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Monday, October 4, 2010

Wébinaire en Français sur l'usure de compassion

French Webinar on Compassion Fatigue, sponsored by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association

Webinaire : Pour mieux comprendre l’épuisement professionnel et l’usure de compassion

Présentatrice: Françoise Mathieu, M.Ed., CCC
Langue:
Français
Date:
Le mercredi 13 octobre 2010
Heure:
12h-13h HNE
Lieu:
En ligne
Coût:
45$ membres de l’ACCP | 55$ non membres *Taxes en sus
# d’UÉP:
1

Description du webinaire: L'usure de compassion est un problème courant chez les travailleurs en soins de la santé, les intervenants en service sociaux, les policiers et les éducateurs spécialisés. Cet atelier explique ce phénomène mal compris et explore les obstacles personnels et professionnels qui nous menacent. L'atelier explorera des stratégies de dépistage précoce, les conséquences du surtravail et les éléments protecteurs contre le burnout et l'usure de compassion.

Présentatrice: Françoise Mathieu, M.Ed., CCC
Françoise Mathieu détient une maîtrise en psychologie (counselling) et a plus de 15 ans d'expérience en tant que psychothérapeute dans divers environnements: urgences, centre de soins de santé mentale et universités. Conférencière chevronnée, Françoise œuvre comme spécialiste en usure de compassion et burnout depuis 2001. Elle offre des ateliers de formation partout au Canada et est l’auteur du livre “The Compassion Fatigue Workbook.”Pour plus d’information: www.compassionfatigue.ca


Cliquer ici pour s'inscrire


"Grâce aux webinaires, l'ACCP est dorénavant en mesure d’offrir à ses membres de nouvelles possibilités de perfectionnement professionnel. Tous les webinaires donnent droit à des unités d’éducation permanente (UÉP). Les places disponibles sont en nombre limité et l’inscription est obligatoire. Nous ajouterons constamment de nouvelles dates et de nouveaux cours.

Nouveau! Téléchargement des webinaires

Veuillez noter que vous pouvez acheter un enregistrement des webinaires passés en contactant le siège social au 1-877-765-5565 ou au reception@ccpa-accp.ca. Ces enregistrements sont également admissibles pour un crédit d'UÉP."



Saturday, September 25, 2010

Changes afoot

I have not been posting as often as I normally do, because I have been busy putting the final touches on my new website and that has eaten up all my free computer time. In a couple of weeks, I will be merging my blog, bookstore and website over to a new system so I can make updates and changes myself instead of having to rely on a husband/webmaster to do it for me (although he's been wonderful - thank you Randy!). So stay tuned for some a whole new look and a bit of a name change. Nothing drastic, just cleaning things up a bit. The website address won't change so you can just wait and see - when the look of this blog changes, you'll know I've migrated.

Meanwhile, for those of you who are technically inclined, I have joined twitter: I can be found @compfatigue. Now I need to learn how to tweet! I have been working with a lovely and very patient web designer who is gently trying to educate me to the ways of the websphere.

This week, I'm off to St Johns for a nursing conference and to Toronto for ATSS. I am really looking forward to this conference to meet colleagues and share ideas about where things are going in our field.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Life's Missing White Space by Leo Babauta

This is reprinted, with permission, from Leo Babauta's blog, ZenHabits, which I love to read:

I’m not a designer, but I’ve always been in love with the design concept of white space.

It’s the space in a design that isn’t filled with things — as you can tell from the design of Zen Habits and my other blog, mnmlist, it’s something I use (perhaps too) liberally.

But white space can be used in the design of our lives as well, not just the design of magazines and websites and ads. By using white space in our lives, we create space, balance, emphasis on what’s important, and a feeling of peace that we cannot achieve with a more cramped life.

Let’s look briefly at how to do this.

The principles of white space

Some of the things white space accomplishes in design:

  • greater legibility
  • feeling of luxury
  • breathing room & balance
  • more emphasis

These same concepts can translate to our lives:

  • Clarity. Instead of legibility, white space can give clarity to the things in our lives — whether they’re possessions, projects, tasks, or just things that occupy our time and attention. A nice piece of furniture is more beautiful when it’s not surrounded by clutter. A well-prepared piece of food is more tasty when it’s not smothered in sauces and piled with fries and cheese. A presentation is more effective when we don’t use Powerpoint and have only a few points to make.
  • Peace. When our lives are cramped, and our homes and workspaces are cluttered, we feel stressed. When we have fewer things on our schedule and fewer things around us, we feel peaceful.
  • Breathing room & balance. Many people talk about finding “work-life balance”, but this is very hard to do if you have no white space. Leave space between things to find the breathing room you need, and to easier achieve balance.
  • Emphasis on the important. When our days are non-stop busy, everything is important and nothing is important. But put white space between things, and those things acquire more weight, and we place more importance on each individual thing.

Achieving white space

In theory, achieving white space isn’t difficult: you remove non-essential items from your life, your workday, your surroundings, your possessions, and leave the essential items with space around them.

But of course in practice it’s a bit different, and requires experimentation, learning, practice. I’d suggest starting small, with one area of your life, and making small bits of white space. Start by identifying what’s important, and the slowly removing the non-essential things to create the white space.

Some ideas:

  • Breathe. Simply take a couple minutes between tasks, meetings, anything that you do, to breathe. After a meeting, for example, return to your desk and just sit still for a couple minutes, focusing on your breath going in and out. When you get home, pause and breathe. When you’re done with a task on the computer, close everything and breathe, before starting on the next task. This creates space between tasks and allows you to focus on each one.
  • Schedule. Don’t overschedule. Leave space on your schedule, between tasks, instead of putting things back-to-back. The space gives you time to go between tasks, to recover, to refocus, to breathe.
  • Projects. Do fewer projects at a time. Instead of juggling a bunch of projects at once, try to do one for as long as you can before switching to the next (sometimes you need to switch because you’re waiting on information or on someone else to do something). If you can, take a short break between each project — as long as you can afford.
  • Sit. Start your day with the white space of just sitting still for 10 minutes. It can be a meditation session, or simply sitting still with a cup of coffee or tea. If you like this, try putting it in the middle and end of your day as well.
  • Remove clutter. Pick a few important things on your desk, or in your home, and remove the rest. This will give you visual space and create a more peaceful atmosphere.
  • Savor. Slow down and savor everything you eat, everything you do. Breathe before you take each bite, and enjoy each bite.


Read more about simplicity in Leo’s books, The Zen Habits Handbook for Life & The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Public Service Announcement: Upcoming Workshop of Interest

LET THE LIGHT IN:

Managing Loss and Depression through Mindfulness, “Meaning Making” and Laughter

With Dr. Robert Buckman and Dr. Kathleen Corcoran

Friday, October 29th, 2010

William Osler Health System - Mental Health and Addictions Program

Dr. Robert Buckman

DR. ROBERT BUCKMAN lives in Toronto, Canada, where he is a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital, and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He qualified as a physician from Cambridge University in 1972, and completed his training in medical oncology at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London including laboratory research leading to a Ph.D. He emigrated to Toronto in 1985. He has written many articles on various aspects of medicine and oncology, concentrating in the last fifteen years on doctor-patient communication and breaking bad news. In 1994 he was made Canadian Humanist of the year, and in 2003 received the Fleming medal of the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Kathleen Corcoran

Dr. Kathleen Corcoran is the Director of Training, Psychology Internship Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), responsible for overseeing the APA/CPA accredited internship program in Psychology. She has her PhD is Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia and practices as a Psychologist privately as well as with the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Clinic, Mood and Anxiety Program at CAMH. In addition, she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Psychiatry.

For more information please contact: theresa.riehl@williamoslerhs.ca

Monday, September 13, 2010

The New Face of AIDS: Podcast from CBC The Current

From September 10, 2010 CBC The Current:
"Twenty years ago today, CBC Television put a man named Peter Jepson-Young on the evening news. They brought him back every week and for 111 episodes, he documented his days as he died of AIDS. A lot has changed since then. But a lot has stayed the same. We revisit the Dr. Peter Diaries" Click here to hear the podcast.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Upcoming events for this Fall and beyond

Hi to you all. I am back from a highly restorative month off where I had the wonderful opportunity to spend lots of time with friends and family that I had not seen in several years, travel, eat obscene amounts of cheese and baguette and drink rosé in olive groves. Not bad at all. Now I'm back at work, the kids are nearly back at school (and it's just about time for them to go back, if you know what I mean - though I love them to bits).

Here are some news:

1) Compassion Fatigue Train the Trainer - Ottawa - November 4-5, 2010. Do not forget that you are required to have completed the one day Walking the Walk workshop prior to attending. Walking the walk is being offered on October 15th in Ottawa. To register for this event click here.

The Kingston Train the Trainer workshop, scheduled for November 16-17 is now full.

2) The First Compassion Fatigue Conference with Gabor Maté and Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky, will be held in Kingston in June 2011! More information on this event will be coming soon. To receive the program, which will be ready towards the end of the month, be sure to join our mailing list.

Other news: Workplace Health
Did you hear about this? The Quebec-based GP2S, a non-profit agency dedicated to the promotion and education in workplace health have created a new "Healthy Enterprise Certification Program" through which agencies can apply for a healthy enterprise certificate. The agencies have to successfully demonstrate that they truly have healthy workplace initiatives that promote the wellness of their staff. Agencies can apply for an audit kit from GP2S. Here's a quote from their website: "GP2S mandated the Bureau de normalisation du Québec (BNQ) to design a certification program that specifies the minimum standards for prevention, promotion and organizational practices favorable to the health of organization's personnel." The idea behind this initiative is to have standardized certification guidelines that will allow current and prospective employees to gauge their agency's commitment to employee wellness. Interesting.

I will write more in the weeks to come, but just wanted to reconnect and say hello. I hope you will have a good start to the Fall and for those of you who have school-aged children, I hope you will not get sucked into the stress vortex too quickly (but perhaps I am projecting...)

Monday, August 2, 2010

Workshop in London with Dr Janina Fisher, November 8-9th

Public Service Announcement

New Solutions in the Treatment of Trauma Dissociation with Dr Janina Fisher
November 8th and 9th, 2010. London, Ontario.

Treating the legacy of childhood trauma and neglect is not simple for even the most experienced clinician. The work is frequently complicated by dissociation-related challenges including shifting states of consciousness, paradoxical responses to treatment, autonomic dysregulation and impulsivity, problems with memory and continuity, shame and selfsabotage, and crises in the therapeutic alliance.

This workshop will offer a conceptual model for treating the effects of trauma and dissociation and present techniques to engage clients who are resistant, overwhelmed, impulsive, preoccupied with internal stimuli and unable to effectively process verbal input. These verbal and somatic approaches emphasize present moment experience and help clients to better integrate the therapeutic work by fostering internal coherence and mindfulness and strengthening capacities to deal with the challenges of daily life. Because they are inherently stabilizing they are appropriate for clients presenting with any trauma-related diagnosis, including Borderline Personality Disorder and bipolar disorder as well as Dissociative Identity Disorder and other Dissociative Disorders.


Dr. Janina Fisher is an Instructor and Senior Supervisor at The Trauma Centre, an outpatient clinic founded and directed by Bessel van der Kolk, and maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and consultation in the Boston area. She is also an EMDR International Association Consultant, a trainer for the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, and a former Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to trauma, dissociation, and the integration of the neurobiological research into clinical practice.

This workshop will enable participants to:

− Develop their understanding of dissociative phenomena, including the differences between “state” versus “trait” dissociative symptoms.
− Utilize mindfulness techniques to counteract dissociation-related symptoms and impulsivity.
− Employ cognitive and body-centered techniques that decrease regression and resistance in therapy.

Cost: $245 plus HST

For more information contact Solutions On Site at 519-640-2030 or Visit www.SOSWorkshops.ca for details