Emotion Focused Skills Training for Parents

The first two days of this 4-day training is conducted as a standard parenting workshop, where we encourage participants to work on their relationship with their own children. You don’t have to be a parent to attend this training. If you don't have children, you work with other important close relationships, such as a partner, sibling, close friend or colleague. The first part of the training is conducted as a standard parenting course, for the participants to gain experience of what it is like to work with their own close relationships, as we require of parents when we as therapist and clinicians do workshops and supervise in this method. In the first two days the participants learn about competitive motivation and feeling traps, what emotions are and how they work, as well as the three skills: validation, boundaries and apology.

On the last two days of the training participants learn technique called chair-work. In this intervention the parent has a conversation with their imaginary child in an empty chair or a part of themselves. This fuels the emotion, rises the level of experience and gives words and meaning to difficult feelings in challenging situations. We five different chair works. Three where the parent practices different skills: validation, boundaries and apology. Two different self-self-processes: Feeling traps in parents and in the clinicians.

Participants practice being both the caregiver and the supervisor in order to learn how to work with emotions in families, and to learn the chair work interventions. The participants also work with their own therapist material. I’s painful to go into our own difficult emotions, especially about our parenting and our children. We feel guilt, we’re worried sick, or we just don’t know what to do – sometimes. All the same and actually because of it, this is essential in learning EFST. We can’t practice working with emotions without emotions present in the room. The exercises are the uniqueness of EFST education. And the good thing is, if you have children og loved ones who struggle with mental health issues or is going through a difficult time – taking this training will have a fair chance of helping them and helping you. The research on EFST suggest not only do children s symptoms of mental health difficulties reduce - it also happens in the parent! The trainer will facilitate an empathetic and caring group environment.

Voor wie is deze training?

The training is for therapists and parent supervisors - anyone who supervises parents or treat mental health difficulties in children, adolescents or adults.

The method was originally developed from work with eating disorders in any age group, and has developed in to a method for helping parents support their children’s recovery from general mental health issues.