Your ability to see what is happening ‘in the moment’ is crucial to the timing of interventions when you work with emotions. Improve your observation and assessment skills by using ATOS, a tool originally designed for research. Learn how to identify true emotions and work more effectively with them by assessing their intensity and function. Learn how to decipher adaptive emotion from maladaptive defenses, as well as the difference between emotional experiencing and expression.

Overall Learning Objectives:

Learn how to use a tool originally designed for research and adapt it for use in your day-to-day practice – The Achievement of Therapeutic Objectives Rating Scale (ATOS). ATOS will teach you a better way of assessing what emotions your client is experiencing and their intensity. Knowing how to do this with more precision and accuracy is helpful when you need to identify your client’s needs and what to focus on at various points throughout the course of treatment. At this seminar, you will view video recordings of psychotherapy sessions and use ATOS to identify what emotions you observe and their intensity. You will gain a very useful tool that will help you view your own work from an objective stance and make it easier to evaluate the effectiveness of your therapeutic interventions. The main purpose of this seminar is to lay the foundations for a more focused way of working with your patients.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn David Malan’s Triangle of Conflict and Triangle of Person and how to properly fill it out and use ATOS
• Learn how to see the link between an adaptive affect and healthy behaviour.