When Sleep Isn’t Simple: Evidence-Based Tools for Helping Clients Sleep Better
September 22 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm PDT
Sleep difficulties don’t just affect your clients at night.
They can shape how clients show up in the counselling session.
Many clients struggle with sleep, yet counsellors may be unsure about how to move beyond basic sleep-hygiene recommendations. Drawing on 20 years of counselling experience, graduate training in neuroscience, and specialized training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Theresa brings together sleep science, sleep hygiene, selected CBT-I approaches, and an understanding of the anxiety–sleep cycle to offer practical tools for helping clients sleep better.
This clinically focused workshop will explore the neuroscience of sleep, what happens when sleep becomes disrupted, and the factors that contribute to and maintain sleep difficulties.
We will also touch on how disrupted or insufficient sleep can affect clients’ mood, attention, emotional regulation, cognitive functioning, and ability to engage meaningfully in the counselling process.
We’ll explore:
- The neuroscience of sleep and what happens when sleep becomes disrupted
- Factors that contribute to and maintain sleep difficulties
- The impact of poor sleep on daytime functioning and the counselling process
- The anxiety–sleep cycle and how worry, arousal, and sleep-related behaviours can perpetuate sleep problems
- Practical sleep-hygiene strategies and selected evidence-informed CBT-I approaches that can be integrated into counselling practice
- How sleep intersects with anxiety, trauma, neurodiversity, life transitions, and perimenopause and menopause
- When additional assessment, adaptation, or referral may be appropriate
You’ll leave with strategies and resources to use immediately with clients, to help them to better understand and improve their sleep, while also recognizing how sleep may be influencing the broader therapeutic work.
