Pre-Conference Workshops
Experiential Education
These experiential, pre-conference workshops are designed for clinicians and industry leaders. Our goal is to provide experiential education that inspires and facilitates learning in a peer and community-based setting. These sessions may be added to your registration for an additional fee, and all sessions are CE Credit-eligible.
IMPORTANT NOTE: These workshops are from the 2026 Conference and are maintained as examples of the kinds of Pre-Conference education that we offer.
Session 1
April 22nd, 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Voices in the Machine: How AI Is Reimagining Mental Health Care
Facilitated by Thomas McCray • Room 1 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate]
Mental health care faces persistent barriers: long wait times, provider shortages, stigma, and inequities in access for underserved populations. Yet demand for affordable, timely support has never been higher. This presentation introduces a groundbreaking voice-based AI companion—the first to deliver real-time Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) interventions exclusively by phone. By leveraging the universal accessibility of voice and evidence-based frameworks, this innovation bridges critical gaps in care delivery.
The session opens with a live demonstration, enabling attendees to witness the AI in action as it applies CBT strategies (Socratic questioning, cognitive restructuring, mood tracking) alongside trauma-informed care and motivational interviewing techniques. Participants will experience compassionate, person-centered engagement in real time. Real-world case studies from pilots in youth programs, corrections, and community outreach will highlight scalable applications and outcomes.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Identify how AI-driven CBT companions can reduce barriers to access for underserved populations.
- Evaluate the therapeutic techniques applied by AI companions, including CBT, Motivational Interviewing, and Trauma-Informed Care.
- Discuss ethical, clinical, and compliance considerations for integrating AI into treatment workflows.
- Apply strategies for piloting AI companions within clinical, nonprofit, or institutional settings.
Rewrite the Script: Transmute Trauma into Agency with 3 Storytelling Skills
Facilitated by Amanda Johnson • Room 2 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate]
Depending on the trauma, the time that has elapsed, and the treatment already received, individuals tend to lean into one narrative perspective over another — one that holds all the authority but little awareness, and another that holds all the awareness but little power to change the story.
What if a few expert storytelling insights from some of our favorite storytellers could give your clients immediate access to three narrative perspectives that increase awareness, agency, and the audacity required to write a better story for themselves and their loved ones?
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
1. Identify and describe the three vital narrative perspectives (e.g., authority without awareness, awareness without agency, and a balanced perspective that fosters awareness, agency, and audacity) and apply them to at least two client case examples through guided exercises.
2. Demonstrate the use of storytelling techniques (drawn from bestselling novelists) to develop each narrative perspective in a therapeutic context, as measured by role-play scenarios in which participants facilitate a client’s shift in perspective and receive peer feedback.
3. Explain how these narrative perspectives and storytelling techniques physiologically enhance client outcomes beyond traditional narrative therapy, referencing research on emotional processing and oxytocin release, and articulate this understanding in a brief reflective writing exercise.
If your mission is to increase awareness, agency, and audacity in the healing process, you won’t want to miss this session.
Session 2
April 22nd, 2:45pm – 4:15pm
Leading Through Connection: Building Emotionally Safe and Effective Teams
Facilitated by Dr. Allison Brownlee, PsyD, LMFT • Room 1 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate to Advanced]
Clinicians today must lead teams and systems through trauma-laden environments. This experiential workshop, led by Dr. Allison Brownlee, LMFT—a trauma-informed clinician and nonprofit director—transforms clinical skills into relational leadership. It extends therapy-room tools—attunement, co-regulation, rupture and repair—into leadership. Drawing from attachment theory and EFT, it replaces hierarchy and control with curiosity and secure connection. Participants will identify trauma-replicating dynamics in organizations and learn to foster psychological safety, collaboration, and innovation.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
1. Describe at least three ways that business and clinical disciplines can be integrated to enhance organizational sustainability and improve mental health outcomes.
2. Analyze how trauma-informed and attachment-based leadership approaches promote collaboration, resilience, and psychological safety within teams and organizations.
3. Apply a practical framework for integrating therapy-informed leadership skills into supervision, program development, and systems-level advocacy.
Trauma at the Core: Integrating Effective Trauma Care Across Mental Health, Substance Use and Eating Disorders
Facilitated by Dr. Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, M.D., FAED, CEDS, F.IAEDP • Room 2 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate to Advanced]
Clinicians frequently encounter trauma in clients needing higher levels of care for substance use disorders (SUD), eating disorders (ED), or both. Triggers include stigma, bullying, abuse, neglect, invalidating environments, minority stress, and adverse substance- or food-related experiences. Historically, co-occurring PTSD led to sequential treatment—stabilize trauma before addressing SUD/ED. Research now supports integrated, simultaneous approaches.
This presentation examines PTSD manifestations in SUD and ED clients, effective concurrent treatments, and practical protocols. Participants will explore EMDR and exposure therapy applications, the 3-stage model for substance- and food-related trauma, and key considerations for safe exposure work.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Describe how PTSD can show up in clients with substance use and/or eating disorders.
- Articulate the 8 phases of standard EMDR protocol and how EMDR can be applied to substance use and eating disorder treatment.
- Identify and describe the 3 stages of treatment for addressing substance- and food-related trauma.
- Describe the considerations for utilizing individual exposure work with clients.
Session 3
April 22nd, 4:30pm – 6:00pm
How to Build a Strong Multidisciplinary Team: An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach
Facilitated by Kayla Karesh, LMFT, ATR • Room 1 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate]
This presentation explores evidence-based strategies for building and sustaining effective multidisciplinary teams in treatment centers, PHPs/IOPs, and outpatient practices. Participants will examine how team members’ roles, voices, and perspectives can be integrated into a shared clinical approach, fostering collaboration and improving client outcomes. Through reflective exercises, case vignettes, and small-group dialogue, attendees will engage with interpersonal neurobiology principles—attunement, regulation, and integration—as they appear in team communication, clinical decision-making, and moments of rupture and repair. Participants will experience how nervous systems interact in real time, both among colleagues and with clients, and how a shared neurobiological lens can increase relational safety, reduce reactivity, and promote coherence across disciplines. Attendees will leave with embodied insight and practical tools for bringing interpersonal neurobiology into daily team interactions, supporting both provider well-being and client healing.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the principles of Interpersonal Neurobiology as a theoretical framework for understanding integration across multidisciplinary teams.
- Identify the unique contributions of expressive therapies and body-based approaches (Chinese Medicine, dietetics) to mental health treatment when used together with traditional psychotherapy modalities.
- Apply the Create Wellbeing Model of Care: Calm. Engage. Integrate.© as a practical framework for integrative care on multidisciplinary teams.
Reimagining Mental Health: Restructuring Services and Resources Through the FFT Model
Facilitated by Helen Midouhas, PhD, LPC, & Marcus Brown, Jr. • Room 2 • $129 • 1.5 CE Credits
[Education Level: Intermediate]
Traditional mental health services often focus on individuals, sidelining family and community contexts—exacerbating inequities in access and outcomes. Functional Family Therapy (FFT) provides a relational, systemic model to redesign services for greater equity, responsiveness, and impact.
This workshop equips leaders with FFT-guided strategies to transform delivery: workforce development, culturally attuned practice, and seamless integration of family-based care into existing systems. Through case studies and actionable frameworks, participants will gain tools to shift organizational culture and better serve diverse families.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Understand how FFT principles can guide restructuring of mental health services.
- Learn approaches for embedding equity and inclusion into program design.
- Explore case studies that demonstrate innovative service delivery models.
- Identify actionable steps for adapting traditional mental health resources into systemic, family-focused care.
