Education & Professional Development at PrairieCare

PrairieCare Education Series (PES)

PrairieCare Education Series (PES) is a monthly educational webinar open to the public and external clinicians to provide attendees with information primarily related to psychiatric issues in adults, children and adolescents. The topics chosen are those related to issues & diagnoses that are frequently treated through PrairieCare’s programs and/or for which we have received requests at conferences, seminars, and our previous years PES. Our events are typically held the first Thursday each month from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.

Approved for 3.0 (Three) Continuing Education Units by Minnesota Board of: Behavioral Health & Therapy (LPC/LPCC, LADC), Marriage & Family Therapy, Psychology, and Social Work. Cost will vary based on event length.

PrairieCare Education Series is Back!

We are excited to bring back our PrairieCare Education Series with a new lineup of experienced mental health professionals and topics requested by our attendees. Registration is now open for upcoming presentations!

Our team received an overwhelming response to continue our webinar for an accessible format for all! We always appreciate your feedback and we will continue supporting this format over the next several months. Zoom webinars are recorded and we will provide access to those who registered in advance to the recording.

Upcoming Presentations for 2023

Thursday, December 7, 2023 9:00 am – 12:00 pm – “First Session Magic: Use of Genograms to Deepen Family Assessment and Therapy” 3 hours

Speaker: Anna Bohlinger PhD, LMFT

Bio: Dr. Bohlinger is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has worked with children, adolescents, and families for over ten years. Her clinical work has focused largely on providing mental health services to families with multiple stressors, often including out-of-home placement, suicidality or self-injury, and trauma. She values the inherent dignity, worth, and resilience of individuals and families soliciting care. As a doctoral researcher and teacher, her research focuses on adolescent self-injury, comorbidity, and family resilience. She has provided a number of trainings domestically and abroad on these topics. She has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels and regularly provides in-service trainings and workshops for community members. Dr. Bohlinger has also published articles in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters on adolescent mental health and training mental health therapists. Her research and teaching philosophies are motivated by improving mental health services for young people and their families.

Description:
Family therapy! How do you help make it useful, meaningful, and attended to the whole of the system (as opposed to aligned with one party, agenda, or system at a time)? In this presentation, participants will learn about a method for structuring first family sessions using a genogram and observational analysis to develop systems grounded hypotheses for family dynamics, functions, and patterns. Patterns related to intergenerational traumatic transmission will be discussed. Particular attention will be paid to use of structured family assessment in high levels of care, such a residential treatment or partial hospitalization programs.

Family therapy can confound even very skilled clinicians. It can feel like therapists are chasing family members around the room to try to get them to engage, aligning themselves with a single person and their particular agenda (while losing sight of that person’s blindspots and their own clinical point of view), or even like individual therapy with spectators. Worse yet, sometimes clinicians are inappropriately confident in their skills but find themselves providing only didactic psychoeducation, and the function of therapy is entirely obscured by the therapist’s avoidance of tension, anxiety, or conflict. Finding a way to hold one’s own clinical point of view and make effective use of countertransference in a family therapy situation can feel very complicated and difficult.

In this workshop, participants will explore a structured method for obtaining family history, observing family patterns, developing hypotheses about family dynamics, and supporting the family in beginning to identify family level goals. Particular attention will be paid to self of the therapist dynamics throughout the family assessment process.

Objectives:

Review and orient similarities and differences from family therapy, case management, group therapy, and individual therapy models.
Discuss goals and methods for family assessment
Articulate 2-3 benefits of using a genogram with regard to understanding family norms, intergenerational trauma, and patterns related to warmth and conflict.
Use case study examples to apply concepts and theory to a fictional case.

Knowledge Level: Intermediate: Suitable for people with average understanding about this topic. Material builds upon audience members’ knowledge.

Register Here for the December Presentation

The event is 3 hours for $30.00.

Previous Presentation Resources for Registered Attendees

Please email us with any questions or concerns you may have at education@prairie-care.com