Canadian Domestic Violence Conference

This 2-day workshop will prepare participants to offer the treatment described in the 2011 book, Couples Treatment for Domestic Violence: Finding Safe Solutions, written by the presenter and published by the American Psychological Association. The treatment is based on a solution-focused model and targets couples who choose to stay together after experiencing situational Intimate Partner Violence The treatment program is offered to individual couples and to couples participating in multi-couple groups. The workshop will include suggestions for screening appropriate clients and a clear description of the treatment model. Participants will have opportunities to participate in role plays and to practice the therapeutic approaches discussed in the workshop. In addition, group members will be encouraged to share their own success stories and the challenges they experience working with these couples.Finally, the presenter will show tapes from her work.

Sandra M. Stith, Ph.D., is a licensed marriage and family therapist and is a Professor and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Kansas State University. Her primary research interest is in understanding and treating intimate partner violence (IPV). She has edited four books and over 80 articles and book chapters on the topic. In 1997 she and her colleagues received funding from NIMH in the U.S. to develop and test a couple’s treatment program for IPV. Since that time, they have continued to develop their treatment program and have provided training on the model throughout North and South America and Europe. In 2011, the American Psychological Association published their most recent book Couples Treatment for Domestic Violence: Finding Safe Solutions. Dr. Stith also works with the USAF Family Advocacy Program managing and conducting a variety of family violence-related research projects, including a project to develop and test a risk assessment measure for IPV. In 2004 Dr. Stith received the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Outstanding Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy Award and in 2007 she received the American Family Therapy Association’s Distinguished Contribution to Family Systems Research Award.

Creating Safety, Undoing Aloneness and Promoting Healing with Men Who Have Used Violence in Intimate Relationships
Dale Trimble

If our first goal in working with those who’ve used violence is to stop violence and promote responsibility, we must first examine how our own state of mind affects our work. Research has consistently shown that the therapeutic alliance is the most powerful change factor that we can influence in therapy. Since, as therapists, we are one half of the alliance, in this workshop we will first make space to know, welcome and understand our own feelings and attitudes toward the men we see. Then I will demonstrate how I seek to create safety and address feelings of shame and aloneness from the first moments of therapy. From that foundation, taking responsibility for violence and feeling empathy for the victim can be uncovered and grow. I will draw extensively from the theory and practice of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Specific skills that will be demonstrated include the use of attunement and moment-to-moment tracking, the dyadic regulation of affect, undoing toxic shame and putting healthy shame to good work, using confrontation to promote healing and change, repair of ruptures in the therapy relationship and self-disclosure. Videos of client sessions will be shown and we will practice skills in small groups. For those who register, a brief reading list will be provided in advance of the workshop.

Dale Trimble, MA, RCC has provided therapy to men who have used violence in intimate relationships since 1977. In 1981 Dale co-founded the first court ordered treatment program for men who assault their partners in BC. He was a founding Board Member of the B.C. Association of Counsellors of Abusive Men. In 2000 he received a distinguished service award from the association and in 2007 he received The Alayne Hamilton Award for distinguished service in the field of ending men’s violence. He was the lead author of the Canadian syllabus for CP 602 – The Psychology of Trauma and Interpersonal Violence for City University of Seattle, Vancouver, BC campus. In 1995 he wrote and produced the one-hour television program, Themes of Defense: Understanding Men Who Assault Their Partners. Dale wrote Counselling Programs for Men Who are Violent in Relationships: Questions and Answers for Practitioners in the Health, Social Service and Criminal Justice Systems, Health Canada, 2000. In 2003-04 Dale was the recipient of the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, President’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Profession. Dale has a private practice in Vancouver, BC. He has completed extensive training in of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), a model he applies to his work that is dedicated to ending violence in relationships.

Small Acts of Living: Violence, Resistance and the Power in Language
Allan Wade, Ph.D.

Violence, broadly defined, is the most urgent problem of our times. The challenge for human services and criminal justice workers is to respond justly and effectively in all cases, from sexualized assault and domestic violence to workplace harassment and child abuse. In this workshop, Allan will present a response-based approach to direct intervention, research, and critical analysis. Topics will include the nature of violence and resistance, social responses, interviewing victims and offenders, working with children who experience violence, and the connection between violence and language.
The workshop will interest anyone involved in responding to domestic violence. Allan will describe current applications of response-based practice in individual and family therapy, child protection, family law, research, transition houses, and other settings.

Participants will review recorded interviews, swap lies and half-truths, subtly text message, practice interviewing, nap, and examine language use in diverse forms of talk and text, such as courts, professional texts, psychological reports, treatment manuals, and news media.

Allan Wade, Ph.D., lives on Vancouver Island, Canada, where he works as a family therapist, researcher and educator. Allan is best known for developing a response-based approach to therapy with people who have experienced and committed violence, and their families, with colleagues Linda Coates and Nick Todd. Allan works from a social justice and contextual/interactional perspective with the full range of human services and criminal justice professionals who respond to cases of violence. He also works extensively with Indigenous people in Canada and is involved in several initiatives internationally to improve the quality of local and state responses to all forms of violence.

Co-sponsored by
Bridges and the
Hincks-Dellcrest Centre
Gail Appel Institute