Difficult People: Dealing with the Most Challenging and Irksome Individuals in Our Lives and Clinical Practices

Presented by: Kristie Baber, MSW, LICSW, CCTP

When: Thursday, February 6th, 2025 | 9am – 4:30pm Pacific Time

Where: Live via Zoom (you’ll receive the Zoom link via email the week of the workshop)

Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs| Cost: $190.00

This class will encourage and equip clinicians that are struggling with seemingly impossible people in their practices and personal lives. You know the types – folks who distract us from doing our best work and erode our sense of contentment. The class will equip attendees with hacks to confront the demanding, thorny, bothersome, and stressful situations that challenging relationships bring into our offices and lives. From the annoying to the exhausting – we will address generalized personality types and how to deal with them while simultaneously remaining grounded and holding our center.

Please note that this class is NOT intended to address the DSM5 diagnostic categories of personality disorders – rather, we will be addressing more common issues that don’t necessarily rise to clinically diagnostic levels but can be equally disconcerting and uncomfortable in relationships, both personal and professional.

This lighthearted class is designed for practicing therapists with clients of all ages. The workshop will be conducted in a Zoom format and teaching modalities will include a mix of clinical discussion, lecture with clinical examples, and   video illustrations, as well as individual/group case exercises.

 Core Objectives:

1. Distinctively examine high-maintenance relationships characterized by anger, criticism, martyrdom, negativity, neediness, competition, insensitivity and control.
2. Address strategies for universal psychotherapy office-specific challenges.
3. Contextualize Freud’s defense mechanisms.
4. Identify essential emotional regulation skills in adulthood.
5. Develop capacity for self-assessment around the impact of stress on our lives and work.
6. Explore multiple strategies to hold our center and maintain equilibrium in our practices.
7. Access provided references and resources for further study.