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Digital Seminar

Understanding and Treating Codependency

When Clients Over-function for Others

Speaker:
Nancy Johnston, MS, LPC, LSATP
Duration:
3 Hours
Language:
Presented in EN, subtitles in EN and FR, handouts in EN and FR
Format:
Audio and Video
Copyright:
Mar 23, 2025
Product Code:
NOS096527
Media Type:
Digital Seminar


Description

We frequently see clients who lose themselves in others. Often, their sense of self seems to depend on people, situations, and outcomes they’re unable to realistically control. They’re overly focused on helping, solving, rescuing, saving, and mitigating others’ pain. When this pattern of other-centeredness interferes with a client’s goals, or fuels anxiety and depressive symptoms, what’s a clinician to do? In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to the clinical importance of sensitively helping clients become aware of their tendency toward other-centeredness at the expense of the self. By connecting with the self and responding to it, clients can get better at toggling between self and others to create more balance in their lives and ultimately foster a healthier relationship with themselves. You’ll learn to: 

 

  • Help clients recognise codependent patterns in non-pathologising ways 
  • Support clients in developing an internal focus 
  • Foster experiences of self in therapy  
  • Empower clients to spot codependent patterns fueling anxiety and depression 

Credit

Program Information

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.



Canada Credit - *

NOTE: Tuition includes one free CE Certificate (participant will be able to print the certificate of completion after passing the online post-test (80% passing score) and completing the evaluation). Instructional methods will include PowerPoint, didactic lecture, and others.

Continuing Education Information:  Listed below are the continuing education credit(s) currently available for this non-interactive self-study package. Program content is reviewed periodically per accrediting board rules for currency and appropriateness for credit. Credit approvals are subject to change. Please note, your licensing board dictates whether self-study is an acceptable form of continuing education, as well as which credit types are acceptable for continuing education hours. Please refer to your licensing board's rules and regulations. If your profession is not listed, please contact your licensing board to determine your continuing education requirements and check for reciprocal approval. 
For other credit inquiries not specified below, please contact info@pesi.com or 800-844-8260 before purchase.

Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of your profession.  As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your profession's standards.  

For Planning Committee disclosures, please see the statement above.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

 


Canada Credit - ---

Earn up to 3.0 CE hours. Please see below, for more details, as credit amounts vary by jurisdiction and profession. 


Canada Credit - Canadian Counsellors and Psychotherapists

PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association to offer continuing education for counsellors and psychotherapists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This self-study activity is approved for 3.0 credit hours.


Canada Credit - Canadian Psychologists

PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This program is approved for 3.0 self-study continuing education hours. Full credit statement at: www.pesi.com/cpa-statement


Canada Credit - Social Workers - National ASWB ACE

PESI, Inc., #1062, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: January 27, 2026 - January 27, 2029. Social workers completing this course receive 3.0 Clinical continuing education credits.

Course Level: Intermediate Format: Recorded asynchronous distance. Full attendance is required; no partial credits will be offered for partial attendance.

 

Canadian Social Workers: Canadian provinces may accept activities offered by providers approved by the ASWB ACE program for ongoing professional development.


Canada Credit - Other Professions

This self-study activity qualifies for 3.0 continuing education clock hours as required by many national and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Save your activity advertisement and certificate of completion, and contact your own board or organization for specific requirements.


US National Boards - Addiction Counselors - NAADAC

This self-study course has been approved by PESI, Inc., as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #77553. PESI, Inc. is responsible for all aspects of their programming.

This self-study course offers 3.0 continuing education contact hours in the Counseling Services skill group. Full attendance is required; no partial credit will be awarded for partial attendance.



Handouts

Speaker

Nancy Johnston, MS, LPC, LSATP's Profile

Nancy Johnston, MS, LPC, LSATP Related seminars and products

Private Practice


Nancy L. Johnston, MS, LPC, LSATP, MAC, NCC is a licensed professional counselor and licensed substance abuse treatment practitioner in private practice in Virginia, US. With 49 years of clinical experience, Nancy is master addiction counselor and an American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMCHA) diplomate in substance abuse and co-occurring Disorders.

 

She has authored four books on codependency: Disentangle: When You've Lost Your Self in Someone Else 2nd Edition (2020), My Life as a Border Collie: Freedom from Codependency (2012), The Clinician’s Codependency Treatment Workbook: 66 Self-Recovery Strategies for Clients Who Lose Themselves in Others (2024), and You. Here. Today. 200 Readings for Growth from Codependency to Self-Recovery (2026).

 

Nancy has digital seminars produced with PESI for clinicians on treating codependency, including “Codependence: Treatment Strategies for Clients Who Lose Themselves in Others” (2020), “The Codependency Treatment Guide: CBT, Somatic Strategies and More to Disentangle Clients from Dysfunctional Relationships and Recover Self” (2022), and “Advanced Codependency Treatment: A Complete Guide to CBT, Somatic, and Family of Origin Strategies to Disentangle Clients from Toxic Relationships and Recover Self” (2025).

 

Nancy offers online self-recovery workshops and delights in designing and facilitating Codependence Camp twice/year at a retreat site in Virginia, US. Codependence Camp has been in operation since 2004.

 

Over the past 26 years Nancy has presented at numerous conferences including the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders, the Carolinas Conference for Addiction and Recovery, Addiction: Focus on Women, the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies, the American Mental Health Counselors Association’s Annual Conference, the Virginia Counselors Association’s Annual Conference, and Specialty Docket Training for the Virginia Supreme Court. She has been a faculty member for the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium and the Ferentz Institute, and her work was included in a New York Times article on enmeshment in relationships.

 

Nancy writes from her country home on a river in Virginia, US. When she is not teaching or writing, she is enjoying extended time with family and friends, gardening, collaging, writing haiku, dancing, walking in the woods, and sitting by the river.

 

More information about Nancy and her work is available at her website: https://www.nancyljohnston.com/


Additional Info

Program Information

Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com


Questions?

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.


Objectives

  1. Explain 3 ways to clinically understand codependency that can be applied to treating codependency.
  2. Integrate 3 assessment tools for codependency into an intake interview.
  3. Describe the clinician’s role in establishing a therapeutic relationship with a person with codependency.
  4. Apply protocols to help clients foster their internal connections.

Outline

Understanding codependency 

  • Core features of codependency 
  •  “Relationship Circles”  
  • Specific behaviours associated with codependency  
  •  “Behaviours Associated with Codependency Continuum 
  • Clinical goals 

Assessing a client for codependency 

  • “Assessing for a Dominant External Focus”  
  • “Assessing for Behaviours Associated with Codependency” 
  • “Assessing for Overfunctioning for Others/Underfunctioning for Self” 
  • Connecting codependent dynamics with client’s presenting issues 

Establishing a therapeutic relationship with a client with codependency 

  • Therapist characteristics 
  • Client empowerment 
  • Countertransference 
  • Clinician Codependency 

Treating Codependency 

  • Educating the client about external vs. internal focus 
  • Helping clients foster their relationship-with-self 
  • Four interlocking elements of self-recovery 
  • Practices to help clients increase their internal connections 

Risks and Limitations 

Target Audience

  • Addiction Counsellors
  • Counsellors
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Nurses
  • Physicians
  • Psychologists
  • Social Workers

Reviews

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Overall:      4.8

Total Reviews: 520

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