The clinic is pleased to announce its 2026 continuing education program for community-based professionals. Description of each Institute and registration forms come after the calendar section.
Additional institutes/workshops will be posted as we determine availability.
EFT levels 1, 2, 3 and Couples will now be hosted through the Greenberg Institute of EFT. Please click here to see their offerings.
2026 Training Calendar**
| Dates | Types of Training Institute |
|---|---|
| February 3-5, 2026 | Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2)(Videoconference Format) |
| March 26-27, 2026 | Introduction to Body-based Practices in Emotion-focused Therapy for Trauma (EFTT) (Videoconference Format) |
| March 27, 2026 | Treating Somatic Symptoms in Children & Youth (Videoconference Format) |
| July 15-17, 2026 | Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) (Videoconference Format) |
| November 4-6, 2026 | Emotion Focused Therapy for Eating Disorders (Videoconference Format) |
| November 16-19, 2026 | Emotion Focused Therapy for Complex Trauma (In-person Format) |
Additional trainings coming soon!
If you submit a registration form and do not hear from us within 2 business days, please follow up.
To be notified of any of our upcoming trainings/workshops, please email yupc@yorku.ca with your email address.
** York University Psychology Clinic reserves the right to cancel any registration at its sole discretion, in which case a full refund will be provided.
The ADOS-2 is a semi-structured, standardized measure of communication, social interaction, play, and restricted and receptive behaviours synonymous with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is widely considered the ‘gold standard’ measure of behavioural observation for assessment and diagnosis of ASD. With updated protocols and the addition of the Toddler Module, the ADOS-2 provides a highly accurate evaluation of current behaviour in individuals from 12 months of age to adulthood, from individuals who are nonverbal to individuals who are verbally fluent. By observing and coding these behaviors, you can obtain information that informs diagnosis, treatment planning, and educational placement.
Through completion of this introductory course, you will:
- Learn the differences between clinical and research use of the ADOS-2
- Learn how to select the appropriate module for working with different clients
- Learn how to administer the tasks within each module
- Learn how to code the specific items within each module
- Obtain experience that will support your future administrations with the measure as you work towards independent clinical use
Fee:
- Option A: $975 CDN
- Option B: $1100 CDN
- Option C: $165 CDN
(10% discount for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Adam McCrimmon
This workshop will explore how body-based practices can augment and enhance emotion-focused therapy, especially when working with complex trauma (i.e., childhood abuse and neglect). It is well recognized that traumatic experiences are “embodied”, and thus body-based practices have been recommended as adjuncts to talk therapy for trauma-related disturbance. While attention to bodily experience is intrinsic to all emotion-focused therapies, for some clients, a more explicit focus on the body can help access and deepen emotional experience and transform maladaptive emotions, such as fear and shame.
This workshop will present the model of EFTT and numerous videotaped examples of EFTT intervention used to accomplish the basic tasks of therapy – i.e., cultivating a safe and empathic therapeutic relationship; reducing fear, avoidance, and shame; processing trauma feelings and memories; and resolving issues with perpetrators of abuse and neglect through expressions of anger and sadness (with and without chair work). Throughout, the workshop will present a variety of body-based practices, drawn from yoga therapy (e.g., breath work, establishing intentions, postures, movement, meditation), that can be integrated into the moment-by-moment process of EFTT. These practices are designed to promote positive experiences necessary for emotional transformation and change, including deepening client goals, grounding and present-centered awareness, calming and safety, agency and empowerment, letting go of over-control, and self-compassion. Video-taped examples will illustrate how to identify in-session markers for introducing body-based procedures and how to seamlessly integrate these into standard EFTT interventions.
Prerequisites: This workshop is geared toward practicing professionals who have a basic familiarity with emotion-focused therapy theory and practice (i.e., EFT Level 1 or equivalent)
Fee: $700 CDN (10% discount for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Sandra Paivio
Somatic symptoms in children and youth present complex challenges for clients, families, and clinicians. In this interactive workshop, Dr. Jordana Waxman and Dr. Stella Dentakos will guide participants through the latest evidence-based approaches to understanding and treating somatic symptoms in pediatric populations. Drawing on national collaborative work among leading pediatric hospitals, the session will explore how to support clients and families from the initial presentation of symptoms through to recovery and improved functioning.
Participants will learn how to define and normalize somatic symptoms, communicate compassionately with families about the mind-body connection, and apply practical frameworks for assessment and intervention. The workshop will emphasize strategies for building trust, reducing confusion, and empowering families to move toward wellness. Through case examples, sample scripts, and interactive discussion, attendees will gain tools to support emotional processing, enhance daily functioning, and develop individualized symptom management plans.
Importantly, the session will also highlight the vital role of mental health providers within the multidisciplinary care team. Discussion will include how psychologists and other mental health professionals collaborate with medical providers to deliver integrated care, facilitate communication, and address the psychological needs of children and youth experiencing somatic symptoms.
Learning Objectives:
After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Explain the concept of somatization and recognize key challenges in assessment and treatment.
- Utilize a structured approach for managing somatic symptoms, including techniques for empathetic and effective communication with patients and families.
- Deepen understanding of comprehensive, multidisciplinary strategies that enhance treatment outcomes, including the role of mental health providers in collaborative care.
Fee: $150 CDN ($120 for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Stella Dentakos & Dr. Jordana Waxman
Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) is a powerful, evidence-informed approach that actively engages caregivers as key resources in their loved one’s well-being, treatment, and recovery. EFFT is applicable across the lifespan and is effective regardless of a client’s age, level of motivation, or degree of involvement in formal treatment. At its core, EFFT shifts the therapeutic stance by positioning caregivers as partners in change, while clinicians provide the guidance, structure, and emotional support needed to help families succeed.
In EFFT, clinicians support caregivers in developing skills across three central domains: behavior coaching, emotion coaching, and the use of therapeutic apologies when appropriate. A fourth core component focuses on helping caregivers identify, understand, and transform emotion blocks—internal emotional barriers that can interfere with effective caregiving and treatment engagement. Participants will also be introduced to a parallel process for identifying and transforming clinician emotion blocks, supporting therapist presence, flexibility, and effectiveness.
In this Core EFFT Clinician Training, Dr. Amanda Stillar will introduce the foundational theory and core clinical skills of EFFT through a balance of didactic teaching and experiential learning. Participants will be guided through practical techniques that can be integrated into existing treatment models, particularly for clients and families who have not responded to standard approaches. Video demonstrations will be used throughout the training to illustrate key interventions and clinical processes.
Training Length Options
The difference between the 2-day and 3-day Core EFFT Clinician Training lies in the depth of skill development. The additional third day allows for expanded focus on caregiver block chair work, clinician block chair work, and therapeutic apologies, including in-depth script review, additional video demonstrations, and increased opportunities for experiential practice.
Prerequisite: No prior EFFT training is required, and a background in family therapy is not necessary. This training is open to clinicians from a wide range of professional backgrounds and levels of experience. Completion of this training meets criteria toward certification through the International Institute for Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT).
Fee: $900 CDN (10% for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Amanda Stillar
Eating disorders are complex psychiatric illnesses that are challenging to treat. In this workshop, Dr. Stillar will outline how to treat Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge-Eating Disorder, from an Emotion-focused Therapy lens. The emotion-processing difficulties that are often at the core of eating disorders make EFT a compelling approach to eating disorder treatment. Dr. Stillar will discuss eating disorders in terms of emotion theory and teach participants how to formulate an EFT case conceptualization for an eating disorder client. Furthermore, she will teach participants how to use the two-chair dialogue intervention to treat eating disorder cases. Additionally, she will also show video demonstrations of several EFT interventions that she commonly uses in her practice with eating disorder clients such as, focusing, self-soothing, and chair work.
Learning Objectives:
After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Formulate an EFT case conceptualization for a client with an eating disorder.
- Understand how emotion-processing deficits are often at the core of eating disorder symptoms.
- Utilize the two-chair dialogue EFT intervention to treat a client with an eating disorder.
- Understand how EFT interventions facilitate the development of healthy emotion processing and emotion regulation capabilities within an individual with an eating disorder diagnosis.
Fee: $900 CDN (10% for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Amanda Stillar
This four-day training is geared toward practicing professionals with a basic knowledge of Emotion-Focused Therapy (e.g., EFT Level One). It includes material on the nature of complex trauma and the central role of narrative and emotional processes in the development of disturbance, the EFTT treatment model and how EFTT addresses central features of disturbance. Training also includes numerous videotaped examples illustrating EFTT treatment principles, and supervised peer-skills practice. Practice will focus on the general principles of EFT specifically tailored to the needs of this client group over the phases of EFTT. This includes training in interventions for cultivating and maintaining a safe and empathic therapeutic relationship; for evoking and processing trauma feelings and memories; for reducing fear, avoidance, and shame; for resolving attachment injuries with specific perpetrators through expressions of anger and sadness; and alternatives to chair-work for clients who are unable or unwilling to engage in these evocative procedures. This four-day training will provide training and guided practice to develop and enhance participants’ mastery in utilizing the experiential skills of the Emotion-Focused approach to therapy.
Learning objectives:
Theory:
- Understand how EFT for Trauma is distinct from other approaches to trauma therapy and from the general model of Emotion-focused Therapy
- Understand how basic EFT theory of emotion, emotional processing difficulties, and intervention principles is tailored specifically to therapy with adult survivors of complex trauma (i.e., childhood abuse and neglect).
Assessment and Intervention
- Learn alternatives to chair-work for resolving “unfinished business” and self-self-conflicts (e.g., self-criticism, self-interruption) stemming from complex trauma and when to use them
- Identify markers and learn guidelines for implementing memory work/re-experiencing to help clients process trauma feelings and memories
- Learn guidelines for deepening emotional experiencing, step-by-step, with complex trauma survivors
- Distinguish different types of experiential avoidance and appropriate interventions for each
- Learn strategies to activate painful trauma-related feelings and needs and help clients access self-compassion and self-soothing resources
Fee: $1525 CDN (10% for full-time graduate students and York faculty/staff)
Trainer: Dr. Sandra Paivio & Katlin Robinson
When cancellations are made more than 14 days prior to the workshop date, you have a choice: receive a refund (less $50.00 administration charge) or a credit for the full amount (less $20.00) to any future York University Psychology Clinic (YUPC) workshop.
If cancellation is received fewer than 14 days prior to the workshop date you will receive a credit (less $50.00 administration charge) to any future YUPC workshop.
We regret that a refund/credit cannot be offered if your cancellation is not received at least one full business day prior to the day of the workshop. Alternatively, a colleague may attend in your place at no extra cost. Please notify us in advance of the name of the person attending.
The 3 & 4 day Institutes requires a $250.00 non-refundable deposit. These non-refundable deposits are not transferable unless we are able to fill the vacancy created by the change in plans. Please note, that if registration payment is transferred it is only transferable once.
When cancellations are made 28 days prior to the workshop date, you have a choice: receive a refund (less the $250.00 non-refundable deposit)or a credit towards a future Institute.
We regret that a refund/credit cannot be offered if your cancellation is received with fewer than 28 days notice prior to the workshop date.