Guided Meditation and Hypnosis for Therapists in Turbulent Times

About the Event

This 90-minute experiential workshop offers clinicians a healing experience of their own. Through guided visualization and meditation, participants will deepen their awareness of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations to cultivate greater self-reflection, curiosity, and compassion. Each meditation is designed to anchor attention in present-moment experience, inviting participants to observe internal shifts as they arise.

A second visualization will guide clinicians to explore a personal or clinical impasse — a "gap" — through imaginative engagement, stimulating insight, empathy, and self-awareness. Reflective writing will follow each guided exercise to deepen individual processing and create space for group exchange. The workshop closes with an anchoring exercise, linking a positive memory to a specific body state, image, and set of words for future access.

The workshop will be co-led by two trained hypnotherapists — one grounded in Buddhist contemplative practice, the other in psychoanalytic theory — offering complementary perspectives.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:

I. Describe how breathwork and visualization cultivate a sense of calm and groundedness in the present moment.

II. Utilize hypnosis to access and expand an alternative sense of self, anchored to a positive body state.

III. Observe their own thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations with non-attachment — letting internal experience arise and pass without judgment—while cultivating curiosity and self-compassion.

Bios:

Heather Ferguson, LCSW, is a faculty member and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. As a certified hypnotherapist and EMDR practitioner, she integrates embodied techniques into her psychoanalytic practice.

Sara Wendt is a clinical hypnotist, certified by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners and the National Guild of Hypnotists, and trained in Gil Boyne’s Transforming Therapy. Sara draws on her creative life as a recording artist and singer/songwriter in NYC. Sara has been a Buddhist practitioner and has taught meditation at Kadampa Meditation Center in Glen Spey, NY, for over twenty years. Thes multiple perspectives enrich her clinical hypnosis practice.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education credits for psychologists. The National Institute for the Psychotherapies maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0018.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #Psyan-0004.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0131.

National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0059.