Sensory Awareness with Mindfulness and Hypnosis in Gay Men (2 CE Hours) Presenter: Rick Miller, LICSW

Description: Many gay men feel alienated from their families of origin, society, and themselves, sometimes in subtle ways that are unrecognizable.  Mindfulness offers a powerful approach to enhancing and increasing sensory awareness, creating a powerful resource for restoring connections within.  Such connections provide a bridge between the self and body, something that is often disowned by gay men. This workshop defines and illustrates successful mindfulness interventions to enhance the treatment of gay men. These beneficial therapeutic processes indirectly address unresolved issues that may not even be in these patients’ awareness.  Addressing this provides integrative healing to clients, offering a profound sense of happiness in new ways.

Effective scripts targeting self-esteem issues related to development, religion, HIV and the urban gay male stereotype will be provided.

Learning objectives:

• define why and how mindfulness is a preferred treatment modality for gay men.
• utilize at least three successful mindfulness scripts with gay men.
• demonstrate how to best interact with gay clients to enhance the outcomes of sensory work.
• demonstrate clinical abilities in working with gay men.

Speaker Bio:

Rick Miller, psychotherapist and author (www.rickmiller.biz) has served on  the faculty for The International Society of Hypnosis, The Milton Erickson Foundation, The Brief Therapy Conference, The Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, The American Group Psychotherapy Association, The Couples Conference and Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Unwrapped: Integrative Therapy With Gay Men… the Gift of Presence (Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, 2014) and Mindfulness Tools for Gay Men In Therapy. (PESI, 2016). His Psychology Today blog is Unwrapped: Mind Body Wisdom and the Modern Gay Man, and his docuseries is GaySonsandMothers.Com