2-Day Intensive Anger Management Certification Training: Mindfulness-Based Tools for Impulse Control, Reduced Emotional Reactivity and Long-Lasting Change

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Pavel Somov, PhD Related seminars and products

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Pavel Somov, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in private practice with over 20 years of clinical experience working with anger management, shame, guilt, self-criticism, eating issues, and perfectionism. He has worked in a variety of clinical settings including running a drug and alcohol treatment program in a county jail.

Dr. Somov is on the advisory board for The Mindfulness Project (London, UK) and has conducted a variety of trainings for mental health professionals both domestically and internationally on applying mindfulness-based interventions to a variety of psychological issues.

His work has been discussed in a number of radio interviews and in print publications including Martha Stewart’s Body + Soul Magazine and Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine. Dr. Somov is the author of Anger Management Jumpstart: A 4-Session Mindfulness Path to Compassion and Change (PESI Publishing, 2013) as well as a number of self-help books on perfectionism, overeating, and addiction.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Pavel Somov maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Vista Behavioral health Associates. He receives royalties as a published author. Pavel Somov receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Pavel Somov is a member of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and the Greater Pittsburgh Psychological Association. He serves on the advisory board for the Mindfulness Project.

 

Objectives

1. Analyze the neurobiology of anger and the brain regions involved in processing anger.
2. Investigate behavioural and bodily effects of anger and its influence on cognition.
3. Evaluate the clinical implications of the association between anger and substance abuse.
4. Analyze how mindfulness techniques can be used to help clinicians engage reluctant and treatment-resistant clients.
5. Employ mindfulness training and diaphragmatic breathing techniques that diminish the body’s fight-or-flight response.
6. Practice mindfulness skills that effectively intervene in dysfunctional thoughts and judgmental beliefs.
7. Investigate the relationship between anger types and problem behaviours in clients.
8. Investigate how clinicians can frame anger problems in a humanistic and compassionate manner that leverages client rapport and client insight.
9. Employ strategies to help clients leverage acceptance of others to diminish angry externalizations and displacement of frustration.
10. Employ mindfulness strategies to decrease levels of impulsivity and aggressiveness in angry clients.
11. Investigate the use of Yalom-style process-focused groups to reinforce skill acquisition and responsiveness in the treatment of anger and aggression.
12. Investigate how clinicians can navigate politically and ideologically provocative client self-disclosures in therapy.

Outline

The Brain-Body View of Anger: Enhance Anger Management with a Neuroscience Perspective

• Evolutionary psychology of anger
• Anger systems in the brain and threat perception
• Neurophysiology of anger v. fear
• Limbic, PFC & TPJ
• Fight-Flight-Freeze
• Breathing and the survival brain

The Mind View of Anger: How Perfectionism and All-or-Nothing Thinking Keep Clients Stuck in Anger

• Dualistic & all-or-nothing thinking
• Attention tunnelling/hyperfocus
• Perfectionism and righteous anger
• Righteousness as confusion/ambivalence reduction

Anger, Substance Abuse and Violence

• Relationship between anger and addiction
• Assessment of violence potential
• Is domestic abuse an anger management problem?
• Anger & self-harm

Anger Management as Fear Management: Teaching Clients to Distinguish Real Threats from Paper Tigers

• Real fears
• Symbolic fears
• Courage of acceptance
• Escape of action (“To act out is to run”)
• An informal typology of anger - how anger style informs treatment approach

Motivate the Unwilling: 4 Steps to Greater Engagement with Angry and Avoidant Clients

• Mood/affect stabilization
• Relational stabilization
• Impulse control
• Damage control

Short-Term Anger Management Solutions: A 4-Session Approach to Improve Impulse Control and Self-Regulation

• Session 1: Mindfulness-Based Impulse Control Training
• Session 2: Choice Awareness Training & Pattern Interruption
• Session 3: Symbolic Threat Inoculation
• Session 4: Bottom-Up Self-Regulation
• Facilitating homework compliance
• Real life anger management practice

Long-Term Anger Management: Strategies and Techniques for Lasting Behavioural Change

• Attributional retraining – help clients to not take things personally
• Effort acceptance – exercises to stop feeling shortchanged
• Learning from fear & rascal sages
• Relativity training to overcome righteous anger
• Neurobehavioral empathy training & mirroring to promote relational stability
• Neuroendocrine time-out & social fasting
• Assertiveness training – teach clients to set healthy boundaries
• Techniques to communicate anger without aggression
• Group work - strategies to reinforce skill acquisition
• Eastern know-how of equanimity – from anger to compassion
• Manage politically and ideologically provocative client self-disclosures in therapy

Research, Treatment Risks and Limitations

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Addiction Counselors
• School Counselors
• School Psychologists
• School Social Workers
• Other Mental Health Professionals