Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
General Information
Title: Cultivating Deep Attunement to Promote Secure Functioning: Tailoring AEDP Treatment to Attachment Patterns
Presenter: Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Dates: Sunday-Wednesday, October 18-21, 2026, 12:00pm – 4:30pm EST
Fee: $495. This includes 17 continuing education credits and 2 months access to recordings.
Venue: Live Webinar (Zoom)
CE Credits: 17
Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Description
Early attachment experiences shape our relationships with ourselves and with others. When they go well, they nourish felt security and our capacity for connection. When they go awry, they give rise to attachment wounding, trauma and insecure patterns that challenge our capacity to feel safe and trusting in the relationships we crave the most. AEDP is a healing-oriented, transformation-based psychotherapy model which is ideally suited to treat attachment trauma. AEDP’s therapeutic stance is radically relational. From the beginning of treatment we seek to create a secure attachment with our patients as a basis for healing attachment wounding.
We aim to set conditions for establishing safety and undoing aloneness, explicitly and experientially, with loads of sensitivity and responsiveness. To encourage safety, we meet our patients where they are. To foster growth and transformation, we help our patients explore what happens between us and inside themselves in the present moment.
This presentation will introduce the core tenets of AEDP’s theory and methodology, and will include foundations of attachment research, affective neuroscience, and positive neuroplasticity. To help therapists organize treatment, this course offers a comprehensive picture of both secure and insecure attachment. This framework comes to life with the first two of three grids developed by Pando-Mars (2025): i) the configuration of the secure attachment pattern and ii) the configurations of insecure attachment patterns: avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized. The third grid, iii) clinical markers and interventions to treat avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized patterns, will guide therapists in how to translate attachment theory into clinical practice to mobilize transformational outcomes.
Using clinical video footage, we will examine how avoidant, ambivalent/resistant, and disorganized attachment patterns present in therapy—and how each pattern calls for a specific, tailored approach. Didactics and video illustrations of AEDP interventions will show how therapists can meet patients where they are and help them to deepen trust and expand their capacity for regulation, connection, and relatedness. Experiential exercises with assistants and group discussion will provide opportunities for participants to engage directly and experientially in the learning process.
Instructors
Karen Pando-Mars, MFT has a clinical and consultation practice in San Anselmo, CA, is senior faculty at the AEDP® Institute and teaches AEDP worldwide. She was a founder of The Sandtray Network and a contributing editor of its journal. As adjunct faculty at Dominican University, in San Rafael, California, she taught AEDP as the overarching theoretical model in the Alternative and Innovative Psychotherapies course. Her background in somatic and experiential therapies include Focusing, Biofeedback, Process-Oriented Psychotherapy, Sandtray-Worldplay, EMDR, and Authentic Movement. She is known for her presence, warmth, and the clarity of her presentations. Videotapes of her clinical work are moving and inspiring examples of how AEDP’s explicit relational and precise experiential practices can help patients heal relational trauma. Her passionate interest in what cultivates deep connection between Self and Other has been furthered by attachment theory and affective neuroscience. Her publications include Tailoring AEDP Interventions to Attachment Style (2016), a chapter in Undoing Aloneness & the Transformation of Suffering into Flourishing: AEDP 2.0 (2021) APA press. She and Diana Fosha co-authored Tailoring Treatment to Attachment Patterns: Healing Trauma in Relationship (2025) Norton, NY
Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Objectives
1. List three core tenets of AEDP theory and methodology
2. Name three qualities of the AEDP therapist stance
3. List two qualities of secure functioning
4. List three markers of the avoidant attachment pattern
5. Name three interventions to address avoidant patterning
6. Identify two common therapist reactivities that can occur with avoidant patterns
7. Describe two therapist metaskills to help someone with avoidant patterning
8. Identify three markers of the ambivalent/resistant attachment pattern
9. Name three interventions to address ambivalent/resistant patterning
10. Identify two common therapist reactivities that can occur with ambivalent/resistant patterns
11. Describe two therapist metaskills to help someone with ambivalent/resistant patterning
12. Identify three markers of the disorganized attachment pattern
13. Name three interventions to address disorganized attachment patterns
14. Identify two common therapist reactivities that can occur with disorganized attachment patterns
15. Describe two therapist metaskills to help someone with patterns of disorganized attachment
CE Information
Continuing Education Credits are granted through Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC for the following professions: Psychologists, Social workers, Mental Health Counselors, LMFTs, and LCATs. It is the participant’s responsibility to check with their individual state boards to verify CE requirements for their state.
Please Note: Licensing Boards change regulations often, and while we attempt to stay abreast of their most recent changes, if you have questions or concerns about this course meeting your specific board’s approval, we recommend you contact your board directly to obtain a ruling.
APA
Nachas Consulting is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
ASWB
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC, 2035, is approved 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: 08/02/2025 – 08/02/2028 Social workers completing this course receive 17 clinical continuing education credits.
NBCC
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting PLLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7503. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
New York State Social Workers
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0785.
New York State Mental Health Counselors
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Mental Health Counselor #MHC-0195
New York State Psychology
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0072.
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Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0121.
New York State Creative Arts Therapist
Neuhoff Psychological Consulting, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0112.
References
Pando-Mars, K. & Fosha, D. (2025) Tailoring Treatment to Attachment Patterns: Healing Trauma in Relationship. Norton Professional Books
Fosha, D. (ed) (2021) Undoing Aloneness & the Transformation of Suffering Into Flourishing: AEDP 2.0. APA Press
DiCorcia, M., Iwakabe, S., Thoma, N. C., & Yamazaki, W. (2022, December 15). Transformational Process Scale: An Initial Validation and Application to the First Psychotherapy Session. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/int0000296
Iwakabe, S., Edlin, J., Fosha, D., Thoma, N.. Gretton, H., Joseph, A. J., Nakamura, K.. (2022) The Long-Term Outcome of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy: 6- and 12-Month Follow-Up Results. APA Psychotherapy 2022, Vol. 59, No. 3, 431–446 https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000441
Harrison, R. L. (2020). Termination in 16-session accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP): Together in how we say goodbye. Psychotherapy, 57(4), 531–547. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000343
Notsu, H., Iwakabe, S. Thoma, N. (2022) Enhancing work alliance through positive emotional experience: A cross-lag analysis. Psychotherapy Research https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2022.2124893
Satisfactory Completion:
Participants must have signed in and out, attended the entire workshop to receive a certificate. Failure to sign/log in or out will result in forfeiture of credit for the entire course. No exceptions will be made. Partial credit is not available. Certificates are available electronically after satisfactory course completion. A link will be provided for those who have completed the training.
Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Policies
Application Deadline: October 16, 2026 or until all training spaces are filled, whichever comes first.
Notification of Acceptance
Applicants will be notified, via email, of acceptance when registration is complete, and payment is received.
Refund/Cancellation Policy
Tuition/registration payments are refundable until September 18, 2026. Cancellations after this date are non-refundable. In this situation, we will attempt to find someone to take your slot (based on our waiting list).
Accessibility
There will be handicap accessibility.
Course level
Level of clinician
Our Grievance Policy for trainings is available here.
Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
Schedule
| Day #1 Sunday, October 18, 2026 |
Orientation towards healing and transformation : Transformance 2:15 - 2:45 Break
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| Day #2 Monday, October 19, 2026 | 12:00pm EST - 12:30pm EST REM REFLECTIONS, Q &; A Building blocks of attachment theory: research and implications for 2:15- 2:30 Break 2:45 pm EST –4:30pm EST EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE |
| Day #3 Tuesday, October 20, 2026 | 12:00pm EST - 12:30pm EST REM REFLECTIONS, Q&A Goals for treating avoidant attachment patterns 2:15 - 2:45 Break Goals for treating the ambivalent/resistant pattern |
| Day #4 Wednesday, October 21, 2026 | 12:00pm EST - 12:30pm EST REM REFLECTIONS, Q&A 2:15 - 2:45 Break 2:45 pm EST –4:30pm EST. Putting it all Together AEDP’s Metaprocessing and neuroplasticity |
Introduction to AEDP with Karen Pando-Mars, MFT
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