Topic: Adolescents and Young Adults

This presentation will enable clinicians to perform accurate and effective mental status examinations, at risk and suicide assessments which lead to accurate diagnosis and treatment.  Four major mental status assessment methods will provide the knowledge necessary to perform these assessment.

Recent research indicates that there is a direct connection and potential progression in the etiological development of the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders with the Oppositional Defiant and the Conduct Disorder.  This workshop offers practical "how to" information and interventions.

The folly, betrayal and exhaustion of continuing multiple self-defeating behaviors will be demonstrated.

Severe psychological trauma often results in a wide range of comorbid disorders and addictions.  A dissociative structural model unifies all these separate DSM disorders into a single framework, from which an integrated treatment plan follows.  Diagnoses accounted for by the model include: PTSD, dissociative disorders, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, impulse control disorders, somatization disorder and some subtypes of schizophrenia.

Dr. Ross will explain how childhood sexual abuse can lead to restricting, binging, purging and over-eating, and how the effects of sexual abuse overlap with and interact with other motives for eating disorder behaviors.

An overview of how adolescent girls differ with regard to origins, risk factors, physiology, psychology and pattern of abuse and addiction and how these differences affect adolescent/young adult treatment with regard to prevention, intervention and treatment.

Families under stress produce adolescents/young adults who are under stress.  This is especially true for families that experience alcohol and drug abuse problems, child abuse, spouse abuse, divorce and other dysfunctional behaviors.  This workshop will address the emotional and behavioral impact on adolescents/young adults who become "high risk" or "at risk" for a variety of problems.

Learn how and why life-affirming needs of joy, purpose and serenity get abandoned from the soil banks of our lives and replaced with any number of self-defeating behaviors.

Trauma Model Therapy, developed for the treatment of adults with complex, chronic trauma histories, applies equally as well to adolescents with trauma, attachment conflicts, and multiple disorders and addictions.  The core principles of TMT-the problem of attachment to the perpetrator and the locus of control shift-will be explained.

This presentation is designed to examine dilemmas in assessment and treatment for adolescents and identify strategies that can help build bridges between mental health and addiction treatment systems.

The trajectory of brain development from childhood through maturity allows for the understanding of the social brain (prefrontal cortical areas) and the spiritual brain (right cortical hemisphere).  These areas prepare the adolescent and young adult for responsible living as conscious, executive functioning, goal-directed behavior and ability to form lasting connections with others and a God of one's understanding come on line.

Client hostility and resistance occur in many situations and make it hard to reach adolescents and increase responsibility for and commitment to change.  Using the structure of stages of change, motivational interviewing and client-directed services, this workshop will improve skills in engaging adolescents and their families and in building motivation for change.

This workshop will examine genetic changes that take place in both addiction and recovery and how "mirror" neurons assist in the creation of empathy and therapeutic relationships.

Clinicians struggle with how to focus and target treatment, especially in fixed length-of-stay programs; how to change old ways of documentation to reflect individualized treatment and how to effectively engage the patient and client into a cooperative and accountable treatment plan.

This workshop will describe the latest scientific understanding of anger and aggression placing emphasis on verbal management, behavioral and pharmacological stabilization along with the demonstration of empirically proven clinical strategies.

This keynote details ten science-supported steps to enhancing one's therapeutic work with clinically referred teenagers.  These clinical guidelines cover conceptual issues, assesment philosophy and methods, multiple systems oriented interventions, and common therapist skill challenges and solutions.

The adolescent treatment field is in a renaissance period of development.  Still, the available evidence based practicecs remain inaccessible to most clinical providers and teens and families in need of improved services.  This workshop offers an introduction to a family based, best practice, Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT).  The session describes the theoretical and conceptual basis of MDFT, summarizes its findings in four research areas- clinical effectiveness, process research, economic analyses, and implementation studies.

Working with teenagers is challenging but not impossible.  Unfortunately, most clinical training and graduate school programs do not adequately prepare clinicians for this complex work.  MDFT is an evidence based practice that has disentagled the many interacting ingredients of therapeutic success and failure.  This workshop presents and discusses these components, and illustrates the step by step change process articulated in MDFT.

When an adolescent enters treatment for alcoholism and/or other drug addiction what happens to the younger siblings? This workshop explores including these youth in the recovery process and the powerful role they can play in family healing.

This presentation will be in workshop format comprised of didactic and hands-on activities.  Participants will learn and experience how to use art therapeutically with adolescents struggling with addicitons.

Studies suggest that trends in teen drug abuse are down with the exception of prescription drugs.  Treatment modalities and cases will be discussed-audience is encouraged to bring cases to the session for discussion.

Experiential learning is a powerful tool to enhance the healing process for adolescents and their families.  Come fill your bag with activities that really work.

One of the important development starting points in understanding violence is that physical aggression is essentially universal in infants (and equally so for males and females).  Early trauma creates risk that this early aggression will coalesce into violent behavior in adolescence.  The experience of abuse sets the child up for the kind of "risky thinking" that leads to chronic patterns of aggression, bad behavior, acting out and violating the rights of others that can lead to a diagnosis of "conduct disorder."  If no intervention occurs, this pattern of childhood conduct disorder becomes the entryway into adolescent delinquent and antisocial violent behavior.  This presentation is based upon the Dr. Garbarino's books Lost Boys and See Jane Hit.

Professionals and parents are paying increasing attention to the need for "anti-bullying programs" in American schools.  Yet, the larger issue is creating and maintaining schools that are "emotionally safe."  This commits the school to creating a social climate in which bullying, harassment, and emotional violence are inconsistent with the day-to-day norms of students, faculty, staff, and parents.  This presentation outlines strategies for accomplishing this.

Workloads for counselors and health care professions are demanding at best and overwhelming at worst, resulting in chronic stress.  This presentation begins with an overview of worksite pressures leading to chronic stress, then highlights effective strategies (from humor to meditation) for decompression including some experiential relaxation skills for personal growth and professional development.

Strength-based practice is an emerging approach to helping youth that is more positive and hope-inspiring.  Its focus is on strength-building rather than flaw-fixing.  It begins with the belief that every individual has strengths and past successes that can be utilized to stop problem behavior and enhance decision making.  This presentation will highlight many of the key principles and techniques of this life-challenging, inspiring approach to guiding high-risk young people.

Teen stress is rampant and teen eating habits are horrible.  Are teen stress and nutritional eating habits related?  Definitely yes!  Moreover there is a relationship between stress, nutrition, cognitive function, and the immune system.  Knowledge is power.

When the focus is on building strength rather than fixing flaws, outcomes improve dramatically.  This workshop presents key strength-building communication techniques that assist professionals in effectively guiding at-risk youth.  Highlights include: solution-focused approaches, the use of inspirational metaphors, respectful de-escalating strategies, reframing pejorative language, the power of hellos and goodbyes, and taking humor seriously

This workshop will review the trends and implications of chemical dependency in this population, outline the differences in assessment and treatment considerations in these clients and include clinical characteristics and comorbidities.