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2-Day Existential & Meaning-Centered Therapies Workshop

$459.99 Standard
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Learn a non-pathologizing, integrative model for transforming life crises and struggles into turning points for growth and purpose.

 

Quarter-life, mid-life, and later-life crises aren’t signs of failure – they’re wake-up calls for meaning.

When your clients confront turning points – the 25-year-old anxious about direction, the 50-year-old facing divorce or burnout, the retiree negotiating time’s finitude – they’re not symptomatic …

They’re coming to you wrestling with the fundamental questions of existence. Who am I? What matters? What now?

Your crucial role as a therapist is to help these clients find their path.

In this two-day workshop, Dr. Pavel Somov, licensed psychologist, author and existential therapist, presents his Existential-Developmental approach – a non-pathologizing, clinically integrative model for transforming life crises into opportunities for growth, authenticity, and purpose.

Through clinical vignettes, guided reflection, and experiential practice, you’ll learn how to:

  • Reframe life crises as developmental and existential opportunities -  not disorders
  • Distinguish existential distress from DSM™-defined anxiety and depression
  • Apply meaning-centered and mindfulness-based interventions to restore purpose
  • Help clients articulate personal philosophies of self, life, love, and death
  • Foster resilience and agency through value-driven action

… and so much more. Walk away from this training with a new framework for how you support your clients through life’s transitions and biggest struggles.

Register now!

Here's What You'll Learn


Foundations: Orienting to the Existential-Clinical Stance

  • Existential Therapy vs. Existential Therapeutic Attitude
  • The Integrative Landscape: Compatibility Across Humanistic and Meaning-Centered Models
  • When to Intervene Existentially: Recognizing “Problems” vs. “More”
  • Case Discussion: Reframing Crisis as Opportunity
  • Clinical Literacy: Angst, Melancholy, and Adjustment Disorder, NOS
  • The Manualization Debate: Structure vs. Spontaneity in Existential Work

The Four Awakenings: Mapping Existential Crises Across the Lifespan

  • What Constitutes an Existential Crisis?
  • The Four Awakenings: Early Life, Quarter Life, Mid-Life, Late-Life
  • The 3 Most Common Existential Diagnoses
  • Mapping Existential Predicaments Across Developmental Stages
  • Temporal Awareness: “The Existential Clock” and Mortality as Motivator
  • From Psychosocial to Existential Identity Formation

Foundations of Theory and Model Integration

  • From Boethius to Yalom: A Brief History of Existential Thought
  • Key Lineages:
    • Logotherapy (Frankl)
    • Existential-Humanistic & Integrative Therapy (Yalom)
    • Person-Centered Therapy (Rogers)
    • Phenomenological Therapy (Merleau-Ponty)
    • Narrative & Meaning-Centered Therapies (White, Dezelic)
    • Psychosynthesis (Assagioli)
    • Mindfulness-Based Approaches as Existential Anchoring
    • Existential-Developmental Therapy (Somov)
  • Erickson Revisited: Psychosocial vs. Existential Identity
  • Living in Future Shock: Revisiting Toffler in the Therapy Room
  • Priorities vs. Values; Choices vs. Dilemmas
  • Meaning-Making: The Story We Tell and The Way We Live It

Transforming Crises Through Existential and Meaning-Centered Therapies

  • Clinical Decision Tree: Which Modality When?
    • Individual, Group, and Solitude Work
  • Upstream vs. Downstream Existential Work: Preventive and Reparative Models
  • Neuroplasticity and Existential Change: Re-Wiring Through Reflection
  • Facilitating Clients’ Personal Philosophies of Self, Life, and Death
  • “Existential Rehab”: Helping Clients Detox from Inessentials

Early Life Crisis: The Birth of the “I” (Ages 0-10)

  • The Process of Coming Into Oneself (Jungian Lens)
  • First Flashes of Self-Awareness (Kohnstamm)
  • “I-am-I”: Subject-as-Object and the Emergence of Self-Consciousness
  • Tantrums as Proto-Existential Assertion
  • Understanding others:  Theory of Mind and the Early Philosophy of Otherness
  • Clinical Applications: Supporting Early Identity and Empathy Formation

Quarter-Life Crisis: Emerging Adulthood (20s-30s)

  • Three Core Markers: Disorientation, Ambivalence, Over-Identification with Potential
  • Key Clinical Issues:
    • Freedom and the Fear of Freedom
    • Personhood vs. Performance
    • Cultural Programing vs. Self-Authorship
    • Existential Decision-Making at Relational and Professional Crossroads
  • Interventions:
    • Choice Awareness and Uncertainty Tolerance Training
    • Authenticity vs. Conformity: “Keeping Up with the Jones”
      • Work Disapproval Inoculation and Resilience-Building
    • Self-Esteem, Self-Compassion, and Self-Acceptance Compared
    • Leveraging Self-Acceptance for Behavioral Change

Mid-Life Crisis: Consciousness as Turning Point (40s-50s)

  • Three Core Markers: Restlessness, Mortality Awareness, Meaning Fatigue
  • Clinical Themes:
    • Existential Insomnia and Death Anxiety
    • Parening Amid Crisis: The “To Love or To Teach” Dilemma
    • Metacognition and Existential Identity: “The Riverbank” Approach
    • Enoughness as a Therapeutic Intervention
    • Existential Decluttering and the Art of Letting Go
    • From Doing to Being: Rediscovering Contentment
  • Tools and Techniques:
    • Mindfulness for Existential Anxiety
    • Narrative Re-authoring for Mid-Career Realignment
    • Acceptance-Based “Existential Rehab” for Reality as It Is

Late-Life Crisis: Aging, Legacy, and Gerotranscendence (60s and Beyond)

  • Three Core Markers: Loss, Reflection, and Transcendence
  • Clinical Focus Areas:
    • Denial of Death, Death Anxiety, and Personal Philosophy of Mortality
    • Erik & Joan Erickson’s 8th and 9th Stages: Integrity, Despair, Transcendence
    • Empty-Nest, Retirement, and End-of-Life Transitions
    • Cynicism  vs. Existential Openness: Working with the Disenchanted
    • Loneliness – Solitude – Meaning Hermitage
    • Life Review and Reminiscence as Intervention
    • Supporting Gerotranscendence: Identify Beyond the Self
    • Suicidality vs. Self-Determination and “The Art of Dying”
    • Post-Morten Dilemmas: Legacy, Ritual, and Meaning Continuation

Eastern Winds: Existential Insights from Buddhist Psychology and Non-Dual Traditions

  • The Sacred Mirror: Integrating Non-Dual Philosophy into Psychotherapy
  • Working with the Inevitability of Suffering (Buddhist Psychology)
  • Impermanence as Therapeutic Reality Testing
  • “The Cup Is Already Broken”: Acceptance Practices for Clients Facing Loss
  • Graceful Exits: End-of-Life Acceptance and Conscious Dying
  • The Sannyasi Stage: Renunciation, Simplicity, and Existential Resolution

Ethics, Research & Limitations

  • Ethical Considerations in Meaning-Centered Work
  • Research, Limitations, and Future Directions
  • Q&A

Everything You're Getting


  • Two Full Days of live video content
  • Up to 12.5 CE credits
  • Certificate of completion

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2-Day Existential & Meaning-Centered Therapies Workshop
Live Webinar
$459.99

Meet Your Experts


Pavel Somov, PhD

Toggle speaker biography

Pavel Somov, PhD, co-owner of Existential-Dynamic Associates, is a licensed psychologist in private practice with over 25 years of clinical experience working with self-criticism, crises of meaning, shame, guilt, perfectionism, affair recovery, eating disorders and anger management. Dr. Somov is on the advisory board for The Mindfulness Project (London, UK) and has conducted a variety of trainings for mental health professionals both domestically and internationally on applying mindfulness-based interventions to a variety of psychological issues. His work has been discussed in a number of radio interviews and in print publications including Martha Stewart’s Body + Soul Magazine and Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine. Dr. Somov is the author of Anger Management Jumpstart: A Mindfulness Path Away from Anger to Equanimity (I-Catching Books, 2024) as well as a number of self-help books on perfectionism, overeating, and addiction. His books have been translated into Dutch, Vietnamese, Estonian, Portuguese, and Russian.

Dr. Somov has also published in peer-reviewed journals on the topics of group-based logotherapy, hospice research, group-based psychodrama, and on the interplay of time perception and pain intensity. Dr. Somov grew up in Moscow, Russia and after the service in the Soviet military immigrated to the US in the early 1990s. He lives with his wife and his daughter in Pittsburgh, PA and is passionate about downhill skiing, chess, water polo, CrossFit and cold exposure.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Pavel Somov maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with Vista Behavioral Health Associates. He receives royalties as a published author. Pavel Somov receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Pavel Somov is a member of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and the Greater Pittsburgh Psychological Association. He serves on the advisory board for the Mindfulness Project.

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Access Period for Live Webcast

You will have access for 90 days after the program for review. For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. Please note that this requirement may vary by credit type. Please see detailed credit information for specific requirements for each credit type.

Webcast Schedule

Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.

Questions?

Visit our FAQ page at www.pesi.com/faq or contact us at www.pesi.com/info

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Media Type:
Live Webinar
Also Available:
Digital Seminar
Product Code:
LWC150707
Brochure Code:
PWZ95950
Duration:
Two Full Days

ADA Needs


We would be happy to accommodate your ADA needs; please call our Customer Service Department for more information at 1-800-844-8260.

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