Course Overview:

Belonging and connection are influenced by birth order. Looking back at the very beginnings of the family’s formation, and early patterns between siblings and with parents and caregivers can create healthy re-parenting opportunities.

This workshop will help counsellors and allied practitioners identify the effect of birth order on relational patterns in the children and parents they work with, as well as with the adult clients who struggle with family of origin issues.

This knowledge can enhance the usual genogram drawing at intake, and can be a catalyst for immediate change, and making sense of attachment needs.

The research of Alfred Adler and contemporary psychotherapists provides the theoretical foundation of the workshop around how we make sense of birth order, and its implications in family dynamics, parenting patterns, sibling rivalry and personality tendencies. (if you could source any current or even not so current research studies around this – all the better! This can also inform patterns in transference and countertransference.

 

“Does birth order explain everything?

No, but it has always proved to be a helpful tool

when clients understand it and apply it to their lives.”

Kevin Leman, Psychologist and author

   

This will be a fully interactive and dynamic learning process where participants will be sharing deindentified stories from their cases and own family experiences, and listening and supporting others to find ways to understand this birth order phenomena and explore the impact of sibling birth order in their client work. 

 

You will have the opportunity to:

• 1.      Identify the key birth order attributes, knowing that birth order is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’
• 2.       Reflect on experiences, hidden beliefs and patterns that were formed in childhood and can arise as counter-transference
• 3.       Apply these understandings to presented cases
• 4.       Expand intake exploration of birth order with parents of their child clients, and with adult clients to better understand the origin of many relationship problems

What ideas are explored?

• ·         Research into the typical influences and outcomes of birth order
• ·         Examples of clinical cases, famous families around birth order relevance
• ·         The relationship dynamics evolving when a family forms
• ·         Exploring attributes of first, second, youngest, last-born and the only child
• ·         Other factors influencing family dynamics and the development of personalities
• ·         Possible suggestions for parents where there is sibling rivalry or other problems
• ·         How we try to secure our place of belonging in a family

Who Should Attend?

Counsellors, psychologists, social workers, teachers who work with children, parents and adults. 

Workshop Facilitator

Presenter - Kim Billington, Narrative  Therapist
		Masters in Counselling, Masters in Narrative Therapy and Community Work, Bachelors in Education   Kim has worked with families for over 30yrs, and in the field of family violence, men’s behaviour change programs, family separation, bereavement and more. Kim has a Masters’ degree in Counselling, B. Ed and a Masters’ degree in Narrative Therapy.   Kim initially worked with The City of Melbourne and The City of Port Phillip as a specialist parent support worker. Kim has provided training for The Sydney Centre for Creative Change since 2013,   Kim is a PACFA & ACA clinical supervisor, including working with students completing their Masters’ of Counselling degree at Monash University. Her passion is to make available practice wisdom to support the next generation in the profession.   Kim enjoys working dynamically and creatively with families when they stumble in some tricky terrain. Most of her work is now online.   Kim is the author of #1 Amazon Bestseller: A Counsellor’s Companion – creative adventures for child counsellors, parents and teachers, and her latest book is about working with adult clients: Counselling Conversations – 10 powerful interviews with seasoned experts.   Kim uses Narrative Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy, Emotion Coaching, Somatic Experiencing and Gendlin’s Focusing techniques as ways to assist clients and supervisees to get in touch with their own inner child, whose needs were never all met from their own childhood.

Training Date and Times

4th April 2025, 9am - 12pm AEDT (Sydney Time)

or

6th November 2025, 9am - 12pm AEDT (Sydney Time)

 

Please note, this is a LIVE and INTERACTIVE training event. We don't record this.

 

 

Attending from interstate or internationally?

You can use this time converter to check the exact day and time of this training for your location.

Training Details

Included in the workshop price:

• 3 CPD hours 
• Access to slides and link to create Certificate of Attendance
• GST
• Live online training

 

Training Cost

SPECIAL Price        $200

Work Paying?

Lucky you!

Send us an email requesting an invoice via the contact page with your name, the dates and name of course/courses you'd like to do and the name of your organisation who you want us to invoice and we will send you an organisational invoice and a registration form.

 

What people are saying about Kim's courses:

√..Great! Kim was a wonderful and engaging presenter. I have learnt a lot about how to use this in my therapy work.

 

√..practical and experiential.

 

√..clear demonstration of great tools to use with young people and to support direction through creativity and drawing.

 

√..a good way to learn about a person (client) rather than seeing them for their referral or presenting issue. Great to get the bigger picture and understand where they come from.

 

√..Great session. Interactive. Generated thought and reflection.

 

√..a useful art therapy approach suitable to a wide range of clients and able to be adapted.

 

√..Framework to open discussion. Feels safer to discuss personal information using the tree, Visual is powerful and can be built on – like the ‘work-in-progress’ feel.

 

√..I’m working with a 10 & 12yr old at school and this will be a great tool!

 

√..The storytelling was emotive and powerful. I like the curious nature of this tool.

 

√..Very resourceful. Backs up my knowledge and gives me confidence to continue.

 

√..was an excellent training - valuable to counselling role and useful tools.

 

√..Fantastic presenter - loved the practicality of it.

 

 

  Approved ACA Event for 5 points