The ASCH-Education and Research Foundation sponsors basic, 
intermediate and advanced level instruction through its professional training in clinical hypnosis. These Regional Workshops are held four to six times a year. ASCH-ERF makes every effort to hold workshops in all regions of the US.
Basic Workshop: Fundamentals of Hypnosis
Why pursue training in Clinical Hypnosis? What are the benefits?
Clinicians who are trained in clinical hypnosis learn a range of communication skills that facilitate reaching the therapeutic goal through more effective utilization of the patient’s or client’s innate resources. Clinical hypnosis incorporates the science of neurobiology and brain plasticity, and its principles are trans-theoretical. Suggestion is an inevitable part of any treatment. Learning hypnosis allows you to better understand how you currently use suggestive language in your treatment approaches and how to increase and diversify your range of skills in suggesting therapeutic possibilities.
Benefits:
• Rapidly establish rapport and the hypnotic relationship across developmental ages;
• Facilitate change, Ego-strengthen and reduce impediments to change;
• Cost-effective, collaborative, person centered treatment; and
• Provide clients and patients with life-long skills for better health.
The Basic clinical hypnosis training is the first part of a series of workshops in the certification program for clinical hypnosis. A diverse faculty from a range of health disciplines will teach you the principles and process of hypnotic inductions, suggestions and treatment. The workshop is a mix of didactic presentations, demonstrations, experiential exercises and faculty-led small group practice tailored to the specific needs and learning style of each participant. At the conclusion of the workshop you will have been taught the basic skills required to utilize clinical hypnosis and begin to apply it to your practice.
Intermediate Workshop: Refining Skills and Treatment Applications
What are the advantages of more training in Clinical Hypnosis?
The second step in certification training is to strengthen your skills, strategies and applications of clinical hypnosis. Part one taught you “how to” do clinical hypnosis, and part two builds on this skill set and refines and furthers your development so you add the when, why and where to the “how to”.
Advantages:
- Introduction to a wider range of topics on the utility of clinical hypnosis (e.g., Pain Management; Irritable Bowel Syndrome; Anxiety and Sleep Disorders; Habit Disorders; Dissociative Identify Disorder);
- Learn more techniques for the creative use of the language of suggestion to facilitate change;
- Learn specific tools (complex inductions and intensification techniques) for specific populations (children; procedural hypnosis; PTSD); and
- More practice with the feedback of expert faculty.
The Intermediate Workshop increases your skills and builds confidence in your use of hypnosis. It prepares you to move on to the Advanced Workshop level and Individual Consultation with a strong basis of skills and understanding of the principles and practice of clinical hypnosis.
Advanced level workshops are topical. Recent professional training workshops have focused on behavioral medicine, health psychology, hypnosis and pediatrics, and mind-body medicine.
Participants are encouraged to attend these workshops in sequence in order to make the most of each workshop. Skills mastered in the basic and intermediate levels are essential to fully benefiting from the advanced level workshops.
Regional Workshop Schedule - Each of the following locations will offer a Basic, Intermediate and an Advanced Workshop unless otherwise stated.
• June 15-18, 2017 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Crowne Plaza Old Town Alexandria, Alexandria, VA (PDF Brochure with hotel information)
In addition to offering the Basic and Intermediate Workshops, ASCH-ERF will be offering the following Advanced Workshop in Alexandria, Seasoned Clinicians Share Essentials of Practice, Best Hypnotic Strategies, and Incisive Languaging.
This Advanced Workshop brings together highly experienced, accomplished and respected clinicians and teachers who will share their clinical experience and the important things they have learned as they have integrated hypnosis into their clinical practices. The presenters will begin on Thursday evening in a panel format addressing specific ethics concerns (informed consent, and clinical practice in areas within v. outside a clinician’s area of professional expertise) with respect to the inclusion of clinical hypnosis in practice.
On Friday and Saturday, Advanced Workshop Faculty will each discuss things she/he has learned, both personally and professionally, as a result of learning and becoming highly skilled in the use of clinical hypnosis in her/his specific discipline and as an accomplished presenter.
This workshop will encourage open dialogue with presenters and other participants, and will include presenter demonstrations, and opportunities for participant practice of specific hypnotic strategies. Sunday morning will include a summary and review of the workshop, an extended Q&A period, and additional opportunities for requested demonstrations and/or participant practice.
Due to unforeseen cirumstances, the Power of Words Workshop previously scheduled for June 16, 2017 has been cancelled. If you have any questions or concerns, contact the ASCH office at 630-980-4740.
• September 14-17, 2017 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Schaumburg, IL (PDF Brochure with hotel information) (PDF flyer with hotel information)
In addition to offering the Basic and Intermediate Workshops, ASCH-ERF will be offering the following Advanced Workshop in Schaumburg, A Proactive Response to the Opiate Prescription Crisis with Compassionate Patient Centered Care: Integrating Hypnotic Utilization, Neuroplasticity, and the Psychophysiologic Pattern with Mark Weisberg, Ph.D., ABPP and Alfred Clavel Jr., M.D.
The 2011 Institute of Medicine report Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research estimated that 100 million Americans have chronic pain. Over the last 15 years, the primary reliance on and excessive use of opiate medications has created a serious medical crisis.
The United States, which makes up 5% of the world population, uses 80% of the world’s opiates. Numerous studies demonstrate that dependence on opiate medications leads to overwhelming suffering and disability. Addressing this crisis will require considerable effort and commitment across all health-related fields.
Over the last three decades, more than 1,000 randomized controlled clinical trials have been published on low back pain alone. Most treatments for low back pain have limited clinical value. What is missing from these treatments is the role of the patient in healing and patient-centered care. We can do better.
Helping Patients Recover and Heal Chronic Low Back Pain.
Since back pain is the most common of chronic pain, this workshop will focus on low back pain.The critical step in managing any chronic condition is asking the patient to be part of the solution. Engaging patients in daily self-care, gradual conditioning programs, releasing tension from stress or guarding from pain and the all-important step of activating self-healing resources is critical. Opiates—especially at high doses— disconnect the brain from the body in a dissociative process, making self-care and activating self-healing resources more challenging. The goal of good treatment is to reduce dissociation and increase somatic awareness. Repetition of awareness training. changes the brain through neuroplasticity and can reverse the changes in the brain associated with chronic pain. Daily practice activates self-healing resources, regulates the autonomic nervous system and creates empowerment. It prevents deconditioning and the depression that follows inactivity and isolation.
At times, modern medicine has forgotten how to help these patients switch from survival mode to healing mode, and eventually, to a state of well-being. This workshop will help you understand this process.
Workshop Description
In this 20 hour workshop, we will consider the role that hypnosis can play in facilitating an ideal healing state to effectively treat low back pain, help wean patients off opiate medications, and reduce central sensitization. The presenters will review the literature and take the participants on an experiential journey using a mixture of didactic and experiential approaches they can use on a daily basis in their clinical practice.
As a group, we will explore our societal over reliance on opiate medication and its consequences, understand opiate induced hyperalgesia, and create effective treatment plans for engaging patients to be part of the solution to chronic low back pain - all while tapering their opiate medications.. The integration of hypnosis to help engage patient motivation, facilitate rehabilitation, reduce the pain experience, and develop a strong core will be woven throughout the workshop. Patients who undergo this training report high levels of satisfaction.
• September 14-17, 2017 ASCH-ERF Individualized Consultation Workshop; Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Schaumburg, IL (PDF Brochure)
• October 12-15, 2017 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; JW Marriott Houston Downtown, Houston, TX (PDF flyer with hotel information)
In addition to offering the Basic and Intermediate Workshops, ASCH-ERF will be offering the following Advanced Workshop in Houston, Hypnosis for Trauma-Informed Integrative Medicine.
Physical, sexual, and psychological trauma are associated with mental, emotional, interpersonal, and physical manifestations that often involve medical presentations and conditions. This workshop will review the somatic conditions and experiences associated with trauma and outline a phase-oriented approach to psychophysiological and hypnotic interventions. Specific strategies for somatic symptom processing will be reviewed and integrated with hypnotic techniques. The workshop will also address how relevant aspects of epigenetics, neuroplasticity, psychoneuroimmunology, and beliefs can inform hypnotic interventions for a variety of medical conditions. Finally, as life-style modifications are often essential to health promotion, hypnotic applications for habit management will also be addressed.
In consideration of the increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice, this workshop will include examples of outcome research providing empirical support for hypnotic treatment strategies. In addition, medical disorders covered will include information on diagnostic criteria, underlying pathophysiology, psychophysiological patterns to be targeted, and selected non-hypnotic treatment components relevant to symptom resolution. An emphasis will be placed on understanding the underlying physiological processes of common medical disorders and systematically targeting those processes to promote health and wellness in a theory-driven manner. Conditions to be covered will include aspects of chronic pain, headache, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma as well as autoimmune, inflammatory, and infectious disorders.
The workshop will provide sufficient information for participants new to the advanced workshops as well as more senior practitioners looking for specialized training in integrative medicine applications. The phase-oriented approach will begin with trauma stabilization and optimization of the autonomic nervous system function for health promotion. Overall, a comprehensive hypnotic approach, including relevant non-hypnotic components, will be outlined and taught through didactic presentation, demonstration, and dyadic practice.
• November 30- Dec. 3, 2017 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Westgate Hotel, San Diego, CA (PDF flyer with hotel information) (PDF Brochure)
In addition to offering the Basic and Intermediate Workshops, ASCH-ERF will be offering the following Advanced Workshop in San Diego: Hypnosis, Neurophysiology, and Zen for Pain and Suffering.
This workshop is designed to increase clinical skills in managing pain and suffering utilizing hypnosis, as well education, motivational interviewing and Zen. The workshop will begin with an easy to follow neurophysiological explanation of pain and why chronic pain treatment often involves the management of suffering. We will first work on dissociative hypnotic suggestions to manage acute pain; specifically, when a person is already in acute pain (e.g., the emergency room) or is going to undergo a painful procedure (e.g., surgery, labor and delivery). We will then describe how the management of chronic pain using a biopsychosocial model allows us to put hypnotic interventions in a larger paradigm that increases the probability that the induction will make a difference. We will discuss using Zen to hold the context of hypnosis; efforts to make the pain go away are often far less enduring than teaching patients to change their relationship with pain. This workshop will include power point didactics, demonstrations, and small group practice. We will work as a group to assess someone with chronic pain. The experiential components of the workshop are designed not only for the clinicians to increase their skills by "out-louding" the material but to create personal growth in their lives when they are undergoing the inductions themselves. The leader, David R. Patterson Ph.D. is the author of Clinical Hypnosis for Pain Control (2010) as well as 150 scientific papers on related topics. He has given workshops in a dozen countries and regularly works with patients suffering from acute and chronic pain at the University of Washington.
• April 26-29, 2018 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Holiday Inn Express Denver Downtown, Denver, CO
• June 21-24, 2018 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Crowne Plaza Old Town Alexandria, Alexandria, VA
• September 27-30, 2018 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Schaumburg, IL
• October 2018 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; TBA
• December 2018 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; TBA
2019
• June 20-23, 2019 ASCH-ERF Regional Workshop; Crowne Plaza Old Town Alexandria, Alexandria, VA
On-Line Registration for Regional Workshops Now Available
On-line registration for Regional Workshops is available by clicking here. Simply complete the form, including payment information, and submit the form. It's that easy!
California Board of Behavioral Sciences Accreditation
Please note that effective July 1, 2015, the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (CBBS) is no longer renewing existing CE provider numbers. ASCH-ERF’s accreditation through CBBS expired on December 31, 2015. BBS licensees now obtain their continuing education through the National Association of Social Workers and the American Psychological Association, among others, both through which ASCH-ERF maintains accreditation.
September 14-17, 2017 ASCH Regional Workshop; Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Schaumburg, IL
2018
March 15-18, 2018 ASCH Annual Scientific Meeting & Workshop; Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista South, Kissimmee, FL
June 21-24, 2018 ASCH Regional Workshop; Crowne Plaza Old Town Alexandria, Alexandria, VA
September 27-30, 2018 ASCH Regional Workshop; Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, Schaumburg, IL
2019
June 20-23, 2019 ASCH Regional Workshop; Crowne Plaza Old Town Alexandria, Alexandria, VA