AEDP Essential Skills, aimed at practitioners, will provide practical skills for the application of AEDP. Our aim is to teach, in both left-brained and right-brained ways, skill sets, concrete and specific. Different skill sets will be introduced, explained, illustrated and practiced each week, so that participants will emerge with both an understanding and a felt sense of how to practice AEDP. The basic skill sets necessary to practice AEDP will be introduced each week, with theoretical foundations and with videotapes and group experiential exercises in the afternoon.

In AEDP, we pride ourselves in how thoroughly and deeply we seek to both (i) undo professional aloneness and (ii) engage in rigorous clinical teaching with skilled accompaniment. We are proud to say that our ES courses feature a high number of highly skilled assistants.

What we consider AEDP’s “essential skills” will be didactically demonstrated and experientially explored so that participants develop both a felt sense and a cognitive understanding of them. A key component of the experiential practices is the opportunity to “try on” sets of interventions as a therapist and to receive them as a client. We have found that learning new skills can give rise to experiences of safety, attachment security, transformation, increased therapeutic courage, and related phenomena; precisely the kinds of experiences AEDP facilitates for its clients. Each day course faculty lead small groups in practicing essential AEDP skills. The concentrated time that participants spend together immersed in learning inevitably leads to the development of a culture of trust and generosity that allows for risk-taking and a supportive environment that is uniquely suited.