The Resilience Skill Set: Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, even Disaster

Resilience, the capacity to cope quickly, skillfully and effectively with any stress or adversity is especially needed in times of sudden transition and upheaval – when what we thought was solid ground turns to quicksand under our feet. At this stage especially, helping clients bounce back from the challenges and crises of their lives may also require helping them bounce forward to a new normal.

At this online webinar with Linda Graham, we consider neuroscientific evidence and focus on the ways in which our clients can harness the brain’s processes to rewire their defensive / dysfunctional coping strategies.

Modern neuroscience has shown how we can use the brain’s innate neuroplasticity to modify coping behaviours, even when these appear to be seemingly ‘stuck’ or intractable. At this webinar, we will look at the tools and techniques that work best when we want our clients to:

• Reverse the impact of stress and / or trauma
• Come out of anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness, guilt and / or shame
• Deepen self-compassion and empathy that connects them to inner resources
• Strengthen their resonant relationships that foster perseverance and
• Shift their perspectives through mindful awareness

Linda helps us identify therapeutic techniques that can be applied across modalities. Specifically, we look at:

• The use of body-based tools to help clients reverse the impact of stress and trauma on their nervous system, returning to an inner sense of safety and equilibrium and their natural range of resilience
• Helping clients manage disruptive emotions while deepening self-compassion and empathy. We learn the process for cultivating the positive emotions that antidote the brain’s negativity bias and shift brain functioning from contracted survival responses to openness for learning and growth
• Cultivating the self-awareness and self-appreciation that help clients heal from toxic shame, retire the inner critic, and recover their inner well-being
• Teaching the interpersonal skills that allow clients to trust other people as refuges and resources in difficult times
• Adapting practices of mindfulness to help clients identify dysfunctional patterns of coping and discern new choices of behavior