Format: Audio MP3 file download

Presenter: Robert Staffin, PsyD, ABPH

Ego Strengthening for Clinicians: Utilizing Stories to Make Your Work Evocative

Many clinicians have read the works of Erickson and other notable contributors in the fields of medicine and mental health and have been enchanted by their use of stories to achieve their strategic and therapeutic goals. Engaging and entertaining as these tales may be, many clinicians believe that they themselves are not capable of creating, crafting and utilizing stories in their clinical work. This workshop will highlight how practitioners across disciplines can utilize the histories and experiences of their patients, themselves and the context within which the encounter is taking place as the grist for the therapeutic story mill. Through didactic presentation and small group exercises participants will be taught the different functions that stories can serve and how to construct them based on one's strategic or therapeutic intent. Whether one is working in a medical setting, a psychotherapy practice or some other clinical venue, learning how to construct and intersperse stories into your clinical conversations can serve to promote engagement, enhance rapport, orient patients towards treatment goals and facilitate cooperation with treatment. Through this session participants will be able to identify and describe the tools and resources that they already possess and ways to utilize them that will be both self?affirming for the clinician and engaging for the patient.