Continuing Education Program at the YWCA
Client Resistance and Special Needs

Thursday, November 5, 2009 at the YWCA
1:00-4:00 p.m.
$8
This training has been certified by the Indiana Professionals Bureau. Three CEUs are available.

Instructor: Carla Gaff-Clark, Ed.D., LMHC, CADAC IV
Contracted through the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV)

This training session may best serve police, attorneys, health care providers, clergy, counselors, and other social service professionals who work with at-risk clients. However, all interested adults ages 18 and up are welcome to attend.

Call the YWCA at 765-742-0075 to register.

Training Details:
During this session we will study clients that are often called oppositional, reactionary, noncompliant, intractable, and unmotivated. The behaviors displayed by these difficult clients are often collectively referred to as resistance. In clinical terms, resistance is defined as "a process of avoiding or diminishing the self-disclosing communication requested by the interviewer because of its capacity to make the interviewee uncomfortable or anxious" (Pope, 1979, p. 74). It is an active process that has the potential to become a fundamental obstacle to positive outcomes. 

Resistance impedes client motivation and undermines the change process (Nystul, 2001). To us, it often translates into "the client refuses to stay on her meds. She does not keep a job. She fails to keep up with the basic needs of her children, or is moody and confrontational." The purpose of this training is to reframe the concept of resistance as a critical incident in the healing process with the potential to positively affect outcomes.

Like the earlier sessions, this quarterly training will be a (approximately) three-hour session with a workbook, handouts, charts, and screening ideas. Additionally, this interactive session will include a short lecture session, a video, group work, practice activities, and time to process how we interact with these victims and the dance we do with them. Because these trainings have been certified by the Indiana Professionals Bureau, we will once again be handing out three CEU's.