ILCA Workshop: Integrating Emotion-Focused Therapy Principles and Interventions in Working with Older Adults

AN ONLINE WORKSHOP FOR HEALTHCARE & OTHER PROFESSIONALS
When: Monday, Jan 19 – Sunday, Feb 15, 2026 (4 weeks) ONLINE weekly at your discretion
Cost:    $240 (Students $120) Sufficient Enrolment Decision Deadline: Mon, Jan 12, 2026
This workshop will be offered only if there is sufficient enrolment.

Clinicians and care providers often encounter emotional reactions that are hard to access, regulate, or process. These moments can feel complex and hard to navigate, especially when working with older adults who may have an impaired emotion system.

This science-informed workshop with Dr. Carmine Malfitano offers a clear, practical approach to understanding and working with emotion in therapy. Drawing from the principles of Emotion Focused Therapy and tailored specifically to older adults, the training introduces a foundational framework for identifying and assessing difficult emotional processes, deepening emotional experience, and applying targeted interventions that support movement and change.

Whether you are a therapist or care provider who is looking to strengthen your effectiveness in working with emotion, this four-week course offers both conceptual clarity and practical strategies you can immediately integrate into your work.

Objectives:

Through case presentations and didactic learning, participants will learn how to:

• Assess different types of emotional responses in session (e.g., primary adaptive, primary maladaptive, secondary/symptomatic, instrumental) and apply differential interventions for each type.
• Use practical empathic attunement skills to help clients access and deepen emotional experience.
• Support clients in moving from secondary or symptomatic emotions to core emotional experiences that hold therapeutic potential.
• Apply principles of emotion change and tailored interventions based on in-the-moment client needs.
• Use targeted techniques to support emotion regulation when clients feel overwhelmed or shut down.

Outline:
Week 1: Emotion Assessment

• Affective neuroscience: a bio-evolutionary view of emotion
• Identifying and differentiating types of emotional responses (primary adaptive, primary maladaptive, secondary/symptomatic, instrumental)
• Matching intervention strategies to emotional response types

Week 2: Empathic Attunement

• Practical skills to increase emotional attunement
• Increasing client awareness and articulation of emotion
• Techniques to support the shift from secondary to primary emotions

Week 3: Principles of Emotion Change

• Using ongoing case formulation to guide emotional interventions
• Techniques for increasing emotional arousal when clients are disengaged or emotionally flat
• Techniques for decreasing emotion arousal when clients are overwhelmed or dysregulated

Week 4: Emotion Transformation

• Understanding core emotion change processes in Emotion Focused Therapy
• Understanding how chair work and other experiential methods are used to support transformation

Instructor: Carmine Malfitano, PhD, MSW, RSW is a registered social worker with extensive experience in clinical practice, education, and research. He earned his Master of Social Work from the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto in 2014 and completed his PhD in 2021.

He currently serves as the Director of Training and Education at the Centre for Psychology and Emotional Health, where he supports the advancement of Emotion Focused Therapy research, training, clinical practice, and international dissemination. He is also a Clinical Social Work Specialist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and a sessional lecturer at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, where he teaches Emotion Focused Therapy to Master of Social Work students.

Visit the ILCA workshop website for registration information.