Solution-Focused Animal-Assisted Brief Therapy

  • Join Teri and Tessa for this Online Workshop

    April 27, 2021
    8:30 AM - 4:30 PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time
    6.5 CEs
    Price: $125 - $175 USD*

    I can’t imagine my life without a dog. Working with dogs as part of my career was not a planned thing, but when my life-long dream of getting a rough coat collie came true, that all changed. Because Rockefeller was a big dog, I knew that he needed to be well-trained. One day as we practiced our obedience work in my local community, I saw the excitement and joy he brought to a group of children and an exhausted mother. After a short interaction, the mother was smiling again as she watched her children laughing and petting the fluffy dog. It was then that I started thinking about submitting a proposal to have him work with me in my actual therapy work running an outpatient treatment center for substance misuse. It was a LOT more work than I ever expected, and it was also tremendously more rewarding than I ever dreamed! Having Rocky in the workplace brought joy to clients and employees alike. He was able to connect with clients in a way that I could never do. It also opened my eyes to the importance of advocating for animals in the workplace. It is so much more than bringing your dog to work. Ethical and safety issues for both Rocky as well as clients had to be constantly noticed and addressed. I learned that we must not just think about how we are benefiting from having animals around us, but how the animals are also benefiting from being included. This lesson of empathy and mutuality held a very important clinical lesson in our work. Having my best friend in the workplace was an incredibly rewarding, and life changing experience. Join Tessa and me for this one-day, interactive workshop and begin your journey. Learn how to include animals (both physically and/or just in conversation) in a way to that brings joy and connection in a way you most likely have never previously experienced! This is the ideal workshop for professionals who:

    • Want to learn to use their own pets in their work in a responsible and effective way
    • Work in a setting in which pets are not allowed, but work with clients of all ages who have or love animals
    • Do in-home work with clients, who frequently have their own pets in the environment during sessions
    • Want to learn how to use Relationship Questions and systemic thinking in an engaging way with some of the most challenging clients

    Here are just a few of the things you will walk away with:

    • Creative ways to bring the client’s love of animals into the therapeutic conversation
    • Specific tools and methods to use to bring animals (either physically or through conversation) in ways that are consistent with your therapeutic model
    • A clear understanding of what needs to be considered in order to use animals (your own or the client’s) in a safe and therapeutic way
    • Practice wording questions and ideas in ways that engage and energize clients of all ages
    • Examples and ideas of how to use these animal-related conversations immediately with your clientele

    This course is designed to introduce professionals of all kinds to the concept of the human-animal bond and teach how animal-related conversations and interactions can help create positive change in their clients. Professionals will understand how the physiological and psychological changes that an animal’s presence (including the thought of a family pet) brings can be used in motivating, calming, and teaching clients. Professionals will learn how to incorporate their clients’ family pets into conversations and homework assignments that will bring the concepts to life. Standards of practice for training and using a therapy dog in client sessions will be reviewed as well.

    Upon completion of this course, professionals will be able to:

    1. Recognize the client traits that would make the client likely to benefit from animal-related interventions in the clinical setting.
    2. Describe five physiological and/or psychological benefits animals can have on humans.
    3. Identify three ways in which animal-assisted conversations and interventions would be most effective in their work setting.
    4. Gain the ability to effectively implement the strategies identified in number three above with their clients.

    • Register for this 1-day class TODAY! Classes fill up fast because we keep class sizes small.

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    • *NOTE: If you would like to attend, but due to COVID-19, finances are preventing you from registering, please email me to see what financial assistance might be available for this class: Teri Pichot