Cascadia Training for Professional Development

🆕 BRAND-NEW! The Empty Chair Technique: Building Bridges to Transformative Dialogues 🆕
2026-08-05 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom
Brand-New!
The Empty Chair Technique: Building Bridges to Transformative Dialogues
Presented by: Dreya Blume, LCSW
When: Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 | 9:00 am – 12:00 pm Pacific Time
Where: Live on Zoom. You will receive your Zoom link/invitation the week of the workshop.
Continuing Education Credit Hours (NBCC and NASW-WA Approved): 3 CEs | $90.00
The empty chair technique is a powerful experiential tool that allows clients to explore internal conflicts, unspoken emotions, and relational dynamics in a tangible, embodied way. This in-depth continuing education workshop introduces psychotherapists to the principles and practical applications of the empty chair, helping clients engage in meaningful dialogues with parts of themselves, significant others, or unresolved experiences.
Participants will learn how this technique can deepen self-awareness, facilitate emotional processing, and promote insight and transformation.
Through demonstration, discussion, and experiential practice, attendees will explore ways to ethically and effectively integrate the empty chair technique into therapy sessions. Therapists will leave with practical strategies for guiding clients through reflective, expressive, and transformative dialogues, while enhancing therapeutic connection and promoting lasting change.
Workshop Objectives:

Develop an understanding of the theoretical foundations and therapeutic purposes of the empty chair technique.
Learn strategies for ethically and effectively facilitating empty chair dialogues with clients.
Identify ways to integrate the empty chair technique into therapy to enhance self-awareness, emotional processing, and transformative insight.

REGISTER HERE

🆕 BRAND-NEW! Counseling on Access to Lethal Means for Suicide 🆕
2026-08-06 09:00 - 12:15 | Zoom
BRAND-NEW!
Law & Ethics CEs!
Counseling on Access to Lethal Means for Suicide
Presented by: Diane Bigler, LCSW, LSCSW
When: Thursday, August 6th, 2026| 9:00 AM – 12:15 PM, Pacific Time
Where: Live on Zoom. You will receive your Zoom link/invitation the week of the workshop.
Continuing Education Credit Hours (NBCC and NASW-WA Approved CEs): 3 Law & Ethics CEs | $99.00
Continuing Education Workshop Description:
Reducing access to lethal means, such as firearms and medication, can determine whether a person at risk for suicide lives or dies. This continuing education workshop will explore how to reduce access to the methods people use to kill themselves. Discover who needs lethal means counseling and how to work with people at risk for suicide—and their families—to reduce access.
Learn about what clients and families need to know, and what clinicians can do to increase safety with suicidal clients who have access to lethal means. Participants will also examine common barriers clinicians face when discussing firearms, medications, and other lethal means with clients and families, including fear of damaging rapport, cultural considerations, and uncertainty about legal or ethical responsibilities.
Practical, trauma-informed communication strategies will be reviewed to help therapists engage in collaborative, nonjudgmental conversations that support client autonomy while enhancing safety planning. Case examples and clinical applications will help participants strengthen confidence in identifying appropriate clients for lethal means counseling and integrating these interventions into routine suicide risk assessment and treatment planning.
Continuing Education Workshop Objectives

Explain at least two reasons why reducing access to lethal means can prevent suicide.
Identify clients for whom lethal means counseling is appropriate.
Describe counseling strategies for raising the topic of lethal means and increase confidence and skill in applying these strategies with clients.

REGISTER HERE

Tarot and Therapy: Intuition and Metaphor
2026-08-07 09:00 - 16:30 | Zoom
Law & Ethics CEs!
Tarot and Therapy: Intuition and Metaphor
Presented by: Rebecca Bloom, ATR-BC, LMHC (she/her)
When: Friday, August 7th, 2026 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm Pacific Time
Where: Live on Zoom. You will receive your Zoom link/invitation the week of the workshop.
Continuing Education Credits: CEs: 6 CEs – 3 Law & Ethics CEs | $199.00, which includes $174.00 tuition plus $25.00 for Ephemera Art Supply Packs Created by Rebecca Bloom Especially for Cascadia Training Registrants. Art supply packs will be mailed to registrants in advance of the workshop.
Why is Tarot so popular right now? Are your clients coming in talking about the card they pulled before the session and you have no idea what that means? Have you used tarot for years for your own well being and would love to use it with mental health clients but not sure how?
Most clients come into therapy saying that they do not have access to their intuition and are not sure how to trust what the right choices are to make in their lives. Using a single card pulled from a tarot deck, and exploring the client’s meaning of the card, clients can begin to feel connected to their own sense of self, clients can find new ways to safely explore difficult experiences and find ways to test out feeling grounded again.
Starting with the Jungian concepts of Archetypes we will look at how the collective sense of self represents over these twelve types of being. Then we will explore the history and uses of tarot. These seventy-eight cards have been used for hundreds of years. Using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, from 1909, as a starting place we will look at many of the decks available today and why people turn to them every day or when times get difficult.
We will explore intuition and how to trust our own sense of knowing. In this hands-on workshop, you will make five of your own cards. Exploring the major arcana, and the suits of cups, pentacles, swords and wands we will learn the journeys of each of these sets.
Objectives:

Learn archetypes of Jung and Tarot.
Learn why the creative process soothes the body and the mind.
Find materials you will be comfortable using with your clients.
Use art making for your own self-care.

REGISTER HERE

Mindfulness on Land and Water with Sea Kayaking 2-Day Retreat
2026-08-07 10:00 - 2026-08-08 17:30 | ONE-Olympia, 7400 Gallagher Cove Road NW, Olympia, WA, 98502, United States
Mindfulness on Land and Water with Sea Kayaking 2-Day Retreat
Presented by: Dr. Brenda Butterfield, EdD, MSW, LMHC
When: Friday, August 7th – Saturday, August 8th, 2026 | 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM, Pacific Time
Where: Live in person at the ONE Center (7400 Gallagher Cove Road NW, Olympia, WA 98502)
LODGING INFORMATION: We invite you to spend the night on either Thursday or Friday, or both.

Camping for $40/night is available, as is the Sweet Sauna House for $90/night (the Sweet Sauna House sleeps two – would be great for two friends/colleagues to share!). Cedar House is available for $65/night.

$40 covers dinner and campfire w/smores on Friday night and breakfast on Saturday morning (Gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free provided).

When you register, you can choose a lodging option or join us just for the day on Friday and Saturday.

For any questions regarding lodging and/or food, please email the ONE Center at ournewexperiences@gmail.com.

Continuing Education Credit Hours: 12 CEs | $398.00 for workshop alone; $478.00 for camping one night and meals; $518.00 for camping two nights and meals; $618.00 for overnight in the sweet sauna house for two nights and meals. $503.00 for 1 night in Cedar House and meals; $568 for 2 nights in Cedar House and meals.
This continuing education workshop retreat is for colleagues ready to experience new ways of learning and healing in the present moment by taking the practice of mindfulness into the forest and onto the water. You’re invited to come to ONE, a nature-based retreat center for health care professionals on the beautiful South Salish Sea outside Olympia, WA. This unique professional development retreat is the confluence of mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and ecotherapy as an avenue to experience nature’s powerful healing.
Through discussion and shared resources, you’ll learn how stress plays a key role in illness and disease, often leading to mental health conditions like panic disorder, depression, and anxiety, along with many other chronic physical illnesses. You’ll learn how to identify “indicator lights” of chronic stress for yourself and clients and then experience simple, nature-based mindfulness practices designed to relax, center, and deeply ground oneself in the present moment through the portals of our senses. You’ll learn why and how to use these nature-based mindfulness interventions in your daily life and in your practice of teaching them to clients as well.
We’ll teach you simple, research-based ways to decrease symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety and prevent panic attacks. You’ll learn how to pull the ripcord on your parasympathetic nervous system parachute, to bring yourself back to center whenever and wherever stress shows up. Participants will learn diaphragmatic breathing to calm the body and improve neurological processing. This facilitates emotional regulation skills, enhances immune system functioning, and improves sleep quality.
After exploring the concept and practice of mindfulness and learning simple stress reduction practices, we’ll head to beautiful Gallagher Cove for sea kayaking 101 skills training. Leaders will teach you mindful kayaking and invite you to practice non-striving on the water. “There is no place to go, and no place to be. This is it, right here, right now.” Together, we’ll enjoy a slow, gentle paddle while “field testing” newfound stress-management skills. After kayaking, we’ll explore ways to integrate and expand ecotherapy interventions into clinical work with clients. We’ll help you develop the language of mindfulness and ecotherapy and explore ways of integrating these practices into your work with clients. In the evening, we’ll share dinner and enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the land and water in the good company of colleagues – all to be topped off with an evening campfire and s’mores.
After a nourishing breakfast on day two, we’ll experience the Japanese-inspired practice of shinrin yoku, also referred to as forest bathing. This evidence-based practice is gaining momentum worldwide, supported by research to reduce chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and improve cardiovascular and immune system functioning, too. Through simple sensory invitations to experience the present moment, we’ll experience the awe and wonder of beauty in the forest and gardens at ONE.
By paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, participants will learn how to navigate the stress of unpleasant emotions, body sensations, and distorted thinking by choosing new ways of being through the practice of mindfulness.
Whether you’re new to mindfulness and eco therapy or have years of experience, you’re welcome at ONE. Whether you’re an avid paddler or have no experience but feel called from the South Salish Sea, come join us. Beautiful Gallagher Cove is a protected, shallow place to learn kayaking. We’ll provide thorough instruction focused on safety as well as all the equipment needed (sea kayak, personal flotation device, paddle). We invite you to camp on the land before and/or after the workshop to really drop in and enjoy mindfulness on land and water.
Continuing Education Workshop Objectives:
In this workshop, you will

Learn what mindfulness is and how to practice it for yourself so you can teach your clients.
Understand the research-based benefits of integrating Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) in clinical practice.
Understand the research-based benefits of integrating nature therapy in clinical practice.
Explore the language, concepts, and phenomena of mindfulness and nature therapy.
Learn about the Autonomic Nervous System and the important functions of both the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic responses.
Learn ways to experience and teach diaphragmatic breathing.
Learn how to connect the dots between CBT thinking errors and the Autonomic Nervous System.
Understand the mind/body relationship between chronic stress & mental health conditions, including stress/depression/anxiety/panic attacks
Learn common symptoms of stress reactions (behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and physical)
Learn simple nature-based mindfulness practices to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Learn emotional regulation skills.
Learn ways to integrate mindfulness in nature into clinical practice.

REGISTER HERE
