Treating Rejection Sensitive Clients: An Attachment-Based Approach to Turn Rejection into Connection for Clients with Relationship Issues

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD Related seminars and products

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Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD, has over 30 years of experience as a psychologist. She hosts a YouTube channel and is the best-selling author of several books with New Harbinger Publications including The Insecure in Love Workbook (2024), Insecure in Love (2014) and Bouncing Back from Rejection (2019). Her books have been praised by luminaries like Harville Hendrix, PhD and Steven Hayes. They have helped thousands of people improve their relationships and lives. She writes the Authentically You blog, and she wrote the weekly Relationships blog for WebMD for over 10 years. She is also a medical reviewer for Everydayhealth.com. Dr. Becker-Phelps is on the medical staff at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital – Somerset and previously served as clinical director of Women’s Psychological Services and Chief of Psychology.
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Leslie Becker-Phelps maintains a private practice. She is an author for New Harbinger Publications and receives royalties. She receives compensation from WebMD; and Psychology Today. Dr. Becker-Phelps receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.
Non-financial: Leslie Becker-Phelps strongly supports the attachment-based compassion therapy approach. She is a member of the New Jersey Psychological Association Public Education Committee.

 

 

Objectives

1. Evaluate the treatment implications of rejection sensitivity in clients.
2. Investigate how clinicians can help clients develop greater attachment security to reduce sensitivity to rejection and improve client functioning.
3. Assess how compassionate self-awareness can be taught in a clinical setting to help clients reduce self-criticism and rejection-sensitivity.
4. Analyze theories and research behind attachment-based approaches and connect the potential risks in their application to clinical practice.
5. Determine how a clinician’s self-assessment of attachment style can be used to facilitate treatment.
6. Assess how teaching clients the five fundamental domains of awareness can help them identify, reflect on, and manage their rejection sensitivity.

Outline

How Attachment Styles Relate to Rejection-Sensitivity

• Insecure attachment and vulnerability to rejection
• Elements and functions of the attachment system
• Relationship between insecure attachment and psychopathology
• Limitations of theory and research; potential risks in their application

Build Self-Awareness with Mindfulness and Compassion- Centred Therapies

• Five domains of self-awareness
• Improve compassionate self-awareness with mindfulness
• Self-compassion & secure attachment
• Compassion-centred therapies

Decrease Rejection-Sensitivity with an Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy (ABCT) Approach

• Improve 4 essential modes of functioning
• Assess your attachment style and use this self-awareness to facilitate treatment
• Utilize the therapeutic relationship as a tool to build security

Strengthen Your Clients Emotional Regulation Skills

• Develop awareness of sensations
• Identify and reflect on rejection-sensitive thoughts
• Acknowledge, tolerate, accept, and manage emotions
• Increase awareness of how actions reinforce rejection-sensitivity
• Strengthen mentalizing ability

Develop Your Client’s Resilience to Rejection with Self-Compassion

• Define self-compassion
• Counter rejection sensitivity by nurturing self-compassion
• Use compassionate self-awareness

Target Audience

• Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Physicians
• Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors
• Pastoral Counselors