. Catherine Poon has worked with the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (HKCMAC) for over 20 years as a marriage counselor. She specializes her clinical work with clients of emotional dysregulation, depression, anxiety, and childhood attachment trauma, and couples with chronic physical/mental illnesses, addictive behavioral problems and extra-marital relationship. Apart from clinical practice of individual and couple counselling, she has supervised social work students at different universities and family mediator trainees from different social service agencies. She maintains a humanistic person-centered approach in her clinical practice and supervision.

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Mrs. Catherine Poon has been trained in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) with Professor Leslie Greenberg since 2004. She has given presentations, provided skills coaching in the Module Workshops, and conducted monthly supervision groups in the yearly Training Programs in EFT (Individual & Couples) jointly organized by the EFT Clinic of York University and HKCMAC from 2007 to 2017. Over the years, she has led hundreds of supervision group sessions. She is recognized as a certified EFT individual therapy trainer since 2016.

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She is currently in private practice. She continues to provide individual and couples therapy, training workshops on EFT (Individual and Couples), Advanced Empathy and Mindfulness-informed clinical work, and EFT supervision for local practitioners. She is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong from 2015 to 2020, teaching Emotion-Focused Interventions and Marital Counseling for Master degree students of counseling and social work.

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