Advanced Counseling Certificate
Update as of May 8, 2012: Note Location and Date Changes!
Based on participant feedback, the details of the Advanced Counseling Certificate have changed, notably the location, the dates, and the cost of the program. Please carefully re-read the details below, which have been updated to reflect the program updates.
Curriculum | Policies | Registration Details | Forms
Advanced Counseling Certificate Program
in Chicago, IL
Fall 2012–Spring 2013
Program Timeframe
- Session 1: November 15–18, 2012
- Session 2: February 14–17, 2013
- Session 3: April 4–7, 2013
Receive training that will bolster your current therapeutic technique and offer insight into how your own life story impacts who you are as a therapist.
The Advanced Counseling Certificate provides an invaluable addendum to a master’s degree, utilizing Dr. Allender’s theory for working with abuse victims in individual, couple, family, and church community contexts. Dr. Allender’s trauma-focused narrative therapy trains therapists to continue their personal integrative and self-discovery process in order to become a more effective clinician. In this year long program, you will learn Dr. Allender’s counseling theory while concurrently engaging in the personal growth necessary to gain a greater understanding of how to care for your clients.
Cost, Registration & Application Process
At The Allender Center, we embrace the philosophy that you can only take another as far as you have gone yourself. The strongest tool you bring to the counseling relationship is yourself. Therefore, the Advanced Counseling Certificate is a program that blends traditional academic teaching and praxis-oriented experience with rigorous personal work that is designed to challenge you to engage the text of your own story. We believe you must develop self-awareness and the ability to embrace the fullness of beauty and tragedy in your own story in order to effectively hold the stories of others and to care well in a counseling relationship.
The Advanced Counseling Certificate is designed to provide you with a fundamental understanding of the Allender therapeutic model. It will identify the complex issues of trauma and abuse, and will explore how to more effectively to engage these issues through a narrative framework within the therapeutic relationship.
You will learn directly from Dr. Allender in a small cohort setting through teaching and by watching him conduct therapy. You will also receive personal mentoring from The Allender Center teaching staff in small group settings that are catered to your specific skill level, making this training a hands-on experience applicable for both beginning and seasoned therapists.
Learning outcomes for the program include:
- Learn an integrated theology of personal narrative and how it intersects with the biblical narrative
- Gain a deeper understanding of how family of origin influences relationships
- Become more aware of how the role of human sexuality plays into identity formation, style of relating, and self-protection
- Learn to evaluate the extent, nature of, and damage of abuse for diagnosis and treatment
- Develop more fully your own therapeutic orientation for addressing issues of abuse and harm
- Learn to assess your own counter-transference in working with people who have experienced severe trauma
- Be able to integrate and embrace your own story into a view of maturity that gives direction for future transformation in your personal and professional realms.
This certification program will take place in Chicago, IL during three sessions over one year’s time. Each session is comprised of four days (Thursday-Saturday: 8:00am-6:00pm; Sunday 8:00am-12:30pm), and content will include key teaching curriculum and intensive group work. Written reflections will be assigned in preparation for each session.
- Session 1: November 15–18, 2012
- Session 2: February 14–17, 2013
- Session 3: April 4–7, 2013
Participants in the Advanced Counseling Certificate will receive 75 seat hours of training during the program year (45 hours of teaching, 30 hours of group work). You will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the year stating the number of seat hours you earned. It will be up to the participant to apply for recognition of the CEU credit with their licensing agency. The Allender Center will not be held responsible if individual state or any other professional licensing boards do not recognize the requested CEUs.
Faculty
Dr. Dan Allender
Dr. Allender received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Michigan State University. Currently, he serves as Professor of Counseling at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
Learn more about Dr. Dan Allender.
Allender Center Teaching Staff
This group of men and women has graduated from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and are currently practicing professionals in their field. They have spent a year of post graduate working being trained by Dr. Allender and are the facilitators for all The Allender Center workshops. Learn more about The Allender Center Teaching Staff.
