Pre-Conference Workshops

Social Media's Influence on Self-Esteem and Self-Regulation

Sara Martino

Social Media has a significant impact on our daily lives.  This has been studied recently in terms of mood and symptoms of depression related to Facebook.  However, no research has looked at various social media outlets.  There is no research that looks at specific behaviors and attitudes, such as self-harm behaviors.  This course will address the very current issue of social media and some of the harmful effects, specifically as they relate to self-harm behaviors, including self-mutilation and eating disorders.  There will be several aspects of social media and self-harm covered, such as: an introduction to self-harm behaviors, an introduction to current trends in eating disorders, discussion of social media and its influence on self-harm, discussion of social media's influence on self-regulating behaviors, and an introduction to ways to increase awareness of social media impact on client and reducing its usage.  This workshop will be interactive and will provide hands-on tools to help clients cope with social media and focus on reducing social media usage.  It will also provide some creative approaches to interpreting social media information.

CE credits will be offered pending APA approval. 

Gender Affirmative Care: Assessment, Intervention, and Advocacy for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People

Coleen Williams
Kerry McGregor

Transgender and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC) people have been at the front-and-center of the sociopolitical landscape in recent years, and since the presidential election of 2016 have increasingly been targets of systematic discrimination. In addition to transphobic attacks on TGNC people's rights at state and federal levels, there has been a noticeable increase in media attention on the lives and experiences of TGNC people. With each of these forces at play, it is no surprise that mental health providers across the country have expressed a significant need for training that focuses on providing gender-affirmative and culturally competent care for TGNC people of all ages. 

The Gender Affirmative Care workshop will be co-facilitated by two clinical psychologists; one who identifies as non-binary and the other as cisgender. The workshop will train clinicians on how to provide care for TGNC people across the lifespan with an emphasis on assessment, intervention, and advocacy. Attendees will be introduced to a myriad of assessment tools for gender dysphoria, as this is a critical component to TGNC people gaining access to medically necessary treatment options, such as hormones and surgical intervention; interactive opportunities to practice with the measures and de-identified, example reports will be used to enhance learning. Attendees will also discuss integrating evidenced-based practices with gender-affirming care so that they are better able to provide therapy to TGNC people. Lastly, the workshop will review and enhance how clinicians are advocates and allies to TGNC people at all levels: individual, community, state, and federal. Attendees will learn about advocacy with parents/families, schools, health insurance, and government entities as crucial components to gender-affirmative care. Intersectionality and how TGNC people's intersecting identities impact their lived experiences as well as those of their clinicians will be a vital theme that runs throughout the workshop.

CE credits will be offered pending APA approval. 

Older Women's Caucus (OWC) Pre-conference Workshop

Leonore Tiefer

During the 2017 OWC pre-conference training session in Milwaukee, we pledged to continue this tradition annually. It is very worthwhile to have an extended opportunity for older members to share with each other. In 2018 we will focus especially on the history of AWP and planning for AWP's 50th anniversary in 2019. Perspectives on history are offered not only by older members who have lived through it, so we want to think especially about intergenerational perspectives on AWP's history. We also want to recruit volunteers to design a survey and reach out to members of AWP who have retired and stopped attending conferences.