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CURRENT EVENTS

Reaching the Core Self: Understanding EDT Fundamentals through Analysis of Two Phases of Treatment


Presenter: Steven Shapiro, PhD

Date:  Saturday, September 20th, 2025

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm

Location: Virtual Online

6.25 CEs/CMEs 

Program Description: 

Can you relate to the common misconception of Experiential Dynamic Therapy as being harsh, confrontive and unrelenting? Do you tend to think of "experiential” as equivalent to “emotional?” Are you tempted to over emphasize feeling as if the goal is simply catharsis? It is natural to rely on overly simplified guidelines to help understand a process as unpredictable and complex as intensive psychotherapy. With good intentions, in the spirit of efficiency, have you had your share of (unnecessary) ruptures? I certainly have!

Analyzing a case initially involving Severe & Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI) that progresses through various stages will give us the opportunity to emphasize “Phase-Specific treatment.” Primarily using video demonstration, we will examine ways to understand the intrapsychic and interpersonal action in the room (conceptual knowledge) to inform interventions (procedural knowledge) in a way that is not only attuned, but “contingent” in each moment. Alliance building is not just about avoiding ruptures; it is also about leveraging these challenging interpersonal moments into growth and capacity building experiences.

Click Here for Full Conference Program and Agenda

Click Here for Conference Learning Objectives and References

Speaker Bio:

Steven Shapiro, PhD is a clinical psychologist who maintains full-time private practice in suburban Philadelphia and has over twenty-five years of clinical and teaching experience.  He has been practicing various forms of Experiential Dynamic Therapy (EDT), since the mid-1990’s, including Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). He is a founding member and currently an adjunct faculty member of the AEDP Institute in New York City. Dr. Shapiro conducts training of psychotherapists internationally.  His instruction is often commended for translating complex clinical theory into clear, precise, and practical techniques which are easily understandable and readily applied immediately and deliberately in clinical settings by therapists of all orientations. For 16 years, Dr. Shapiro was the Director of Psychology and Education at Montgomery County Emergency Service (MCES), an emergency psychiatric hospital, where he worked with a range of severe disorders and those committed involuntarily to treatment. This intensive experience has helped inform his approach to transforming resistance with challenging patients who have a history of trauma, a high degree of resistance, or excessive anxiety and dysregulation.

Registration closes Sep 19, 2025 at noon ET.


Click here for Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification.

Click here for Cancellation and Refund Policy. 


Brunch Meeting

The Other Significant Others: Rethinking Friendship’s Potential


When the child finally finds a chum—somewhere between eight-and-a-half and ten—you will discover something very different in the relationship namely, the child begins to develop a real sensitivity to what matters to another person:

Harry Stack Sullivan on the importance of friendship in human development.


Presenter: Rhaina Cohen

Date:  Sunday, October 5th, 2025

Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm

Location: Maggiano's Little Italy, 5333 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 

No CEUs for this event


Program Description: 

In this meeting, join NWSP colleagues at Maggiano's for brunch and a talk by author and NPR reporter, Rhiana Cohen elaborate on the importance of friendships and share insights from her recent book “The Other Significant Others: Rethinking Friendship’s Potential”.  Based on years of reporting, Cohen tells the stories of people who have chosen friends as life partners — taking on roles typically reserved for romantic relationships, including co-homeownership, caregiving, and co-parenting. This talk will explore how these platonic partnerships can help us better understand the nature of intimacy, commitment, and family. By examining this alternative relationship model, we can gain fresh perspectives on what constitutes meaningful partnership.

Cost: NWSP Members: $40; Non-members: $50, Students: $25

Speaker Bio:

Rhaina Cohen is an award-winning journalist who tells deeply reported, intimate stories. She’s the author of the national bestseller The Other Significant Others and a producer and editor for NPR’s documentary podcast Embedded. Rhaina also contributed to a forthcoming anthology about shared living, A Home For Tomorrow (Beacon 2026). Her writing, which often focuses on social connection, has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post and elsewhere.

Seating is limited: Registration closes Sep 27, 2025 at noon ET.


Center for the Study of Aging & Clinical Applications (CSACA)

The Critical Role of Place in the Aging Process


Date:  Sunday, October 19, 2025

Time: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Location: Online via Zoom

Co-Chairs: Jane Brewster, MSW & Annemarie Russell, EdD, MPH, MSW

5.25 CEs/CMEs


Program Description: 

The place where we age plays a critical role in shaping the experience of aging for older adults. Often overlooked as an issue, this conference will ask many pertinent questions about the impact of place on the aging process: Where are older adults living as they move along their life course? How are they making decisions about aging in the ‘right place’? What is the impact of place on health, mental health and overall wellbeing for older adults? What are the essential supports that ensure their social, emotional, and physical needs are met? What are the pros and cons of the living situation options that are available to older adults in our nation today? How can we help people make timely, safe, and informed decisions about where they will live and age? And how can we support individuals and families as they navigate through the changes and challenges that this process inevitably creates? Our conference will explore these and other often undervalued issues of the impact of place on aging. We will review the landscape of living situation options, address specific clinical dilemmas and client case examples with our faculty panel, and engage in personal reflections in small and large group discussions.


Schedule: 

10:00 - 10:15 – Welcome: Summary of conference protocols and interview with keynote speaker (Rob Bamberger, MSW and Annemarie Russell, EdD, MPH, MSW)

10:15 - 11:20 – Keynote – Where Are Older Adults Choosing to Live? The Concept of Place (Russell)

11:20 - 11:30 – Break

11:30 - 12:00 – Clinical Dilemmas in Decisions about Place (Jane Brewster, MSW)

12:00 - 12:45 – Faculty presentations and discussion of cases addressing clinical dilemmas (Judy Peres, MSW and George Saiger, MD, facilitated by Brewster)

12:45 - 1:20 – Large group discussion of issues and concepts raised during the morning (Brewster)

1:20 – 2:00 – Lunch

2:00 – 2 :20 - Images of Aging and the Aged in American Popular Culture: “If I Had a Million” (1932) and “Make Way for Tomorrow” (1937) (Bamberger)

2:20 – 3:15 – Small group I - Envisioning Space and Place (Bamberger)

3:15 – 3:30 – Large group discussion of small group experience

3:30 – 3:45 – Break

3:45 – 4:00 – Large group - Choosing Place - Brewster

4:00 – 4:40 - Small group II – Choosing Place

4:40 – 5:00 – Large group discussion of small group experience/Closing Plenary


Learning Objectives:

  1. Increase awareness about the variety of places where older adults are living in the USA to highlight its impact on their lives.
  2. Explain how some ecological models of aging and the environment can assist in understanding the impact of place on the health and well-being of older adults.
  3. Consider how aging in place is the residential normalcy of most of the population when they find the right place to live, while acknowledging the challenges that occur when older adults occupy incongruous living situations.
  4. Recognize and examine varied clinical dilemmas and obstacles that can impact on an older adult’s current living situations, in supporting diverse adaptation strategies and future planning.
  5. Identify the psychosocial, health and environmental variables that present clinical concerns for assessment and support effective decision-making regarding the choice of place.
  6. Explain the importance of the psychotherapeutic process, including issues related to transference and countertransference, denial, fear, resistance to change, and acceptance of the aging process -- along with its limitations and its inevitable decline -- to help older adults make safe, timely and informed decisions about their living place.
  7. Describe some practical strategies to support clients who are struggling with decisions regarding the goodness of fit of their living situation, and which reinforce the strengths of clients who embrace the transition to assist their developing a sense of residential normalcy.
  8. Assess your own feelings about where you wish to live as you are age, what you need in a place to call it home, and how you will respond to your increasing dependency needs.

Registration closes October 17, 2025 at noon ET.


Click here for Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification.

Click here  for Cancellation and Refund Policy.


Rupture and Repair: In Therapy Groups, Organizations and Society


Date:  Friday, October 24th - Saturday, 25th, 2025

Time: 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM on 10/24 & 8:30 AM - 5:15 PM on 10/25

Location: Friends Meeting House of Washington, 2111 Decatur Pl NW, Washington, DC 20008, In-Person Only

Co-Chairs: Kavita Avula, PsyD, CGP & Haim Weinberg, PhD, CGP

In-Person Only (10.5 CEs/CMEs) 


Program Description: 

Empathic ruptures between therapy group members, between leaders and members, and in the group-as-a-whole affect the therapeutic alliance and group cohesion. Without repair, they cause fractures and polarization. We will look at ruptures theoretically and clinically in groups, within organizations, and between co-facilitators with different intersectional identities, with a particular emphasis on how ruptures, often seen as the end of relationships, can be just the beginning of meaningful connection and growth.


Learning Objectives

1. List two types of ruptures in group therapy

2. Evaluate how social dreaming impacts large group process

3. Compare the impact of facilitators with different intersectional identities on a group.

4. List 3 skills that facilitate repair in therapists and clients.

5. Describe strategies coleaders can employ to stay connected while holding different perspectives.

6. Identify barriers to repair.

7. Describe how letting go of pushing an agenda changes a conversation.

8. Describe how social dreaming evokes the social unconscious and analyze its impact on communal dignity

9. List five current challenges that emerge in psychotherapy groups that represent polarization


Registration closes Oct 22, 2025 at noon ET.


Click here for Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification.

Click here for Cancellation and Refund Policy. 


Exploring Collective Trauma and Collective Healing


Date:  Sunday, November 16th, 2025 - April 26th, 2026 (6 sessions)

Time: 11:00am – 3:00pm

Location: Iona - Tenleytown, DC / Lunch Provided

21 CEs/CMEs 


Program Description: 

This series of workshops is designed to promote understanding of the shared wounds that shape our communities and the paths we may forge toward collective resilience. In a world marked by social upheaval, environmental crises, and historical injustices, we will focus on traumas that extend beyond individuals to groups, cultures, and nations.

The workshop format includes a blend of small and large group sessions, experiential practices, and discussions of pre-assigned video materials featuring leading voices in the field. This structure is designed to engage participants on cognitive, emotional, and somatic levels, fostering an embodied understanding of collective trauma and healing.


The workshops provide an opportunity to explore the broader social and historical contexts that influence individual suffering and resilience. By participating in immersive experiences, participants will deepen their capacity to recognize collective patterns and strengthen their role as facilitators of communal healing. The gathering is designed to be restorative as well as educational —supporting participants in processing their own experiences within a collective setting.

Planning Committee/Faculty:

Esther Rosen-Bernays, Chair

Mona Abuhamda

Antonietta Corvasce

Carolyn Curcio

Stacey Saltzman

Margo Silberstein

Click Here for the Full Program and Learning Objectives.

Click Here for Conference References.

Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification pending


Registration Fees:

NWSP Member     $440
Non-NWSP Member    $630
Retiree 
 $315
Student   $250

For information about NWSP membership,  go to the NWSP website — newwsp.org.

For information about potential scholarship opportunities for these workshops, contact Stacey Saltzman at stacey_saltzman@yahoo.com.

PLEASE NOTE:  Participation is limited to 40 people.

Registration closes November 14, 2025 at noon ET.


Click here for Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification 

Click here for the Collective Trauma Payment Plan, Cancellation & Refund Policy.


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