NPI Reflects Spring 2021

NPI REFLECTS SPRING 2021

Volume 11: Issue 1

this issue

What is NPI? The Nashville Psychotherapy Institute or NPI is a 501(c)(6) non profit, professional organization. Founded in 1985, NPI now boasts 300+ members. www.NashvillePsychotherapyInstitute.org

Inside this issue:

“Connections” by artist Marilyn Deitchman 1

A note from the Chair John Nichols

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Let’s Connect Ways to connect with NPI community

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Eulogy for Tiny Relationship Cynthia Ezell

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Group Psychotherapy for the Psychotherapist…

Philip Chanin

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Could I Be Loved Linda Odom

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As Below, So Above Barbara Sanders

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Board Member Spotlight Hannah Reynolds

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2021 Jules Seeman Fall Workshop Save the Date

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Continuing Education Calendar of Events

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From the Chair...

MULTIFACETED I’m a big fan of the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. I actually started binging the entire series from start to finish a few months ago. It came out in 1997 when I was in my mid-twenties and I quickly became a fan. If you’ve never watched the show, really anything you need to know about it is in the title, so I’ll spare you my description. Google it and get back to my article. For those of you who are already familiar with it, I have either just scored 100 cool points with you, or you may avoid me once we’re meeting in person again.

John Nichols, MS, LPC/MHSP

Anyway, I love the show. It’s a great escape from the day to day. I love the characters, and I’m totally bummed that I am about six episodes away from the series finale. I am also totally bummed about what has recently been made public about the series creator, Joss Whedon.

Many actors who worked with Whedon on “Buffy” are coming out publicly denouncing his treatment of the women who starred in the show. Apparently the creator of this show whose heroes were predominantly strong, powerful women, and whom the media and fans at the time lauded as a true feminist and champion for women’s rights, was in fact a misogynistic bully replete with his own little “casting couch”. The creator of the show I absolutely adore is a sleazy Hollywood cliché. Wonderful.

As a fan of the show and the actors that made it, I’m bewildered as to how someone whose behavior I find so despicable could create a show that myself and millions of other viewers absolutely adore.

However when I put my therapist hat on, I am reminded that dualities and pluralities can coexist. The school bully can also be a talented poet. That jerk of a boss can also be a loving, doting mother. The waiter at your favorite restaurant is also an inventor, a mentor, and has a wicked green thumb. The doctor with the gentle bedside manner can also be an abusive partner who carries on multiple affairs.

When I was a fledgling therapist working at a non-profit in East Tennessee, one of my first clients was an adolescent who had done some things to a much younger neighborhood child that made my stomach turn. He lacked remorse, he blamed the victim, and I begged my supervisor to let me punt.

She refused. I was pissed. Sessions were going nowhere. My client and I were equally frustrated and resentful for having to spend an hour a week with each other. He passed our hour together each week by drawing in his sketch book and ignoring me. I once started talking about the aliens who fed off my brain to see if he was paying attention. His occasional “uh huh’s” led me to believe he was not.

During one of our usual fruitless sessions he asked me if I had a pencil he could have (not borrow, have). He explained he had drawn his down to the very nub and he didn’t have any at home. He said, “I haven’t finished the barn yet” as he showed me what he was drawing. When he turned around his sketchpad my eyes fell on his drawing of a snow-covered country house next to what appeared to be a horse barn surrounded by a wooden fence. The kid was twelve years old. If you had told me that an art school student had drawn it, I would have readily believed you. “Sure man,” I replied. I had a pack of five pencils that I handed to him. “Keep it. Do you have a sharpener?” He told me he was “cool," and then therapy finally began.

(Continued on page 3)

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(From the Chair, continued from page 2) There were many parts of his story, a lot of you can guess. Those of us who have worked with adolescents that act out sexually know the similarities. But there was also more to his story. He was a talented artist. He loved animals. He was a big Lenny Kravitz fan, which scored him 100 cool points with his therapist. His first big life goal was to graduate high school, buy a Winnebago and see the continental United States. He wasn’t sure about college. He just wanted to live a good life, be able to support himself, and be free.

I almost failed this kid as a rookie therapist because I was hyper-focused on one part of his human condition. It wasn’t until I allowed myself to see all of him that I was able to help him heal and to connect with him as a human being. I grew to really care for him and respect him. I sat with him as he cried in shame for the awful things he had done to his neighbor. I listened as he recounted the equally reprehensible things that a family member had done to him just a few years prior. I was privileged to hear him as he forgave himself and the uncle who had hurt him. I would have missed all these things if I had chosen to lump him in the first box that I thought he fit in.

We are challenged in this season as therapists and as citizens of the world to see our clients, our colleagues, and the rest of our community as more complex and multifaceted than the boxes we initially want to place them in. Sometimes it's really hard, I get it. Sometimes we have to dig super deep to find something in others that we can relate to, respect, or love. If it were easy, things would be a lot different. Perhaps even better.

By the way, the kiddo I told you about found me on the Book of Faces a few years ago. He finished high school. He worked all the way through it so he could save up and buy that Winnebago, and he left town the day after he graduated. After seeing the continental United States, working odd jobs when he needed, he settled in a little town in North Carolina. He just got married to a really sweet girl and they bought a puppy that they named Xander. Kiddo was a Buffy fan, also, evidently.

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Eulogy for the Tiny Relationship

By Cynthia Ezell, LMFT, MFA Life was rich with tiny relationships before the pandemic. They were like appetizers at a cocktail party, little bite-sized moments of connection that hinted at possibilities and gave us warm feelings, fleeting but restorative as we slogged through the mundanities of a normal day. They were born of encounters with random strangers who inhabit our orbit but don't take up permanent residence in the landscape of our psyches. Like the teenage boy who sacks groceries at the Kroger in my small town. Because the store makes him wear a name badge, I can make a bid for conversation by saying, "Hi, Drew, how's your day going?", and there isn't much he can do to ignore me. Often the Drews of my world appreciate being seen as real people and not just flesh-covered robots, so they respond and lob a question back at me. "I'm okay. How 'bout you?" Bam. A tiny relationship has just occurred. These days Drew and I are both wearing masks and trying not to get too close to each other. He can't even see me smiling at him.

Other tiny relationships happen less intentionally, like my maybe not so tiny relationship with Nancy, the woman who washes my hair when I go to the salon for a highlight. I look forward to talking to Nancy as much as I look forward to being blonde again for a few months.. She is the only other person in the world who washes my hair. I miss her.

Tiny relationships sometimes surprise us. Sometimes we don't really welcome them but get roped in by circumstance. Sometimes they change our lives.

I was in Louisville, KY on a blustery Spring morning in 2019, the Before Times. As I approached the corner of Broadway and Third, a woman with kinky grey hair and baggy blue pants stood beside a grocery cart strewn with plastic bags, water bottles, and a worn woolen blanket. She was agitated and kept walking toward the crosswalk, then veering back under the awning that ran along the ground floor of the Brown Hotel. I was a student at Spalding University, and like Drew, my grocery store buddy, had on a name badge as I walked to class. The woman rushed over to me and said, "Cynthia, I need you to help me!"

"Okay…..", I replied. “What do you need?"

"I need you to help me cross the street. I'm afraid of the wind."

She grabbed my arm and headed for the curb as the pedestrian crossing sign turned green. We had twenty seconds to make it across Broadway before the cars on Third would be unleashed.

"I'm afraid of the wind," she said again as her eyes searched the sky.

Her obvious distress softened my reserve.

"It will be okay. What's your name?", I asked as we merged into the flow of strangers, all intent on getting across before the seconds ticked off.

"Elaine," she replied, her eyes darting between the sky and the safety of the curb across the street.

Elaine's attention was on the Out There, on the untamable, uncontrollable wind. Elaine had not approached me for conversation. She didn’t need directions. She wasn’t asking for money. She just needed someone to hold on to.

I was an anchor keeping her tethered to the ground. I was her kite string.

"Well, Elaine, you are doing great. The wind is strong today, but we are almost across."

Elaine was not comforted. A huge gust swept down and blew her hair back off her face as if an electric current had passed through her body. Her grip on my arm tightened as if she could pull us both through the barrier of her fear. We reached the curb just as the crimson hand signaling STOP began flashing.

"We made it Elaine!” In those few seconds, Elaine’s challenge had become mine. WE had made it across. I wanted to ditch my classes, walk with her to the bagel shop around the corner, and buy us both breakfast. Our circumstances were vastly different, but we were close to the same age. Her psychological vulnerabilities aside, she carried herself with a resilience that drew me in. I wanted to hear her story, discover how she navigated homelessness and aging and the damn, relentless, wind, but Elaine was focused on getting to her destination.

(Continued on page 5) 4

(Tiny Relationships, Continued from page 4) "Thank you, Cynthia," Elaine said as she pointed her cart going east on Main and hurried off, hugging the side of the buildings as the wind continued its disheveling, blowing us about like scraps of paper. I watched her for a moment, disappointed, and inspired.

When walking city streets, it is my habit to ignore people unless they specifically ask me for something, but it was impossible to ignore Elaine when she called me by name. If I hadn't been wearing the name tag, she might have chosen someone else to help her, and I would have missed the encounter. We should all, every day, walk around with name badges on, large ones with bold lettering so people can read them from six feet away. Perfect strangers will seem like friends. Especially now that we can't touch people, now that we are supposed to keep our distance, name badges would make us feel less isolated and afraid.

Elaine has likely had many similar encounters with strangers, living as a homeless person where every day is filled with challenges my privilege blinds me to. She won't remember the middle-aged lady who helped her cross the street on a windy day in May, but I will never forget her. My tiny relationship with Elaine stuck with me. Her permission to ask for help reminds me that I too can ask for help. There is much in the world right now that frightens me.

Things that feel as violent and powerful and as out of my control as the raging wind. I need the tiny relationships with people in my world as a buffer.

Laurie Santos is a professor at Yale who teaches a popular class called "The Science of Well-Being." In an interview that appeared in the New York Times in October of 2020, Dr. Santos spoke to the power of tiny relationships when she said, "One of the most shocking ones for me is a study looking at how simple interactions with strangers positively affect your well-being." She added, "a simple chat with a stranger can make people feel great,” and that missing out on those tiny relationships is “negatively affecting our wellbeing.”

One danger of the pandemic is that we begin to view the strangers we meet with suspicion. Could they be infected? Will they come too close to me? We are beginning to view the stranger as potentially dangerous instead of someone who might offer us a positive experience. What I want to think when someone unknown crosses my path is, What might they know that I don't? What are they offering to me, to the world?

We need to keep talking to the Drews who enter our lives and hope for more Elaines to appear. We will need to speak up, so our words can reach each other through the fabric that keeps us safe. I will not give up these chance encounters and I will rejoice when we can reach out and take the arm of a stranger.

The pandemic has robbed us of a great deal, but someday the tiny relationships will return. The wind is strong, but we are almost across.

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/health/ laurie-santos-covid-happiness.html

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Group Psychotherapy for the Psychotherapist:

The Life and Wisdom of Irvin Yalom, M.D.

By Philip Chanin, Ed.D, ABPP, CGP Board Certified Clinical Psychologist Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center www.drphilchanin.com ~ philchanin@gmail.com “It’s terribly important for group therapists to become members in group therapy because you learn so much about yourself, receive feedback from others on how you relate to others, how you come across interpersonally to people…

Thirty-five years ago, myself and others started a therapy group for psychiatrists. We later accepted psychologists. It has been going for 35 years! There is no leader; it’s a peer group. The group meets for 90 minutes, every other week. I still attend the group, which is led by a different rotating peer each group. The group has helped me with my loss of my wife; they are all there for me. We are active, it’s never boring. No one has ever dropped out, though a handful of people have died…Every group is a good meeting, we all work together. If someone is in distress, we deal with that.

We look at how everyone is relating with each other, who’s been silent, etc.” (“An Interview with Irvin Yalom, M.D.” in the Newsletter of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, Spring, 2020, p. 8) For several generations of American psychotherapists, the name Irvin Yalom is associated with group psychotherapy. In 1970, he published The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. Psychiatrist Jerome Frank described this as “the best book that exists on the subject.” In this book, Dr. Yalom lays out the research literature in group psychotherapy and the social psychology of small group behavior. He also explores how individuals function in a group context, and especially how members in group therapy gain insights into themselves and the human condition from their participation. At the age of 89, with his co-author Molyn Leszcz, M.D., Dr. Yalom recently finished the 6th edition of his seminal work on group psychotherapy.

Dr. Yalom’s description of his own personal involvement in peer group therapy for 35 years should be an encouragement to all psychotherapists to seek out this kind of experience for themselves. For myself, I believe that while 40 years of personal psychotherapy has been immensely valuable for me, and has certainly helped me greatly in doing psychotherapy with my patients, it is my personal experience in groups and in group therapy that have been most responsible for helping me to feel accepted by others on a deep level.

In 1992, I attended my first meeting of The American Academy of Psychotherapists. Members of the Academy form peer groups, similar to the one that Dr. Yalom describes above, which meet several times each year for intense group process. Since 1994, for 26 years, I have been one of 14 members of such a “Family Group.” The other members of my group live in California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. We have met twice each year for 15-20 hours of peer group therapy. We have been there for each other through divorces, the deaths of many of our parents, chronic illnesses, births of grandchildren, and, most recently, the death of the husband of our eldest member, aged 85. In the alchemy of our decades together, we have celebrated our successes, mourned our losses, and I have experienced my own growth and healing.

For the past 21 years, I have been one of six members of a peer men’s group. Like Dr. Yalom’s group described above, we meet for 90 minutes, every other week, usually in my office but also sometimes in one of our homes. As Dr. Yalom says, “We are active, it’s never boring…Every group is a good meeting, we all work together. If someone is in distress, we deal with that. We look at how everyone is relating, who’s been silent, etc.” As with my Academy group, we have supported each other over 21 years through the deaths of parents, hardships of adult children, and many other challenging life events. We also celebrate our own and our children’s successes, and there is plenty of laughter.

(Continued on page 7) 6

COULD I BE LOVED?

By Linda Odom, PhD Could I be loved?

Could I be LOVE? Could I breathe it in Until it fills me completely?

Could I breathe it out For you to breathe in?

Could the little green light in my heart expand Until I am surrounded by a bright green radiant cloud, That looks so delicate and fragile, As though a gentle breeze could blow it away, But that actually expands further and further Like a fire that we feed with our breath?

Can the fire in my heart keep you warm?

Could it ignite the fire in yours?

Could we become a chain reaction Spreading the sweet flames of LOVE? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if LOVE were contagious And nothing, no nothing could stop it?

(Irvin Yalom, Continued from page 6) Several other group experiences with member of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute have also been vital in my own personal and professional growth. Dr. David McMillan and I developed a peer therapy group of 14 members based on the theories of the renowned group therapist Yvonne Agazarian. I was a member of a weekly peer consultation group for 7 years. And for the past 9 years, I have been a member of an intensive modern analytic group therapy training group, organized by Dr. Zach Bryant and led by renowned group therapist Jeff Hudson from Austin, Texas. I often say to patients that one of the goals of psychotherapy is to enable one “to live unselfconsciously in the world.” My group experiences have played an enormous role in helping me personally to do this.

In closing this article, I return to the above quoted interview with Irvin Yalom. He says, “Every therapist should have a therapy group for themselves to prevent burnout and for their continued professional and personal growth…If I can influence the field, therapists should be seeing peers and talking about their issues, their patients. I am an experienced therapist, but I am always learning from others in groups.” (p. 8)

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As Below, So Above

By Barbara Sanders, LCSW —————

These underpinnings, these feelings, Thoughts, fantasies and dreams Rooted in the earth and in our bodies Let's explore and understand

Once restored and healed by human And divine assistance New and tender shoots sidle Out from my fibrous filaments Connecting to other plants and trees To other people’s roots down below

My heaven may be my hell, just brighter And more forgiving: lustrous leaves, Fragrant flowers and fabulous fruit Grounded by my roots and their health

We nourish each other underground (And sometimes, above ground) Below visual view of our human plantings Connections like secretive holding hands while Kneeling on a church choir pew as a teen

My dark shadows lend their texture To every moment of my waking hours Diving into the deep, moist soil of my soul My tap root strong and solid full of Colorful threads, winding tight like a baseball Pushing through the soil like a carrot's plunge To the core of my being, to the earth

Both erotic and spreading, we each Wrap ourselves around other roots Engaging, sometimes endangering and Sometimes nourishing all of our roots, plants

Filaments running off the tap root Enjoying their own geographical adventure Searching for minerals and water, other beings, Sources that will be scooped up and into This entire plant and soul

We cannot survive or thrive Without these other beings, who whirl Around our succulent growths Bringing us food and drink As we do them in our attachment Our interrelatedness Why, we even need worms in our lives To keep the soil aerated for our best growth

Roots move water and food, High up into my plant Through the trunk, the stem, upwards Into my tree of life. I need these roots To function and sometimes fear root rot Or worse, to be root bound

When thirsty and weak or all alone In this community underneath this planet's Ground, we commune and communicate We share our resources Gaining from this interconnection Developing this hallowed, healthy community

Roots can be torn apart By the upper world, the harsh Aggressiveness of building homes Water pipes, sewers and concrete

And when we people and other living beings Transition to another Space or time, we may be buried or deteriorate Underground or our ashes sprinkled Above the ground, Mother Nature's Nest and womb.

Protecting my roots, I hold the dirt And my plant sturdy but cannot know When a tragedy might occur, like a Tornado, a hurricane, or a storm Or just an injury for only one

As below, so above How do we tend to our roots And also help others grow?

Uprooting my plant and my roots Forcing me to fall up above the earthen Floor, I need help, someone or something to Replant and repair my roots, to keep me alive

“Natural Connection” Painting by Artist: Olesia Grygoruk 8

Board Member Spotlight Hannah Reynolds is a licensed professional counselor whose passion is supporting women's wellness, healing, and personal growth. She provides evidence-based psychotherapy to help women heal their hearts, inhabit their bodies, and create lives that bring them joy. She is fortunate to work part-time in private practice, and full-time as a mother to her owl-obsessed toddler, Jay. We asked Hannah to tell us a little about herself!

I joined NPI in 2017 as I was opening my private practice. I had been working in a residential addictions treatment center and knew that I would deeply miss the camaraderie, consultation, and continuing education that was baked into agency life. Colleagues told me that NPI was a rich source of professional community, and I am so very grateful I joined when I did. NPI has been a lifeline in so many ways -- from expanding my professional network to constantly challenging the way I think about psychotherapy. I am a better therapist because I am part of NPI, without a doubt.

Hannah Reynolds, LPC

My first year on the NPI Board was 2019, and my term started two weeks after my son was born. Needless to say, my first year on the Board was a bit of a blur. Now that everyone in my house sleeps through the night, I’m honored to co-chair the Social Justice Committee with Linda Manning. I’ve also been involved in the Fall Workshop, Membership, and Pandemic Response Committees. In my service to the Board, my favorite contributions have been:

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Creating a virtual consult group in April 2020 As part of the pandemic response committee, I recognized that NPI members needed support, community, and professional consultation more than ever before, as we found ourselves in the same crisis as our clients. We were also practicing psychotherapy virtually, which for most of us was a totally new way of being with clients. In response to these needs, I started the first NPI virtual consult group with four members in April of 2020. I can proudly say that our group now boasts six members, meets bimonthly, and has been everything I hoped it would be and so much more. We laugh, we cry, we talk through our cases. We trust each other. It’s awesome.

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Planning and hosting the NPI Happy Holiday Happy Hour 2020 As a part of the membership committee, I was honored to help plan and execute the NPI Happy Holiday Happy Hour 2020. We knew the virtual format would be a challenge, but we were committed to making it a source of much needed connection and FUN for our members. We sent goody boxes to members before the party, raffled thrilling prizes, and refereed a lighting round of holiday trivia that prompted members to scavenge their houses for holiday memorabilia. I had a lovely time, and I think everyone else did, too. The holiday party reminded me that though the ways we connect now are different, connection is still possible (and can be wonderfully surprising).

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Hosting and moderating a virtual viewing party and discussion for The Social Dilemma documentary After watching The Social Dilemma, a documentary about the dangers of social media produced by tech experts, I knew that my NPI community needed to see it, too. I wanted to consult with my colleagues about the impact of these platforms on mental health for ourselves and our clients, and discuss strategies to mitigate the damage now and in the future. In February 2021, the Social Justice Committee hosted a viewing party and lively discussion for the documentary. We agreed that every member of NPI needs to see the documentary, and we look forward to working together as a professional community to raise awareness about the profound and devastating impact that these platforms will have if they continue to be unchecked and unregulated.

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How Does the Light Get In?

By Linda Odom, PhD

How does the light get in?

It gets in when I sleep.

That’s when Grace can speak to me through little plays and stories, images and symbols.

It’s when all the safety strategies have turned off their lights and the truth can get past them.

It gets in when I write When I remember to ask my Voices to speak with me.

To enter in through this window and bring their revelations, large and small.

It gets in when I sit by my pool in the quiet of evening, watching the sky.

And when I walk out into my garden to see what gifts

it has ready for me on this day.

When I bring the fresh jewels in and make a joyous arrangement, different every day, like a brand new painting.

It gets in when I sit with my clients, one on one or in a group When we enter together into sacred space and invite Grace to be with us.

When we make a new energy field from our separate ones and we see and hear things we didn’t know.

It gets in whenever I connect with my soul or yours.

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2021 Jules Seeman Fall Workshop Saturday, October 23, 2020

Schema Therapy for Narcissism Sponsored in part by a generous donation from

Special Guest Presenter:

Wendy Behary, LCSW With 25 years post-graduate training and advanced level certifications, Wendy Behary is the founder and director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and The Schema Therapy Institutes of NJ-NYC and DC. She has been treating clients, training professionals and supervising psychotherapists for more than 20 years. She is also on the faculty of the Cognitive Therapy Center and Schema Therapy Institute of New York, where she has trained and worked with Dr. Jeffrey Young since 1989. Wendy is a founding fellow (and supervisor) of The Academy of Cognitive Therapy (Dr. Aaron T. Beck).

She was also the President of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) from 2010-2014.

Wendy Behary has co-authored several chapters and articles on Schema Therapy and Cognitive Therapy. She is the author of “Disarming the Narcissist…Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed” (New Harbinger Publications—2008 & 2013). Now translated in 10 languages. Wendy has a specialty in treating narcissists and the people who live with and deal with them. As an author and an expert on the subject of narcissism, she is a contributing chapter author of several chapters on Schema Therapy for narcissism (Wiley and APA Press, 2011, 2012, 2013). She lectures both nationally and internationally to professional and general audiences on the subject of Schema Therapy, and the subject of narcissism, relationships, and dealing with difficult people. Her work with industry has included speaking engagements focused on interpersonal conflict resolution.

Her private practice is primarily devoted to treating narcissists, partners/people dealing with them, and couples experiencing relationship problems. She is also an expert in coaching individuals in interviewing, public speaking, and interpersonal skills enhancement.

Narcissists are notoriously difficult clients . While on the one hand they are often intelligent, charming and self-confident, on the other they tend to be highly self-centered, arrogant, demanding, haughty, incapable of empathy and characterized by the feeling of having the right. The narcissist's complexity may arouse our curiosity but treating them can arouse our sense of inadequacy.

This workshop will help you establish a stronger framework for empathically confronting narcissistic clients with their responsibilities and setting the necessary boundaries. Through empathic confrontation and curiosity, you will learn how you can defuse ramblings such as hiding shame and insecurity, and disarm the narcissist from shifting in fashion (the classic "hiding places") such as detachment, contempt and overcompensation, pretense, presumptuousness and hypercriticism.

Empathic confrontation is a strategy that strengthens access and maintenance of meaningful results during therapy. It also helps to avoid power struggles. You will gain a practical understanding of schema therapy as it applies to narcissism in order to help you conceptualize your patient's patterns and fashions (as well as yours) and how these patterns and fashions interact in therapy.

By having a greater understanding of one's patterns and a better understanding of the narcissist's repertoire, it is possible to overcome obstacles in the treatment of narcissism and maintain the motivation for change necessary to satisfy needs and correct prejudicial early emotional experiences.

Attendees of the workshop will learn: • About theory of schema therapy and work on schema fashions when applied to Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder; • Specific clinical strategies with narcissistic clients; • How to integrate the concepts of interpersonal neurobiology , which have proven to be powerful tools for accelerating the effectiveness of treatment; • How to identify your client's personal patterns and fashions - a major obstacle to treatment; • How to use self-work to bypass the intense reactions related to personal activation caused by the narcissist; and • How to customize scripts to reinforce motivation for change, use "empathic confrontation" and set boundaries in various conditions.

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JOIN US ONLINE Friday, March 12, 2021 “Healing Narcissistic Wounds and Learning to Love: A Case Study in Utilizing Buddist Principles and Relationship Empowerment in the Treatment of Grandiosity, Shame, Anger, Depression, and Addiction,”

presented by Philip Chanin, Ed.D., ABPP, CGP

Friday, April 9, 2021 “The Promise of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Paradigm Shift in Mental Health,”

presented by Tom Neilson, Psy.D.

Program & Registration Information at www.NashvillePsychotherapyInstitute.org Each presentation is eligible for one CE credit hour

2021 NPI BOARD OF DIRECTORS John Nichols, MS, LPC/MHSP; Board Chair Linda Manning, PhD; Chair-elect/Social Justice Cathryn Yarbrough, PhD; Immediate Past Chair Cynthia Lucas, PhD; Hutton Historian Glenn Sheriff, MA; Treasurer Jennifer Adams, M.Ed., LPC-MHSP D. Kirk Barton, MD; Speaker Research Tiffany Davis, LCSW Avi Dressler, MMFT Emily Ector-Volman, LPC-MHSP (temp), NCC; Communications Chair Kristin Finch, LPC-MHSP (temp), NCC Laura Fritsche, LPC-MHSP; Membership Chair

NEWSLETTER CREDITS Editor: Emily Ector-Volman, LPC-MHSP (temp), NCC Layout & Design: Melissa Vickroy, MS Printing: ISSUU online publishing ***Editor’s Note: The content and opinions expressed within this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, the Board of Directors of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, or the Editor of the newsletter.

Richard Gorman; Student Member Hannah Reynolds, LPC/MHSP; Social Justice

Nashville Psychotherapy Institute

P. O. Box 158626 Nashville, TN 37215 npinashville@gmail.com www.NashvillePsychotherapyInstitute.org

Juliana Vokes, LPC-MHSP (Temp) Melissa Vickroy, MS; Executive Coordinator 13