AMHA-OR - First Friday Lunch
These events offer an opportunity for mental health professionals to learn theories and strategies which inform the practices of professional colleagues as well as to make their own practices more visible.
Professionals who attend have the opportunity to reconnect with friends, develop new alliances with colleagues, and expand their mental health community.
CE and Conversation
Lucky Lab Brew Pub
915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland OR 97214
Free parking on site & street parking near by.
30 minutes of networking then
CE presentation.
Food and drink available for purchase.
Charge is $10 (for room & CE costs)
Coming a little early can be useful .. you can place a food order, the staff will bring your lunch into the meeting room.
We're going to new lengths to please you...Check times for each event.
Friday, June 7, 2013, 12:15 pm – 2:30 pm 1 1/2 hr CE
The Differentiation Phases Between Stages of Identity Development
Presenter: Barney McDowell, LCSW
Many theorists employ the concept of 'differentiation' - e.g., Mahler for child development, Bowen for emergence from "undifferentiated family ego mass", and Kegan for stages of "meaning making".
Many researchers place differentiation in the center of every three-phased leap from one stage to the next. Synthesizing dozens of developmental researchers, Wilber named those phases 'fusion', 'differentiation', and 'integration'. Transitioning to each new stage of identity, phase shifts entail embeddedness in (fusion) and then progressive differentiation from self-representation (as mirrored and birthed by mother, peers, partners, and culture) before reorganizing (integration) at the next level of more empowered functioning. In effect, we periodically download an updated identity, a psychological GPS, needed to navigate a more complex world.
Rather than stage specific content, this workshop explores 'identity' and 'differentiation' through (1) a cross section of theories and (2) psychotherapeutic interventions. At the core of dramatic tension in literature and song lyrics, 'differentiation' is grounded in natural sciences: E.g., "non-equilibrium thermodynamics" makes explicit an easily understood model of how any entity forms and internalizes energy that, in turn, triggers turbulence and differentiation until reorganization occurs at a higher stage of complexity. As anticipated by Piaget and Rogers, this model elucidates stage development and other psychological phenomena; others find the very essence of 'archetype' in this model.
In light of recent therapeutic interest in meditation, we'll tour the conundrum several major developmental theorists (e.g., Maslow) faced when trying to map higher stages of identity than they had achieved. Finally, we'll sketch the possibility of differentiation into the transpersonal.
Barney McDowell is a social worker in private practice. He works with individuals and couples.
These programs are co-sponsored by AMHA-OR and Mentor Research Institute. Mentor Research Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to provide continuing education for psychologists. Mentor Research Institute maintains responsibility for the program and its content.
© 1998-2013 American Mental Health Alliance.
