Resistance or Resilience: Mind and Body Responses

Primary Presenter(s)

• • 

    Diane Abatemarco, Phd, MSW

    Associate Professor, Director of MATER
    Thomas Jefferson University

    Disclosure: Nothing to disclose

Co-Presenter(s)

• KJ

  Kimberly Jones

  Thomas Jefferson University
• AF

  Alice Fischer

  Thomas Jefferson University

This workshop explores perceptions of power struggles/manipulation with clients through didactic and experiential practice to promote enhanced risk-reduction interactions through mindfulness-based trauma responsiveness. Participants learn to reframe perceptions of resistance/manipulation by identifying and understanding survival mechanisms; enabling participants to develop broader conceptual reasoning and behaviors to support clients in recovery. Resistance or Resilience is a freeing and productive way of engaging clients who present as resistant.

Learning Objectives:

• define and identify trauma-informed policies and trauma-responsive treatment practices.
• Describe a set of mindfulness exercises to reduce their stress, emotional reactivity, physical response, or thoughts that arise in reaction to a “resistant” patient; and
• adapt the learnings of this workshop to able to identify two or more skills they can utilize when faced with a client they view as resistant to help them view the client as resilient and change the dynamic of the struggle to one of support.