Supporting personal & professional growth.
Presented by
Chicago Counseling Associates
and the Institute for Empowering Communication
Live Interactive Webinar
The Empowerment Process:
Helping clients build more fulfilling lives
Most people come to psychotherapy because they have unmet needs which they are having difficult identifying and expressing. They may experience malaise but can only account for it in general terms. “My teenage son doesn’t listen.” “My partner is distant.” “I’m unhappy at my job.” Even when they have transformed cognitive distortions, they are not necessarily able to identify their needs and ask for what they want.
The reason for this has to do with early disconnection from needs, compounded with conditional worth and self-judgment, and unconscious adherence to domination systems.
Needs-Based Therapy is an empowerment model that supports us in helping our clients identify, trust, and endeavor to meet their needs.
Beyond symptom reduction, we help clients to be happy and thrive.
At the end of this experiential workshop you will be able to teach clients the Empowerment Process, designed to:
Recognize interpretations that sustain and exacerbate affliction.
Identify, trust, and honor their unmet needs.
Connect with their feelings, needs and physical sensations and relate to their problems from the inside out.
Develop strategies to meet their needs, and gain the confidence to ask for what they want.
Clients who learn the Empowerment Process will be able to understand, work through, and find solutions to many of their problems without the need of a therapist.
This workshop is based on a recent book by Myra Walden titled Needs-Based Therapy.
Date & Time
Friday, April 29, 2022
8:45 am — 4:15 pm (Central Time)
Fees
Live Interactive Webinar
$140
$120 – Registration before April 20, 2022
Continuing Education Units
Chicago Counseling Associates is approved by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to sponsor continuing education for psychologists and social workers. Six and a half (6.5) CEUs are available.
Schedule
8:45 — 9:00 am
Welcome & logistics
9:00 — 12:00 pm
Lecture and experiential exercises
12:00 — 1:00 pm
Lunch break
1:00 — 4:00 pm
Lecture and experiential exercises
4:00 — 4:15 pm
Closing and networking
Number of Participants
Minimum: 8 / Maximum: 35
Questions
Contact Myra Walden at: needsbasedtherapy@gmail.com
Myra Walden, MA, LCPC
Originally from Mexico, Myra holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. She has practiced psychotherapy since 1991 and has offered workshops for mental health professionals since 1997. She is a certified trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Myra co-founded the Institute for Empowering Communication and wrote the book Needs-Based Therapy. She lives in West Chicago, Illinois where she enjoys people and nature.
Bob Wentworth, PhD
Bob is a certified Needs-Based Therapy consultant and a certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), the foundation of Needs-Based Therapy. As a trainer, coach, facilitator, and mediator, he focuses on bringing more love, empowerment, and wholeness into the world. Bob has long been interested in what supports individuals and groups in thriving. After studying a variety of personal transformation modalities, he discovered NVC, which he experiences as a uniquely powerful practice for supporting personal healing, relating to ourselves and others with kindness, and enhancing individual vitality and collective synergy. He has led NVC trainings around the world. He co-founded Family HEART Camp, a camp that supports parents and children in learning to live together in more satisfying ways. He lives in Santa Cruz, California, and has a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University.
Gap Addressed
Even when clients have transformed cognitive distortions, they are not necessarily able to identify their needs and ask for what they want.
Many people disconnected from their needs in childhood. Often, when they expressed their needs, their caretakers did not listen, at best. At worst, they became annoyed or irritated. “I didn’t ask if you were hungry. Put away that game and come to the table!” Children can continue to play, at the risk of stimulating anger in their parents, which could lead to disconnection and punishment, or they can comply and suppress their needs for choice and play. Confronted with the security and belonging vs. autonomy and authenticity dilemma, children often choose the former, and the process of disconnection from needs ensues.
Furthermore, people internalize so much criticism and blame that they don’t feel they are worthy of getting their needs met.
In addition, most people grow up in life-alienating systems, also known as domination systems, i.e., patterns that exist in the world and are internalized, preventing people from meeting their needs. When people are treated as if their needs don’t matter, they start to believe they, themselves, don’t matter.
This is particularly true with clients in marginalized communities afflicted by unemployment, poverty, and lack of access to resources. These clients are conditioned to dismiss their needs because they lose confidence that their lives are important to others. They don’t have an expectation that anyone cares about their needs. Clients in these communities, in particular, need support to trust that their needs matter.
Needs-Based Therapy (NBT) addresses the problem of people’s disconnection from their needs; the notion that they don’t deserve to meet their needs; their unconscious adherence to life-alienating systems; and the gap between knowing what they want, and their ability to make it happen.
NBT is a model to empower clients with insights and tools to meet their needs and build more fulfilling lives.
Evidence that Gap Exists
The high incidence of depression among women is well documented. For three decades, Myra Walden worked with women who believed that their partners’ and children’s needs took precedence over their own needs. They longed for rest, space, and leisure, but they thought of themselves as selfish for wanting these things.
Need deprivation and a chronic feeling of being overwhelmed often contributed to depression and anxiety in these women.
Disconnection from needs can look different in men, but often it also results in clinical problems such as addictions.
Educational Needs Addressed
Clinicians will learn or revisit and expand on the concept of universal human needs; barriers to meeting needs; and the connection between unmet needs and depression, anxiety, and addictions.
Therapists Reviews of the Needs-Based Approach
“Walden demonstrates that through identifying and naming needs, clients become more self-aware and able to give empathy to themselves. As clients become more focused, more rooted in experiencing something rather than thinking about it, and more able to articulate their needs, they communicate more effectively with greater self-acceptance and self-respect.
Walden makes a particularly important contribution by explicating how societal systems of domination and oppression tend to invalidate and suppress our real needs. This lack of confidence in our own lived experience and obfuscation of our genuine needs for respect, equality, and connection with others manifests in addictions, anxiety, and depression. By contrast, as we are more aware, direct, open, and honest about our real needs, we gain more self-respect and fulfillment, and are empowered to seek higher levels of functioning and joy in life.
I regard this work as a major contribution to our understanding of how to facilitate emancipation in our therapy practices.”
“I wish I had had this wonderful [model] earlier in my career, first as a practicing psychotherapist working with children and families, and later as the director of the Psychological Services Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where we trained future generations of therapists and community practitioners. […]
Without Myra’s wonderful and elucidating [model], I did my best to inject principles of [the needs-based approach] into our training and work with clients at the Psychological Services Center. In my observations, clinicians found the needs-based framework to be helpful in bringing clarity, depth, and connection to their therapeutic work. Regardless of the approach they were using, shifting the focus of interventions to the “needs” level increased effectiveness and inspired more creative solutions in response to client concerns. In addition, “needs-based empathy” allowed therapists to uncover additional layers of meaning and depth with greater ease and speed. Finally, through its emphasis on connection, the needs-based approach improved the therapeutic alliance and inspired clients to create something better in partnership with their clinicians.”
“Since I took a weekend [Needs-Based] training with Myra Walden, my ability to work with high conflict couples has significantly improved. The training offered me an opportunity to develop not only a set of skills, but even more importantly, an understanding of the healing power that lies in unearthing and validating people’s unacknowledged needs. There is no question that this training has been instrumental in my growth as a therapist, as well as in my own personal relationships.”
“I use [Needs-Based] principles with virtually every client I see. With parents and children, the needs provide a language that is clear, useful, and blame-free. Conflicts can then be seen in a far more neutral light and can be resolved without coercion or damage to relationships. Adolescents and adults learn to use the needs to explore and validate what is inside. Needs are immensely helpful in making decisions, resolving ambivalence, and sorting out relationship problems. In addition, I see that working with the needs promotes self-esteem, resilience, and healthy responsibility.”
“This model helps you to get out of your ‘head space’ and ground you into the power of your heart. ”
The Chicago Counseling Associates is certified by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to provide continuing education units for: Social Workers and Psychologists in Illinois.