Workshop Description: 18 CE Hours
In this comprehensive course—based on the best-selling, award-winning book The Mindfulness Toolbox—you will be guided into bringing mindfulness to your treatment of anxiety, depression, stress and more. This is a highly experiential course, so you will learn firsthand effective and practical tools that you can implement right away.

There is confusion about how to get clients breathing in a way that effectively turns on the parasympathetic nervous system. This workshop provides extensive work with 5 postures that have been shown to reduce stress and lower blood pressure. Donald Altman’s involvement in a published research study with Priests used this protocol which was shown to be effective.
This workshop extensively integrates neuroscience so you can explain to clients how they are strengthening the connections in the prefrontal cortex—the most human part of the brain that is involved in emotional regulation, empathy, and social connection.

Clinicians will also learn how to use mindfulness terminology in a way that “meets clients where they are at,” so it can be accessible to all populations. Also covered mindful self-care, which is necessary for maintaining the managing stress, increasing the immune system, mental focus, clarity and emotional regulation. Self-care areas include such vital areas as sleep, nutrition, social networks, use of technology, nature, and exercise.

18 CE hours

Workshop Outline:
Mindfulness and the Latest Research
Use a Mindfulness Vocabulary that Works
Power of Sense Grounding
Brain Basics and Metacognition
Behavioral Side of Mindful Self-Care
Mindful Laughter for Depression and Grief
Storytelling to Broaden Attention
Manage Mood with Selective Attention
Harness Gratitude for Positive Emotions
Acceptance and Forgiveness for Emotional Pain
Truth about Stress
Mindfulness for Cravings and Impulses
Reducing Pain Perception with Mindfulness
Managing Transitions to Reduce Anxiety
Loving-Kindness Affirmations for Security and Attachment

Objectives:
1. Evaluate how understandable explanations of mindfulness’ impact on neurological processes involved in common mental health disorders can be used to promote engagement in treatment.
2. Explore the effect of diaphragmatic breathing on the parasympathetic nervous system and communicate how mindful breathing techniques can be incorporated into therapy.
3. Assess the latest research analyzing mindfulness, attention and depressive symptoms.
4. Connect how clinical tools based in mindfulness and grounding can be used to impact the biological stress response in clients with trauma.
5. Consider how treatment plans for depression can incorporate mindfulness interventions that clients can use to counter automatic patterns of thoughts.
6. Communicate the clinical implications of research regarding the health benefits of nature and exposure to the natural world.
7. Plan how mindfulness strategies focused on impacting the neural pathways associated with fear can be incorporated into treatment to help alleviate symptoms in anxious clients.
8. Articulate how mindfulness techniques that impact the areas of the nervous system associated with stress can be used in clinical practice.
9. Analyze the state of research on the use of mindfulness as an intervention for the management of chronic pain.
10. Scrutinize how barriers to implementing mindfulness can be overcome using practical informal techniques clients can easily and naturally incorporate into their lives.
11. Appraise the latest research on the efficacy of mindfulness as an approach to aid in relapse prevention for alcohol and substance use disorders.
12. Characterize how clinical tools that increase self-awareness can be used in therapy to help clients better manage their thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
13. Communicate how self-compassion and feelings of safety, trust and forgiveness impact the therapeutic process.
14. Analyze the latest research regarding the biochemistry of laughter and the connection between laughter and mental and physical health.
15. Evaluate research on gratitude, it’s impact on depressive symptoms, and how easy to implement gratitude exercises could be beneficial to clients.
16. Assess how mindfulness’ ability to shift awareness can be used to positively impact relationships and help clients to recognize their strengths.
17. Establish how mindfulness can be taught to clients as a skill they can employ to ease anxiety associated with transitions.
18. Evaluate the role of compassion in treating clients suffering from high levels of shame and self-criticism.

How to Get CE Credits
18 CE Hours are available for Social Workers, Counselors, and Psychologists