PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Training for Clinicians in
Emotion-Focused Skills Training for Parents (EFST-P):
With A Focus on Parents of a Loved One with Disordered Eating
Early Bird Fee: $749 USD
(until Feb 28, 2025)
Regular Fee: $999 USD
Online via Zoom between May 9th – 30th, 2025.
4 full day sessions, every Friday, over 4 weeks.
LEARN EMOTION FOCUSED SKILLS TO HELP PARENTS OF A LOVED ONE WITH DISORDERED EATING
Disordered eating can result in a complex course of seemingly insurmountable challenges not only for individual sufferers but also for the families and professionals involved. The severity of medical and emotional complications has led to an attitude toward these individuals that they are unmotivated and difficult to treat, and to a reality of alarmingly high rates of relapse, chronicity, and mortality. This has resulted in stigma and fear in the face of disordered eating, and hopelessness regarding the possibility of full recovery.
In Emotion-Focused Skills Training for Parents (EFST-P) we invite you to consider an alternative formulation. We understand disordered eating in light of the individual’s need to cope with painful emotional experience. As such, we see the individual as having agency and therefore needing to be at the helm of their own journey of recovery and wellness. We enlist parents as key figures of support and guidance in that journey. And we train professionals in the emotion focused approach to disordered eating and in EFST-P, so that they can guide and coach parents to adopt that crucial role with competence and confidence.
EFST-P for disordered eating addresses the unique challenges faced by these parents and recognizes that parental self-efficacy often plays a more significant role in treatment outcomes than the individual’s own self-efficacy. Interventions focus on empowering parents with the necessary tools to support their loved one’s recovery, including:
- Developing effective empathy for their loved one’s struggles (and for their own struggles as parents!)
- Addressing the “competing motivations” that create obstacles to recovery, in their loved one and in themselves as parents as they each face their own fears
- Making amends for past injuries and losses
- Restoring the faith they need in themselves to establish and maintain the “boundaries without judgment” that are essential for recovery
Note: that the approach is for parents of a loved one of any age – little, adolescent, or adult. A background in working with families or children is not required. This training places a strong emphasis on experiential learning.
Who Should Enroll
- Therapists & Mental Health Professionals seeking specialized skills in working with disordered eating.
- Social Service & Healthcare Professionals wishing to expand their capacity to support individuals with disordered eating by enlisting the healing power of parents.
- Educators & Professional Caregivers: looking to enhance emotional support in their roles.
This program provides a thorough understanding of the EFST framework and equips professionals with the skills to utilize the model with Parents of a loved one with disordered eating.
When Is The Next Training
May 2025 4 Sessions every Friday for 4 weeks between 10 AM to 5 PM ET
- Session 1: May 9, 2025
- Session 2: May 16, 2025
- Session 3: May 23, 2025
- Session 4: May 30, 2025
Who Will Deliver The Training
Program Delivery
- Online via Zoom
Program Fee
- Early Bird Fee: $749 USD - until Feb 28, 2025 (inclusive of applicable taxes)
- Regular Fee: $999 USD (inclusive of applicable taxes)
What Is Included
- Certificate: Upon successful participation and completion of all four sessions of the training, participants will receive a Certificate of Completion from the Emotion Training Institute (ETI).
- Online Course / Reference: Have access to our EFST-P Online Course for 365 days, to help with reference and future practice.
- Community Support: Lifetime access to our community of EFST professionals. Including options for support and guidance from our trainers through mentorship events.
Research
Have a look at some of the research behind EFST-P and Eating Disorders.
- Emotion-Focused Therapy in a Case of Anorexia Nervosa
Joanne Dolhanty and Leslie S. Greenberg, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2009 - Emotion-focused Therapy for Eating Disorders
Joanne Dolhanty, National Eating Disorder Information Centre Bulletin, 2006 - Emotion-Focused Therapy in the Treatment of Eating Disorders
Joanne Dolhanty, European Psychotherapy, 2007
REGISTER NOW
Develop an understanding of Emotion Focused Skills Training and apply the tools to your work with with disordered eating.
Early Bird Price: $749 USD (until Feb 28,2025)
Reg Price: $999 USD
What is Emotion Focused Skills Training for Parents?
Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST) for Parents is an innovative, ultra-simple and quickly effective parent support program.
EFST supports parents by empowering them as active, primary agents in guiding loved ones (of any age, little, adolescent or adult,) through the behavioural, emotional and relational challenges of everyday living and relating, as well as through the challenges their loved ones face when struggling with a mental health issue, a physical health issue, or any other special challenge. This is an emotion-processing, skills-based approach that gives parents simple, practical tools that they can implement immediately in their family.
These skills include how to navigate the confusing world of their child’s feelings, how to work with challenges in their child’s motivation, and how to restore their ability to set appropriate boundaries while also restoring positive, productive relationships with their children of any age.
REGISTER NOW
Develop an understanding of Emotion Focused Skills Training and apply the tools to your work with with disordered eating.
Early Bird Price: $749 USD (until Feb 28,2025)
Reg Price: $999 USD
ABOUT YOUR TRAINER
Dr. Michelle Emmerling
Dr. Michelle Emmerling is a Registered Psychologist at Emmerling Psychology and co-founder of the Alberta Wellness Center for Eating Disorders. She has worked alongside and collaborated with Dr Dolhanty for almost 20 years. As such she has been involved almost from the outset in the work of first, bringing the emotion focused approach to eating disorders, and second, developing a central role for parents in their loved one’s recovery from their eating disorder.
Michelle is an expert trainer in Emotion Focused Skills Training. She has witnessed, on too many occasions to count, the power of training parents to support and guide their loved one’s recovery from a disorder that continues to thwart much of the professional and clinical world. The success of parents in facilitating and supporting recovery has instilled in Michelle a passion for passing this approach on to others and inspiring those she mentors to master the techniques and become experts in delivering the model. She has delivered EFST trainings and provided supervision in the approach nationally and internationally.
Michelle’s specialities lie in Emotion Focused Skills Training and Emotion-Focused Therapy, and in the treatment of eating disorders in individuals, families, and couples. She brings to her training role additional expertise in anxiety, depression, and perfectionism, and in EMDR, Mindfulness, DBT, CBT, and Somatic Experiencing and Body-based Skills.
REGISTER NOW
Develop an understanding of Emotion Focused Skills Training and apply the tools to your work with with disordered eating.
Early Bird Price: $749 USD (until Feb 28,2025)
Reg Price: $999 USD
OUR FOUNDER
Dr. Joanne Dolhanty
Founder & Program Lead
Dr. Joanne Dolhanty, PhD, C. Psych, is a clinical psychologist and the developer of Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST).
In collaboration with Dr. Leslie Greenberg, she also developed the application of Emotion Focused Therapy to Eating Disorders.
Her approach to training is to provide a lively and warm atmosphere that facilitates personal growth and learning, and to turn complex change concepts into usable tools.
Dr. Dolhanty has taught and trained individuals, parents, professionals, and organizations globally.
