Sensory Defensiveness: A Comprehensive Treatment Approach

Sensory defensiveness is a serious sensory modulation problem that is rarely correctly identified and infrequently treated directly and effectively. This workshop will introduce an in-depth, clinical approach to treating sensory defensiveness. Sensory defensiveness will be described across multiple age and diagnostic groups. The relation between sensory defensiveness and emerging psychological and neuroscience theories of behavior will be considered.

Clinical labs consist of training in specific assessment and treatment techniques including the protocols developed by Patricia Wilbarger. Practicum exercises incorporate detecting and analyzing sensory based behaviors, activity planning (the “sensory diet”) and the management of individual cases using advanced clinical reasoning procedures.

Clinical work over four decades and advances in basic neuroscience have resulted in a specific, multidimensional treatment approach that has had a dramatic impact on client outcomes. This integrated approach is client centered and requires advanced clinical reasoning. Casual exposure to these procedures has resulted in misuse and misinterpretatio…