Personality Disorders with Dr. Greg Lester

GREGORY W. LESTER, PhD, is a clinical and consulting psychologist with practices in Texas and Colorado. Dr. Lester is widely considered to have trained more professionals on the topic of personality disorders than any other individual, with more than 125,000 professionals attending his trainings in 130 cities across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. He is the author and presenter of the largest attended and longest running seminar on personality disorders, and his office served as one of the first research sites for the development of the proposed revision for the Personality Disorders section of the DSM-5. Dr. Lester's work has been widely published and has appeared in publications including The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Western Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, and The Journal of Behavior Therapy. Dr. Lester consults with health care companies, social service agencies, and has served as a special consultant to the United States Department of Justice. Due to his innovative and practical approaches to the most difficult cases, he is in extremely high demand as a speaker and trainer and is often cited as a voice of authority in his field.

Dr. Lester's clinical and research specialty is Personality Disorders, and it is his most frequently requested topic. He presents frequently on all aspects of diagnosing, treating, and managing Personality Disorders. He has presented to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, therapists, case managers, attorneys, judges, vocational rehab personnel, emergency medical personnel, pastoral counselors, geriatric specialists, developmental disabilities caseworkers, and marriage and family therapists.

We are pleased to offer three separate trainings over two full-days on various aspects of personality disorders. These trainings are FREE and open to the public. BBS and BRN CEUs will be available for each training. 

Registration is available in Placer Learns. Please go to our Placer Learns External User Page to register or to request a Placer Learns account (County employees can register through their internal Placer Learns account). 

February 1st – 8:30am-4:30pm

• Borderline Personality Disorder: Today’s Most Powerful and Effective Treatment and Management
  Intervening in Borderline conditions is unique and dramatically different from nearly every other psychiatric condition, but a number of extremely effective interventions have been developed. Research indicates that these approaches can be highly effective in diminishing Borderline behavior and functioning.
  
• How to Help Someone Deal with a Personality Disordered Person
  Clinicians are frequently confronted with clients who are married, have parents, or children who meet criteria for a personality disorder.  The usual methods that people use to deal with these individuals are at best ineffective and at worst destructive.  This presentation presents methods for clinicians to coach individuals dealing with personality disordered people in everyday life and offers ways to diminish the distress and disruption produced by personality disordered individuals.
  
• Managing Personality Disorders in Non-Psychiatric Settings
  Interventions that are not “treatment” have been developed for settings such as medical settings, hospice, emergency rooms, homelessness shelters. This presentation covers approaches to managing personality disorders that have been shown to be effective when the professional is not in an intensive psychiatric treatment setting.
  

February 2nd - 8:30am-12:00pm

• Personality Disorders in Children and Adolescents
  Recent research has demonstrated that full personality disordered functioning can be identified in children as young as 5 years old.  This presentation presents the findings of the research on children and adolescents and personality disorders, the differences in identifying the conditions in pre-emancipation children, and the interventions that have been found to be helpful in this population.

February 2nd - 1:00pm-4:30pm

• Aging and Personality Disorders
  Newer studies reviewing the life-course of personality disorders through aging now shows which disorders persist into old age, which “cluster” becomes more prominent in aging, and methods to predict which disorders get better, which get worse, and which continue consistently.  Interventions during aging have been studied and identified which approaches are most appropriate during aging.