Speaking

Workshops & Speaker Services

Kalpana Murthy LPC & EMDR Therapist Atlanta
Here are a few of the topics for my workshops and speaking engagements. Content is customized with exercises and examples tailored for your organization. Content is also tailored to fit the timeframe available in your program.

Understanding Trauma and EMDR Therapy

This is a continuing education workshop for psychotherapists that I have taught at counseling centers and private psychiatric practices. This program can be modified for the general public who is interested in understanding how a lifetime of overwhelming experiences or a single incident trauma effects someone and understand the process, science and research behind EMDR Therapy for trauma recovery.

Getting Unstuck: The Root Cause of Anxiety and Self-Doubt

There are times when even the most confident, accomplished individual has a moment when he thinks “I’m not good enough” or “I’m going to fail”. There are times that no matter how well prepared you are or how much positive thinking you do, your anxiety gets in the way of you making a sales call, giving a presentation, or pursuing something else in your professional or personal life.

This workshop will help participants identify what’s at the root of their anxiety or negative beliefs and provide techniques and drug-free approaches to reduce anxiety, self-doubt, and negative thoughts.

Depression and Loss During Career Transition

Sadness, worry, fatigue, loss of motivation, hopelessness, and other depression symptoms are an understandable and common experience following job loss and during the career transition process.

This talk includes a discussion of: various causes of depression, how to work through each type of depression, drug-free approaches to treating symptoms, why you sometimes can’t just “get over” a traumatic loss, a six-step mourning process for accommodating loss, how recent loss activates prior experiences of rejection or loss, and how sadness and dissatisfaction can serve a purpose during the career transition process.

Conflict Resolution for Managers

Differences of opinion and different styles of getting things done are a fact of life in the workplace. Managing differences of opinion is an essential skill, but few managers have been taught how to handle conflict.

Most of what we know how to do creates unproductive conflict. Unproductive conflict among members of your team or between your company and your clients drains team morale, compromises creativity and ultimately can lead to the loss of employees, clients and revenue.

This workshop covers: the sources of conflict, the emotional needs that fuel conflict, how your view of conflict influences how you deal with conflict, what’s behind anger, assessment instruments to identify your work style and mode of dealing with conflict, and advanced communication skills to move differences of opinion away from a focus on personalities towards a focus on business objectives and productive resolution.

Building Your Stress Management Portfolio

Why is it that two highly skilled, competent professionals can have two very different reactions to the same stressful event at work? Stress management is much more than sleep, diet, exercise and breathing. In this talk, you’ll learn what determines your level of stress response and 15 qualities you can develop to build your portfolio of stress coping resources.

Testimonials from Workshops and Talks

“Kalpana was the best speaker of the day and possibly the week.” “I would love to have Kalpana come and talk to my department, because the advice she had was practical and ingenious.” “Kalpana was very knowledgeable and gave me fresh ideas in handling conflict. She is a breath of fresh air in management.” “An excellent presentation, a must for managers.” “Kalpana is a wonderful speaker. I would highly recommend taking a class from her.” “Conflict is a difficult topic and she made it easier to comprehend.” “Kalpana made some very good points that I will use with my staff in the coming months.” “This was a very worthwhile session.” “I enjoyed her presentation very much.” “Great speaker. I liked the ideas she had and I was impressed with the presentation.” “Please invite her to speak again.”
Quotes from survey of attendees of Conflict Management Workshop presented at the National Conference for the Association of PeriOperative Nurses.

“I recently heard Kalpana’s presentation on “Coping with Sadness and Loss During the Career Transition Process”. Kalpana’s message was a magnificent blend of fact, compassion, spirit, hope. I was uplifted and encouraged by every word! Kalpana’s style was warm and engaging, and I believe everyone came away with a fresh sense of direction and optimism for moving through the difficult journey of job transition.”
Chris Gilliam, Career Coach, The Gilliam Group

“I hired Kalpana to work with my team to facilitate a series of strategic business planning sessions and to lead us through a brand image repositioning project. I was most impressed with her ability to garner ideas and information from my staff. She managed to accomplish more creative strategy development in four hours than I was able to in four months because she understood appropriate techniques and had a finesse of interpersonal skill that created a positive resonance with my staff. I highly recommend her services.”
Phillip Hurd, Director, Department of Internal Auditing, Georgia Institute of Technology

“Kalpana has a direct and authentic presentation style. Her real-life work examples really bring home best practices and offer up workable ideas to manage and resolve conflict. Great content and visual models!”
Thom Gonyeau, VP & COO, Mountain View Group

“Kalpana consistently brings great value and brings a hybrid of corporate and clinical experience to the table, which makes her uniquely qualified to address human relations issues in corporate group settings and one-on-one. I’ve seen Kalpana in action, speaking to audiences of key business executives. Her communication style and message makes a genuine connection with the audience and engages them in a truly practical way.”
Eryn McHugh, Owner, FootPrint Talent

“I would recommend Kalpana as a speaker and facilitator, especially if time for interactive dialogue is available. Kalpana led a workshop on assertiveness for the Georgia Tech Women’s Resource Center to a packed conference room of riveted listeners. She helped students and staff think through situations they’d experienced and how to best assert themselves in a way that would be effective and meaningful. The exchange could have gone on for several hours. Kalpana combines her knowledge from the corporate world with her training as a counselor, giving her great insight into how to best support women’s individual and collective advancement.”
Yvette Upton, Assistant Dean of Students,
Director of the Women’s Resource Center, Georgia Institute of Technology

“I love that Kalpana kept her presentation grounded in science, not pop psychology. Excellent presentation! Clear, easy to understand, well-paced, thought provoking.”
Attendee at Women’s Leadership Conference