Most career professionals spend more time with their colleagues than with their own families. Work relationships are profoundly important. Building trust and collaboration, dealing with conflicts, developing healthy and effective working relationships: such skills are foundational to the modern workplace. And these skills do not involve technical ability or knowledge but rather interpersonal resources that allow people to enhance their relationships with one another. The best employees, leaders, managers and supervisors are those with the finest psychological skills.

And yet, most people have limited knowledge and training in the psychological area, particularly with regard to mental health and addictions, two of the most common (and related) challenges that occur in almost every workplace. This training session will offer participants an introduction to the core skills required to identify and respond appropriately to issues such as depression, anxiety, anger, substance use, and other typical situations in which psychology plays a primary role. This will be a practical workshop, with emphasis on approaches that can be applied quickly and effectively.

Location: Whistler, BC
http://www.bcbc.com/

Although this is a private event, the resource material for the presentation is attached (as pdf) to this post. Please feel to download, distribute, and use.

I am happy to be the inaugural speaker at Vancouver Community College's Voices from the Community series. My presentation, called "The Developing Human:: Integrative Approaches to Health and Wellness," will be on November 20 at 7pm. Here's the marketing blurb:

Cutting-edge research in the human and social services is leading to a fusion of best practices for health, wellness, and healing. Nurses are learning to teach Yoga to patients; educators and childhood development professionals are applying principles from neurology and biochemistry; counsellors are working with clients to develop health plans for nutrition and exercise. These multidisciplinary developments are the direct result of new research that encourages and supports the integration of many practices. From the foundational principles of early childhood development, to the health and mentorship requirements of adolescents, to the complex and challenging needs of adults, the best practices are increasingly those which embody a holistic and collaborative approach to wellness.

In his workshop The Developing Human: Integrative Approaches to Health and Wellness, best-selling author Ross A. Laird will present emerging ideas and strategies to assist children, adolescents and adults through the complex themes and stages that contribute to overall health and wellness. Building on innovative research in the fields of childhood development, health, fitness, psychology, neuroscience, and other fields, Dr. Laird will provide a framework for understanding and working with various challenges and milestones throughout the lifespan: addictions, trauma, depression, anxiety, behavioural concerns, educational hurdles, and more. Each of these topics will be presented in the context of emerging best practices within a multidisciplinary environment of professional practice. This workshop will be of interest to professionals in the fields of health, social services, education, childhood development, and other related fields. It will also be of interest to those working on program development within these fields and within the rapidly-changing landscape of integrative and interdisciplinary human and social services.

For further information, and to register, please visit VCC.

Or, call 604.443.8484 to register over the phone.

The cost is $35.

Workshop Name: Voices from the Community
CNSK 1152.
CRN 30483.

This Fall I will be teaching several courses and workshops. The workshop dates are still in the process of being firmed up, but the courses are scheduled and classes are starting over the next few weeks. Here’s the list of public offerings:

Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey campus
Thursdays, 11am to 1:50pm

Mythological Narratives
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey campus
Mondays, 4pm to 6:50pm

Group Counselling
Vancouver Community College
Thursdays, 6:30pm to 9:30pm
(This course if full, I believe.)

If you are interested in any of the above courses, feel free to get in touch. The Kwantlen courses require 30 previous credits of undergraduate work. The VCC course is open to anyone (almost!).

An interview with Jeff Fisher (of Therapy Talks and Counselling BC) on addictions, trauma, and the role of the nervous system in recovery and healing.

It’s right here:

Check it out. (And let me know what you think.)

I’ve been working with a group of instructors and administrators at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (this group includes Sibeal Foyle from the Fine Arts department, Genni Gunn and Sheila Hancock from the Creative Writing department, Don Hlus from the Music department, and Humanities Dean Linda Schwartz) to develop an undergraduate stream in Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts.The first course in this new stream begins in Fall 2008. If you are interested in finding out more about the program, visit (and join, if you want) the development group. These courses represent a significant milestone in education for students in British Columbia: never before have interdisciplinary expressive arts courses been offered at the undergraduate level in BC.

What are Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts?

Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts refers to a specific set of educational activities, goals and strategies. Based on innovative pedagogy and integrative approaches to learning, interdisciplinary studies involve the synthesis and synergy of various disciplines toward a cohesive, unified educational experience. Interdisciplinarity is much more than enrollment in courses from more than a single discipline. Authentic interdisciplinarity emphasizes the linkages between disciplines by focusing on contrasting and complementary aspects of diverse educational domains.

The Problem:

Addiction is a positive urge thwarted by negative circumstances. Almost all habitual substance users are searching for a means of dealing with psychological stress that is usually associated with childhood and adolescent development.

The addict is drawn to a culture which promises to complete the unfinished impulses of childhood and adolescence. The cultures of technology are sufficiently broad as to offer the psychological rewards of all the cultures of substance use combined.

The word mentor is Greek in origin. It refers to a character in The Odyssey, a friend of Odysseus who offers counsel to his son during the father’s long absence upon the sea. But the sage Mentor is actually Athena in disguise, the goddess of war and wisdom who guides and sustains Odysseus through his journey. A mentor, therefore, is a wisdom guide.

The mentors of literature are always wanderers. They have traveled, they understand the ways of the road, they have traversed their own circuitous paths in the desert. They have experience, hardscrabble wisdom, clarity, a history of grappling and reaching and searching. Of having faced up to it — whatever it is.