Helping Therapists Effectively Use the NIC to Inform Treatment: The Role of Clinical Supervision

CE Hours: 6.0
Instructor: C. Wayne Jones, PhD

Friday, January 11, 2019, WellSpan Philhaven, Mount Gretna, PA
Thursday, February 28, 2019, Merakey, Colmar, PA
Thursday, March 7, 2019, PA Counseling Services, Lebanon, PA

8:30am to 3:30pm

When working with children and families at risk, therapists can easily become inducted into a reactive role.  Despite having a treatment plan, each session can easily become disconnected from the others with therapists responding to the crisis or issue of the week.  Supervisors, who are often juggling many responsibilities within the agency, can then become inducted into a similar reactive position with the therapists, responding to their crisis or issue of the week.  In family treatment, change requires a laser focus, with therapists’ efforts directed at disrupting negative patterns and strengthening more functional ones.  This means therapists need to have a clear and detailed conceptualization of the negative interactional pattern (NIC) that maintains the presenting problem.  Then they need to use this case conceptualization to inform their collaboratively created treatment plan with families.   For therapists to be successful, the ongoing support of supervisors in weekly supervision is critical.  This workshop introduces supervision tools to assist supervisors guide therapists in their efforts to develop a plausible NIC and meaningful treatment focus.  In addition to didactic material, the ideas presented in this workshop are taught through demonstration and analysis of supervision videotapes.

Objectives
As a result of attending this training, participants will be able to:

  1. Explain the advantages of using a standardized procedure in supervision for helping therapists decide on their focus in sessions
  2. Describe six questions that help therapists construct a working hypothesis about negative interaction cycle (NIC)
  3. Explain how the first two child-focused steps in the NIC  inform the relational treatment plan (RTP)
  4. Explain the link between the six NIC steps and the four RTP action steps
  5. Explain the link between the NIC, the RTP, and the Family Crisis Plan
  6. Analyze videotapes of supervisors helping therapists use the NIC and the RTP in planning their sessions

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