Workshops

Workshops & Speaking Presentations in Vancouver

Is therapy always necessary?

Are you struggling with relationship issues, feeling disconnected, cross-cultural challenges, traumatic memories, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, stress, career or academic performance, or parenting struggles, but don’t feel you need therapy? Consider workshops.

Vitman Counselling offers workshops and coaching on building life skills for balanced and meaningful living. A connected, balanced, meaningful life requires a strong toolbox of coping and communication skills. These skills can be learned.

In these workshops, you will learn coping, communication, and relationship skills to begin enjoying your relationships, job, and your life again. For additional information, please contact me for details.

Connecting Life Skills For Balanced and Meaningful Living

This series of workshops focuses on learning new, adaptive, and values-consistent coping strategies. Participants will develop ways to take committed action in creating a rich and meaningful life and cultivate connections. Additionally, you will learn skills to accept what you cannot control and be less affected by difficult thoughts and feelings. These workshops will help build positive and strong connections, and discover how to accomplish value-related goals.

Cultivating Connections

In today’s competitive, 24/7 workplace, knowing how to collaborate and interact effectively with others–part of what psychologists call emotional intelligence–can be as vital as advanced degrees and a stellar IQ. At home and with friends, relationships can also be challenging, and real communication is usually much more complex than texting the latest emoji. To learn how to better navigate such situations, join me in Cultivating Connections, a program in which you can learn how to develop your own emotional intelligence and competence in three 2-hour interactive workshops. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

How to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to understand and manage your own emotions
How to feel and express empathy for yourself and others
How your “emotional brain” works
How to set and achieve positive goals, such as becoming more socially aware and learning to establish and maintain healthy relationships both at work and at home
How to make responsible decisions in social interactions, including difficult ones

These workshops are for people who want to learn to be more self-aware, better regulate their emotions, and improve their relationships as well as for those who are struggling to connect with others. The handouts and worksheets provided will give you a chance to put the information you learn into your own personal context.

Mindfulness for Balanced Life

Mindfulness is an integrative mind-body approach to life and our experiences. It involves paying attention to thoughts, feelings, and body sensations in ways that increase awareness, help manage difficult experiences, and create space for healthier choices.

Research has shown that more mindful people have greater awareness, understanding and acceptance of their emotions. They pay attention and concentrate more easily, and recover from bad moods more quickly. Mindful people also enjoy more satisfying relationships.

Research on Mindfulness

Although rooted in ancient traditions of meditation, mindfulness has become the subject of increasing scientific attention in recent years.

A rapidly expanding body of research suggests mindfulness helps manage a range of physical and mental health problems, as well as promoting well-being in general. Research has consistently shown that programs based on mindfulness reduces levels of stress. As a result, mindfulness skills are now being used in medicine and mental health as well as in workplaces, schools and other community settings.

Neuro-scientific studies show that mindfulness appears to increase activation in the left pre-frontal cortex, an area of the brain more associated with positive emotions. Mindfulness reduces stress and improves functioning in every aspect of life and can help anyone live a happier, healthier, more engaged and balanced life.

This workshop will provide an outline of basic scientific facts explaining the benefits of Mindfulness. Further, it will teach basic mindfulness skills and provide handouts with instructions for practices. If you want to improve your well-being and relationships, and to lead a balanced, connected, and meaningful life, this workshop is for you!

Skills for Effective Communication

Interestingly, statistics point to the fact that approximately 85% percent of our success in life is directly attributable to our communication skills. The good news is that anyone can develop good communication skills and cultivate positive connections with ourselves and others. So, come learn how to effectively communicate with your partner, kids, friends, relatives, coworkers or boss.

Assertiveness Skills

Are you saying YES to requests that you should really say NO to? Do you have difficulty accepting constructive criticism? Do you have problems asking for what you want?

In this 4-session workshop, you will discover techniques to dramatically change how you feel about yourself and improve your relationships. Most importantly, you will develop communication skills and improve connections, enabling you to speak up for yourself without compromising yourself and others. Come and learn how to be assertive!

Skills for Managing Anxiety & Stress

Do you have difficulty coping with stress? Feel you lack a sense of personal control in your life? Or do you struggle with setting goals and problem solving? This workshop focuses on cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness to help you manage stress.

"I had the pleasure of hosting Spomenka Vitman's Mindfulness Workshop at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in September 2017. My team was experiencing a significant increase in work-related stress and urgently needed training on how to cope with the daily challenges of clinical trial service. I invited Ms. Vitman to present to our staff after attending one of her workshops in Kirkland.

Ms. Vitman is a passionate and knowledgeable speaker who effortlessly engages her audiences. As a licensed psychotherapist, she brings years of experience from her own practice. Ms. Vitman conducts the workshop in a fun and interactive manner.

The theory behind mindfulness and skills needed to succeed were nicely presented with an abundance of examples. The participants welcomed her advice and solutions to their real-life problems. In the last part of the workshop, the group participated in various exercises and shared their experiences. They walked out with new perspective on how to better manage their stress at work and improve their overall well-being.

Since the workshop, my team has been able to implement Ms. Vitman's mindfulness techniques in their daily routines and have found them helpful and relaxing. I highly recommend Ms Vitman's interactive mindfulness workshop for healthcare professionals and beyond."

Bojana Askovich, PhD

Phase 1 Research Administrator, University of Washington

Menu