Unmitigated Agency - Managing Over-Control and Relational Dominance
This 3-hour interactive training workshop supports compassionate mental health professionals to work more effectively with clients who appear highly driven, dominant, intensely solution-focused, or resistant to emotional depth. Rather than mislabelling over-control as confidence, arrogance, or narcissism, this workshop introduces a psychologically informed framework that understands unmitigated agency as a threat-based protection response. You’ll learn how perceived loss of control, autonomy threat, and subtle power dynamics shape engagement and defensiveness. The focus is practical, ethical, and clinically grounded - helping you recognise early signs of control-based withdrawal, prevent power struggles, and foster emotional flexibility without undermining autonomy.
What will this training give you?
• A clearer understanding of why over-control and dominance emerge in therapy
• Practical ways to prevent competitive or power-based ruptures
• Greater confidence working with clients who interrupt, correct, or take control of sessions
• Skills to validate competence without reinforcing over-functioning
• Tools to gently expand emotional tolerance without triggering defensiveness
• A framework to differentiate healthy agency from control-based protection
Teaching Methods:
This training is delivered live online and uses a mix of brief expert instruction, facilitated discussion, live demonstration, and supported practice.
Participants engage in:
• Guided reflection on clinician countertransference
• Clinical vignette analysis
• Structured role-play scenarios
• Power-dynamic awareness exercises
• Micro-repair practice
Downloadable worksheets and participant reference materials are provided to support integration into clinical practice.
Assessment / Evidence of Learning:
Learning is evidenced through active participation in guided reflection activities, clinical discussion, and practical exercises during this live workshop.
Participants demonstrate learning through:
• Identification of coping patterns in vignette material
• Appropriate formulation of control-based regulation
• Use of autonomy-protective language in role-play
• Demonstration of de-escalation skills
Participants receive a statement of attendance for 3 CPD hours.
Presenter:
Karen Bartle is a postgraduate in Health Psychology, Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapist, clinical supervisor, co-founder of the Academy of Advanced Changework, founder of HealthTalk Psychology, and co-author of The Advanced Hypnotherapist.
With 25+ years’ experience, Karen supports practitioners working with complex behavioural and relational patterns. She is known for translating psychological depth into practical, usable clinical skills.
Disclaimer:
The content of this endorsed CPD course is provided by the external course provider. Attendees are encouraged to approach the material with an open mind and consider diverse perspectives, particularly those from lived experiences related to the topics discussed. For feedback regarding the course, please contact the course provider directly.