The Relationship Between You and Your Client
Sometimes clients present in ways that can be confusing to us as clinicians and leave us not knowing how to respond in the most growth-producing way. Research has demonstrated that the patient’s relationship to the healing professional is a significant factor in the efficacy of treatment. Healing professionals know this intuitively. When we gain insight into relational dynamics, we gain confidence in how to maintain our professional role with the variety of interpersonal challenges clients can present, leading to healthier outcomes for clients and clinicians.
What we’ll do in the course
This 5-week course will unfold in two sections: In the first two meetings we will establish vocabulary and describe psychodynamic concepts useful to understanding relationships in which one person is seeking (and paying for) help from another. This is followed by a series of three participatory seminars in which the group will share cases from our clinical work, and practice applying the newly introduced concepts. In this second portion of the course, we will dialogue, using experience-near language, to reflect on the relational encounter. Our intent is to deepen our empathy for the experience of both client and clinician, while clarifying the clinician’s professional perspective.
Who the course serves
Understanding the Relationship Contract is open to massage therapists, yoga teachers in private practice, Feldenkrais Practitioners, acupuncturists, and any clinician or educator working with individual clients in a body-oriented practice. Licensed or certified professionals only.
Logistics
Mondays, June 1 – 29
10:00 – 11:30 PDT / 1:00 – 2:30 EDT / 18:00 – 19:30 BST / 19:00 – 20:30 CEST
Online Via Zoom
Group size limited to 10
Standard Fee: $125
We would like to support you in your practice during this challenging time. If you prefer to pay on a sliding scale, please use the “Donate” button below to pay any amount from $50-$150. Please type “Relationships” into the note field.
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Kris Wheeler, MA, LMHC, is a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist, in private practice in Seattle for nearly 35 years. She is a teacher of Object Relations based psychotherapy as well as an ABS* credentialed leader and supervisor of Balint groups – a method of case consultation which will inform some of the clinical dialogue in this course. Her psychotherapy practice is deeply informed by dance and creative process, specifically Skinner Releasing Technique and improvisational dance. Teaching and performing dance were her first career and she continues to enjoy dance improvisation.
*American Balint Society
Sheri Cohen, GCFP, Assistant Feldenkrais® Trainer, (she/her), has been researching the movement arts for over 25 years in the fields of dance, yoga and the Feldenkrais Method®. Sheri has a lively Feldenkrais practice in the Seattle area and teaches in Feldenkrais trainings on both coasts. She also teaches dance workshops, yoga classes and yoga teacher trainings—all deeply informed by the Feldenkrais Method.