Responding to Anger, Hopelessness and Joy
5-hour Training WITH DR. ADELE LAFRANCE:
Responding to Anger, Hopelessness, and Joy: Advanced Emotion-Focused Communication Skills (aka Emotion Coaching)
December 5th 2025: 9:30 - 2:30 Mountain (11:30 - 4:30 Eastern)
Online via Zoom, CE credits / certificate of completion provided
This dynamic, evidence-based workshop delves into one of Emotion-Focused Family Therapy’s (EFFT) most transformative tools: emotion-focused communication and support, often referred to as emotion coaching. Designed for clinicians, therapists, and caregivers alike, this workshop goes beyond simple theory by providing hands-on strategies and practical scripts to enhance participants’ fluency and confidence in responding to anger, hopelessness and joy. The workshop will guide attendees through the theoretical frameworks essential for understanding these emotional states.
Why a focus on these emotional states?
So many people struggle to respond to these states in a way that fosters connection and health. For example, we have been conditioned to attempt to silence or diminish another person's anger, hoping to restore calm or avoid discomfort. Similarly, hopelessness often triggers anxiety, prompting attempts to minimize or quickly replace it with forced optimism. Even joy, while universally desired, can be stifled by learned “joy-blocks”- internalized beliefs or social cues that discourage its full expression – and often fueled by fear, shame/embarrassment or the anticipation of loss.
Practical Applications
The skills and tools taught in this workshop can be readily integrated into individual therapy settings, as well as adapted for use with couples and parents/caregivers, empowering them to foster deeper, more trusting relationships with their loved ones.
By the end of the workshop, attendees will leave equipped with a theoretical foundation and exposed to a set of actionable scripts to transform how they, and those they support, respond to anger, hopelessness, and joy.
This training is geared towards counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, and other mental health and helping professionals, though others are welcome to attend. Participation can be active or passive, in line with participant comfort.
Prior exposure to the 2-step model of Validation and Support (aka emotion coaching / emotion-focused communication and support) is requested, including via reviewing the following:
1) This caregiver webinar with a review of emotion coaching and some caregiver blocks.
2) This handout with opportunities to practice scripting emotion coaching statements.
Given the interactive nature of the content, the workshop will not be recorded.
$160 USD
(discount rates available for those with financial insecurity using code: DISCOUNT10 or DISCOUNT15; discounts also available for groups of 4 or more)