Fall 2004 – Spring 2005

Welcome to the inaugural year of the School of Social Work’s Clinical Lecture Series, where area practitioners, students, and faculty learn together from esteemed and innovative clinicians. The CLS will be offering monthly lectures to enhance the clinical curriculum for students and offer continuing education for graduates and practitioners. It also aims to foster and strengthen relationships among clinically-oriented students and the wider clinical community. Selection of topics and speakers come from participant feedback.

The monthly events take place in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Auditorium of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill located at 325 Pittsboro Street. We are also kicking off this series with a special workshop offered by esteemed practitioner and author, Irvin Yalom, M.D. at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill, NC.

Schedule of Events

1. Monday, January 24, How We Dare to Do Groups, presented by David Hawkins, MD

David Hawkins is a psychiatrist in Chapel Hill with the Group for Psychotherapy and a Consulting Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at both Duke University Medical Center and UNC-CH. Dr. Hawkins is a nationally renowned trainer in group psychodynamic therapy and offers post-graduate training in Chapel Hill and Atlanta. He is a past president of the American Academy of Psychotherapists and the American Group Psychotherapy Association.Drawing from his vast experience in groups, Dr. Hawkins will help equip participants with a toolbox of skills for contending with the challenges that inevitably arise in group work including uncomfortable topics, combative participants, and our own anxieties.

2. Monday, February 21, Act on It! Psychodrama Techniques to Enhance PsychotherapyWe Dare to Do Groups, presented by Martica Bacallao, MSW and Paul Smokowski, PhD

Psychodrama is a therapeutic approach that involves improvisational action based on creativity and spontaneity. Drawing on their experience as certified psychodramatists and instructors of psychodrama techniques, Ms. Bacallao and Dr. Smokowski will present powerful techniques for working with clients in the here-and-now to explore past, present, and future life events, enact problems and their possible solutions, and safely practice new roles. These techniques can be used to augment therapeutic work with individuals, couples, families, or in group work.

Paul Smokowski, an assistant professor of social work at UNC-CH, teaches clinical practice with families and psychodrama in clinical practice. Martica Bacallao, a doctoral candidate at UNC-CH, a lecturer at UNC-Greensboro, and the President of the Multiple Family Group Therapy Association, conducts workshops on sociodrama. Dr. Smokowski and Ms. Bacallao are currently working together on a project that promotes biculturalism to prevent youth violence.

3. Monday, March 21, Surviving Trauma: Effective Treatments for Trauma Survivors, Harold Kudler, M.D.

The effect of trauma is widely recognized as qualitatively different from stress and acknowledged as often resulting in lasting psychological and physiological changes. Life after September 11th makes effective training in this area all the more urgent since media reports of heightened risk for terrorism feed anxiety and can trigger symptoms in trauma survivors. Among combat veterans, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant health problem and often complicated by major depression, substance abuse, job loss, family dissolution, homelessness, violence, or incarceration. Given that many new combat veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq will return home to North Carolina, it is important to consider what services will be of most help to them and their families. PTSD is also frequently experienced by survivors of sexual violence—a group significantly overrepresented in clinical populations. Drawing from his extensive research and clinical work with survivors of trauma, Dr. Kudler will provide expert advice on working with trauma survivors and offer specific strategies to promote readjustment and healing.

Harold Kudler is a psychiatrist at Duke University Medical Center and the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center and also coordinates mental health services for a three state region of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He co-chairs the VA Under Secretary for Health’s Special Committee on PTSD that reports directly to Congress. He is an advanced candidate in adult and child psychoanalysis, co-founder of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center of North Carolina, and chairs the North Carolina Psychoanalytic Foundation. Dr. Kudler has presented on psychological trauma at many national and international meetings and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. His expertise derives from clinical work with combat veterans, ex-prisoners of war, and survivors of other traumatic events.

 The Carroll Butts Heins Endowed Lecture

Irvin Yalom, M.D.
on
The Art of Psychotherapy: Lessons Gleaned from My Career as an Individual and Group Therapist

Saturday, April 9, 10-12pm, at Friday Center, Chapel Hill

Irvin Yalom, M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford University, is an acclaimed psychotherapist and author. His book, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy is the seminal text for training therapists. He has also written Existential Psychotherapy,  Inpatient Group Psychotherapy and The Gift of Therapy (a pithy guidebook for successful therapy). His other works include therapy tales, Love’s Executioner, and the Meaning of Life, as well as teaching novels: When Nietzsche Wept and Lying on the Couch. His most recent novel, The Schopenhauer Cure is a captivating account of group psychotherapy.

Additional co-sponsors for this event:

The North Carolina Psychoanalytic Foundation
Carolinas Group Psychotherapy Society
National Association of Social Work-North Carolina Chapter
The Jordan Institute for Families