Full Course Description
The search for a secure base: current neurobiological insights in theory and practice
Trauma is a piercing of the protective boundary that maintains life, physical and psychological. Evolution has ensured that we are equipped to survive and recover from trauma, but because of the prolonged dependency and role of social learning in human development, if developmental processes go awry, or the trauma sufficiently overwhelming, the result can be PTSD, acute or chronic. Explore this perspective from an attachment point of view, draw on KarlFriston’s Free Energy Principle, and link these theories to therapeutic practice.
Program Information
Objectives
- Identify the implications of insecure attachment and its relationship to trauma.
- Apply Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle to those experiencing PTSD.
- Justify the therapeutic implications of the attachment perspective and the Free Energy Principle.
Outline
General comments:
- Definition of trauma
- Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
- Acute vs chronic trauma
- The trauma spectrum
Attachment perspectives on trauma:
- Tomasello’s research
- Bio-behavioural synchrony between infant and mother
- Bowlby/Hinde’s theory on environment of evolutionary adaptiveness
- Affect regulation and co-regulation
- Implications of secure attachment
- The role of diagnosis language
- Disorganized attachment
Relational neuroscience and trauma:
- The Free Energy Theory
- The brain: bottom up and top down conversations
- Adaptation and resilience
- Hierarchical free energy minimizing
- The work of Karl Friston
- Two person neuroscience
- Trauma and the Free Energy Principle
- Free Energy and PTSD
Therapeutic implications:
- Creating a relational context
- Sensitivity to attachment dynamic
- Trust
- Affect regulation via meditation/mindfulness
- Tolerating ambiguity
- Psychoactive drugs
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/15/2021
Where do we go from here? Addressing the legacy of racialized trauma on attachments between black people
In this presentation Dr. Anne Aiyegbusi will offer a trauma informed perspective on the impacts of racialised trauma and injustice on the attachments between black people and people of colour. A generational perspective will be taken and parallels between historical atrocity and present day relations will be made. The question of how we move on from this will be considered?
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the treatment implications regarding the effect of intergenerational trauma on attachments between black people and people of color.
- Construct a framework to understand the legacy of racialized trauma as it relates to case conceptualization.
- Integrate the neurological and physical implications of racialized trauma in relation to assessment and treatment planning.
Outline
Manifestations of racism in the present day
- Race disparities
- Modern-day lynchings by law enforcement
- Reporting to police for living while black
- Health and Life expectancy disparities - racial weathering
- Disproportionate incarceration rates
- Higher rates of mental illness/psychological detention
- Underrepresented access to psychological therapies
Traumatic history of imperialism underpinning racism
- Invasion
- Colonization
- Plunder
Psychological processes shaping and upholding racist conceptualizations
- ‘Redefinition’ in slave ships to thinking of oneself as a commodity rather than a human being
- Gaslighting deception
- Multiple pathologizing deceptions to conceal motivation
- ‘Race’ with its hierarchy
- Civilizing influence and salvation
- Spreading democracy
- Dependence and governance (childlike)
Implications of racist trauma and experience for attachments
- Trauma impacts the ability to connect with other people
- The sense of being dead, disconnection
- Wider social environment needs to be considered in attachment theory
- Attachment system mediates generational trauma and repetition through internal working models
- Racism carries the weight of multiple forms of trauma
Generational transmission
- ‘Body to body - generation to generation’
- Trauma routinely spreads between bodies
- Someone with unhealed trauma may try to soothe it by blowing it through another person
- Perpetuating trauma on another person
Processes that enable intergenerational trauma
- Unconscious deposits in the developing psyches of children
- Unmourned loss (chronically grieving caregivers)
- Overwhelming stories being talked about in front of children
- Behavioral manifestations of unprocessed trauma
- Blowing it through other people’s bodies
- Body to body closeness and vagal nerve to vagal nerve closeness
Neurological and physical implications of racialized trauma
- Reptilian/lizard brain
- Fight, flight, freeze, flop (collapse), friend (align themselves with threat person)
- Racialized trauma lodges powerfully here in reptilian brain, subject to triggers
- Vagus/Soul Brain
- Highly sensitive and vulnerable to trauma, to other people and environment
- Registers visceral reactions
- Reptilian.brain and vagal nerve very reactive to racial trauma
Intergenerational trauma and its impacts
- Illegitimizing, tearing apart and dispersal of families/attachments
- Brutalization, terrorism, rape, and murder of attachment figures encourage avoidant style of attachment to protect against potential pain
- Commodification of the black body internalized and passed on generationally
- Criminalization and threat to life of ‘subordination” (or disrespect) relating to black youth killing one another for signs of disrespect
- Dehumanization and denigration of blackness
- Preference for lighter complexions - shadism
- Shame and internalization of the oppressor’s shame
- Identification with aggressor
Environments in big cities are so traumatic its unimaginable
- Lack of opportunities to escape (repetition of earlier generation’s traumas)
- Unrecognized mental health problems
- Combination of terror and numbing
- Culture of not talking about feelings
- Very little access to help
- Rap/drill music expresses pain underlying violence, crimes, drug dealing, misogyny
- Vilified music shuts down expressions of pain - silencing
- Cuts to resources - spaces and services that could offer support
Role of whiteness in upholding this trauma at a societal, institutional level, individual level
- Operates outside the conscious awareness of those identified with it
- Whiteness is highly visible to those who are not identified with it and who feel its impact
- White ignorance
- White fragility
- White gaze
- White privilege
Where do we go from here?
- Address our paradigms and trainings
- Education - honestly linking past with present
- Elucidate ‘whiteness’ and its role in upholding status quo
- Clarify impact of racialized trauma in attachment and internalized models of relationships in a wider sense
- Address body trauma
- Address the restructuring of the educational and therapeutic systems to incorporate therapists who are able to understand and address this intergenerational trauma
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/15/2021
Understanding the impact of stress and adversity on social connectedness: A Polyvagal Perspective
The Polyvagal Theory explains how social behavior turns off defenses and promotes opportunities to feel safe. It provides an innovative model to understand bodily responses to trauma and stress and the importance of the client’s physiological state in mediating the effectiveness of clinical treatments. From a Polyvagal perspective, interventions that target the capacity to feel safe and use social behavior to regulate physiological state can be effective in treating psychological disorders that are dependent on defense systems.
Program Information
Objectives
- Build an understanding of Polyvagal Theory and how it relates to the Autonomic System.
- Build an awareness and understanding of immobilization with and without fear.
- Build an understanding of neuroception.
Outline
Polyvagal Theory
Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
Phylogenetic Stages of ANS
Emergent Properties of Physiological State
- Environment
- Nervous system
Immobilization of fear
Deconstructing the Social Engagement System
- Cortex
- Brainstem
- Cranial nerves
Face-Heart Connection
Social Engagement System
Connectedness
Dissolution
Co-Regulation
- Phase 1
- Phase 2
- Immobilization without fear
Trauma
- Disruption of the connectedness
Safety
Predictable health consequences of threat disrupting ANS function
Neuroception
- Nervous system
- Defensive systems
- 3 circuits, 6 states
Trauma or safety
- Definition of safety
- Vagal brake
- Vagal efficiency
Body Perception Questionnaire
Safe and Sound Protocol
Clinical impact of Polyvagal Theory
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/16/2021
A mind-body approach to race-based stress and trauma
Prominent Psychologist Dr. Gail Parker discusses the concept of race based traumatic stress in this workshop and clarifies how this concept is different from the diagnosis of PTSD and other forms of trauma. Drawing upon her many years of clinical practice as well as her training in yoga, Dr. Parker offers useful guidance for clinicians to promote racial healing, emotional regulation, and restorative practice, utilizing a mind-body approach. Clinicians who work with clients presenting with histories of racial trauma will gain new insights regarding their own racial identity as well as how to best serve their clients.
Program Information
Objectives
- Differentiate various presentations of trauma and understand the unique features of race-based traumatic stress.
- Evaluate the relationship between mind and body in promoting racial healing.
- Analyze the potential efficacy of integrating yoga practices into one’s clinical work based on findings presented in this program.
Outline
- Understanding unique features of race-based traumatic injury
- Learning how racial wounding impacts both the body and mind
- Exploring one’s own racial identity and common triggers
- Learning important tools to promote racial healing in clinical practice
- Learning to model restorative practice in one’s clinical work
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses
- Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/01/2021
Restoring Embodiment, Empowerment, and Safety: Healing Power Wounds underlying Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics and Disorganised Attachment
Dr. Heller discusses ways to restore empowerment and safety in more challenging client’s situations. She differentiates between 2 types of abuse and how to best care for clients who have sustained those types of abuse. She closes with a look at disorganized attachment and ways to help clients find secure resolutions, and interventions.
Program Information
Objectives
- Practice installing competent protectors in clients with trauma.
- Evaluate clients for return to Exploratory Orientation.
- Distinguish between Sadistic and Narcissistic abuse and the appropriate treatment for the clients/victims.
Outline
- Install Competent Protector
- Power Dynamics
- How do you relate to power?
- 10 Steps of Tyranny
- Working with Power Wounds
- Victim-perpetrator dynamics
- Sadistic vs. narcissistic abuse
- Disorganized attachment
- Secure resolutions
- Intervention
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/15/2021
Altered States of Consciousness and Dissociation: Toward the Restoration of the Self
Psychological trauma and childhood attachment disruptions are often associated with emotion dysregulation, altered states of consciousness, dissociation, and a perceived loss of one’s sense of self. This lecture will examine the neuroscience and the related brain/mind/body correlations underlying four dimensions of consciousness: time, thought, body, and emotion. This lecture will assess how to restore the self through the integrated experience of these five dimensions of consciousness in the aftermath of trauma.
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the effects of trauma on psychopathology and its relationship to attachment.
- Appraise 4 dimensions of consciousness that are often impacted by trauma-related psychopathology: time, thought, body, and emotion.
- Evaluate the clinical and neurobiological implications of each dimension of consciousness.
Outline
Psychiatric Comorbidity of Chronic Early Trauma
- Attachment Dysregulation
- Window of Tolerance
The Four Dimensions of Consciousness Impacted by Psychological Trauma
- Consciousness of Time
- Consciousness of Thought
- Consciousness of Body
- Consciousness of Emotion
Emotion Process & the Reptilian Brain
- Periaqueductal Gray (PAG)
Implications for Therapy
- Top Down vs. Bottom Up Processing
- Having vs. Being an Emotion
- The Default Mode Network as a Model for the Sense of Self
- Shame & Negative Evaluation
- Self & Other
- From Trauma to Recovery
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Addiction Counsellors
- Psychiatrists
- IAPT Practitioners
- Nurses
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/16/2021
Drawing on the Body to Integrate Conflicting Attachment Patterns in Dissociative Clients
For dissociative clients, internal parts of the self often experience contradictory relational goals and attachment tendencies. In times of stress, these conflicting goals and tendencies can become more entrenched, exacerbating dissociative symptoms, increasing dysregulation and wreaking havoc on relationships. In this presentation, we will explore the effects and somatic components of contradictory internal attachment tendencies. Interventions from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to work with the body to facilitate integration of internal attachment tendencies, and better cope with stress, will be introduced.
Program Information
Objectives
- Differentiate between the two sub-systems in structural dissociation in clients with trauma.
- Devise a plan for how to acknowledge the purpose of a part to improve treatment outcomes.
- Determine how to approach systemic oppression and racialized trauma in a clinical setting.
Outline
Explanation of dissociative part of self
Review of structural dissociation systems
- Case example of client with three parts: explicit part, submissive part, defensive part
- Description of therapeutic approach
Outline of how to acknowledge the purpose of a part
- Relational goals and purposes of parts example
Mapping part of the self and relational patterns
- Develop understanding of parts and notice signs of parts emerging
- Body figure and posture to map physical correlates of parts
Systemic Oppression and racialized trauma and relationship to dissociation
- Case example with racialized trauma
- Current ongoing systemic trauma
Attachment system
- Proximity seeking actions
Mindfulness
- Directed mindfulness as integration strategy
- Experiment with client using somatic sense of proximity
Self touch
- Benefits
- Pitfalls
- Examples and alternatives
Discussion of therapist’s approach: safe but not too safe
Question and answer
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
04/16/2021
Trauma & Attachment – interpersonal neurobiology and the traumatic transference
In this dynamic conversational session, Janina Fisher, PhD, a nationally and internationally recognized psychotherapist, consultant, trainer, and author, closely explores trauma and attachment, as well as traumatic transference. She skillfully analyzes interpersonal neurobiology and investigates essential trauma-informed therapeutic interventions. In addition, Dr. Fisher elucidates trauma-informed approaches to psychotherapy, exploring key neurobiological premises and offering excellent experience-based examples.
Program Information
Objectives
- Investigate trauma, attachment, and traumatic transference in psychotherapy.
- Analyze trauma-informed psychotherapeutic approaches and interventions that assist with optimizing therapeutic outcomes.
- Examine interpersonal neurobiology and right-brain to right-brain communication for maximizing therapeutic outcomes.
Outline
- Attachment as a body experience
- Attachment bonds
- Interpersonal habits formation
- Therapy as an attachment experience
- Implicit memory and autonomic dysregulation
- Conditioning of the autonomic nervous system in a traumatic world
- Autonomic high arousal
- Autonomic low arousal
- Soothing and fear
- Somatic signs of dysregulation
- Resistance
- The role of the client’s attachment in accepting the therapist’s help
- Childhood trauma and traumatic attachment
- Regulation between the client and the therapist
- Speaking and answering questions in a traumatic environment
- Sadness and anger
- Longing and a sense of threat in a therapeutic encounter
- Vicious circles of dysregulation
- The importance of relaxing the body
- The importance of voiding long periods of sitting in silence
- Adjusting body language, facial expressions, and the tone of voice to find what works best for the client
- Preverbal and traumatic experiences as feeling in body memory
- Regulation and attachment styles
- Research on attachment styles and effectiveness of therapy
- Neurobiological regulation and ideomotor signaling
- Therapeutic rupture and empathic failure
- The first rule of recovering from empathic failure
- Meeting the emotional charge
- Empathic failure impacts the client’s ability to reason
- Right-brain to right-brain communication as “good enough” therapy
- Corrective experiences
- Tending to the client’s “wounded place.”
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/04/2021
Inter-relational complexities of trauma in groups, teams and institutions
Complex trauma dynamics reverberate through all levels of the treatment setting. This presentation will focus on inter-relational complexities of trauma in groups, teams and institutions. By the end of the presentation, you will have an awareness of:
- Group analytic perspective on trauma
- How trauma phenomena impacts treatment settings
- Strategies to mitigate secondary trauma on teams
Program Information
Objectives
- Identify five traits that may be projected upon nurses by clients who have experienced complex trauma.
- Determine the signs and symptoms of Emotional Labor.
- Analyze at least four Group Analytic Concepts.
Outline
Complex Trauma
- PTSD
- Personality Disorders
- Addictions
- Psychosis
Risk to staff
- Abuse
- Individuals, team, organiztions
Concepts
- Group Analytic Concepts
- Amplification
- Layers of communication
- Social Unconsciousness
- Figure and ground
- Location of disturbance
- Psychoanalytic Concepts
- System of social defeneses
- Containment
- Hate in the counter -transference
- The special patient – the ailment
- Paranoid schizoid position
- Related concepts
- Attachment theory
- Truth/denial dialectic of trauma
- Power Threat Meaning Framework
Institutions
- Risky scenarios within institutions
- Blom Cooper Inquiry
- Fallon Inquiry
Emotional Labor
- Showing behavior and emotions required by the professional role
Racism
- What helps?
- Secure base for staff
- Take racism seriously
- Interpersonal framework
- Validation of experience
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/12/2021
Treating trauma – essentials for working with inherent relational complications
International trainer and esteemed psychotherapist Michael Soth has an innovative discussion on the complexities of working with trauma. This conversation includes how trauma affects internal attachment, internalization of the ‘wounding object’ in developmental trauma, and how wounding enters the therapy room. This information is essential for understanding relational complications when working with clients who are experiencing developmental trauma.
Program Information
Objectives
- Implement techniques to understand and identify in session when the client’s conflict becomes the therapist’s conflict.
- Apply strategies to establish and intervene when wounding enters the therapy session and the therapist becomes objectified by the client.
- Formulate plans to incorporate different types of working alliances and the complex levels of developmental trauma.
Outline
- Effortless working alliance
- Conflicted working alliance
- Working alliance threatened
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
10/08/2020
The key to using countertransference to resolve relational enactments
When the client is highly dissociative, the therapist is vulnerable to intense and sometimes overwhelming emotional experiences that are often projections of fragmented parts of the client, or non-verbal enactments of unintegrated trauma. In this course, you will learn about the emotions around countertransference that range from positive to negative, and how to understand and use them therapeutically. Kathy Steele leads you through an in depth look at enactments and skills about how to approach.
Program Information
Objectives
- Construct a list of common enactments that occur in clients with dissociation.
- Devise appropriate therapeutic responses for approaching enactments.
- Develop strategies for intervention as the therapist for our managing history in sessions.
Outline
Discussion of countertransference
- Our reactions as therapists
- Clients’ reactions
Drama triangle
Common relational enactments
- How to recognize enactments
Clinical example of enactments
- Projective identification
- Common dynamics
- Dynamics with clients
Treatment of enactments
Attachment styles
Question/ Answer
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/12/2021
Common enactment issues in supervision
When the client is highly dissociative, the therapist is vulnerable to intense and sometimes overwhelming emotional experiences that are often projections of fragmented parts of the client, or non-verbal enactments of unintegrated trauma. In this course, you will learn about the emotions around countertransference that range from positive to negative, and how to understand and use them therapeutically. Kathy Steele leads you through an in depth look at enactments and skills about how to approach.
Program Information
Objectives
- Construct list of common enactments that occur in clients with dissociation.
- Devise appropriate therapeutic responses for approaching enactments.
- Develop strategies for intervention as the therapist for our managing history in sessions.
Outline
Discussion of countertransference
- Our reactions as therapists
- Clients’ reactions
Drama triangle
Common relational enactments
- How to recognize enactments
Clinical example of enactments
- Projective identification
- Common dynamics
- Dynamics with clients
Treatment of enactments
Attachment styles
Question/ Answer
Target Audience
- Psychotherapists
- Counsellors
- IAPT practitioners
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Therapists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counsellors
- Nurses, Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
03/12/2021
Panel: The impact of adversity and trauma on attachment and mental health
Copyright :
04/15/2021
Panel: Key neurobiological insights of the impact of trauma on attachment
Copyright :
04/16/2021
Panel: Complex relational dynamics in the treatment of trauma
Copyright :
03/12/2021