Full Course Description

Attachment: Make every session a safe adventure for you and your client

To practice on-target, effective, relevant, and empirically based psychotherapy we need a map to the core processes of personality growth and dysfunction. Attachment-focused interventions take us to the heart of the matter with every client and show us how to move them into emotional balance, secure connection with self and others, and resilience in the face of life’s challenges. Every session then becomes a safe adventure for both therapist and client.

Program Information

Objectives

Outline the main implications of attachment science for therapy practice
Describe the main features of EFIT – an attachment-focused intervention
Specify change events and how intervention links to depression and trauma treatment

Outline

EFIT offers a clear focus and way into clinical problems

The EFT Tango offers a set of tested interventions

Attachment offers a map to attune to client’s fears, needs, longings, and identity dilemmas

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/29/2023

Healing Protective and Wounded Parts Using Internal Family Systems Therapy

Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy is an attachment-based, trauma-focused model of psychotherapy. Just as when children attach outwards to their parents to find a sense of safety, in IFS therapy, parts attach inwards to the Self, and find a safe haven and self-regulation. While many attachment-focused therapies tend to focus on the corrective experience that occurs between the therapist and client, in IFS therapy this becomes somewhat secondary to the facilitation of a healing connection between the client’s Self, and their protective and wounded parts that hold the residues of traumatic experiences. Concurrently, the therapist notices their own parts that become activated in the therapeutic dyad, with the aim of remaining in their own regulated Self-led state, in order to effectively facilitate the client’s process. The client’s Self provides the corrective experience, and in particular, the relationship between the Self and the vulnerable parts leads to inner, and ultimately, outer transformation.

This practical session provides an introduction to Internal Family Systems therapy for clinicians and will cover:

Providing participants with an introduction to some of their own protective parts through an experiential IFS exercise
the organising principles of IFS therapy
An introduction to the IFS concept of Self
An overview of the main categories of protective parts in IFS
How to connect to protective parts using the 6Fs process of IFS
A fictionalised case study to illustrate the model
options for therapists seeking IFS training, consultation, and supervision in Australia/NZ.

This product is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the IFS Institute and does not qualify for IFS Institute credits or certification.

Program Information

Objectives

Determine the bidirectional relationship between external attachment processes and internal attachment processes from an IFS perspective
Differentiate between protective and wounded (i.e. traumatized) parts using the IFS framework
Conduct a basic interview of protective parts using the IFS 6F’s framework

Outline

IFS as Internal Attachment versus External Attachment Models
Bidirectional relationship between Internal Attachment and External Attachment Outline of Protective Parts (Managers and Firefighters)
Outline of Wounded Parts (Exiles) The Self as Secure Attachment Figure
Transformation and Fluidity of Parts as a consequence of secure attachment to Self-Interviewing Protective Parts - the 6F’s
The Unburdening Process as Trauma Reprocessing

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/29/2023

The Role of Reflective Function in Repair Work with Couples Parts 1 & 2

Conflict and regrettable incidents are the driving force for couples seeking couples therapy. Couples are tired of constant fighting and they often present when distressing events have fractured their relationship. Such distressing events include (but are not limited to) breaches of trust, incidents of secrecy, and situational violence. As therapists, we want to help couples process these disruptive events and there are many existing processes and interventions that we can apply to do this.

But how do we know if these have worked or not? And what are our measures for success?

It is through the prism of reflective functioning that we can tell if resolution has been achieved or not.

Integrating contemporary attachment theory with research-based couples therapy, this seminar will introduce markers of reflective functioning that therapists can encourage clients to achieve and which will be a measure of resolution of regrettable incidents. These include:

Awareness of change in thinking over time
Awareness of others thinking differently
Awareness of change as a function of development
Awareness of shared & reciprocal responsibility
Acceptance of imperfection
Awareness of differences in behavior with different people
Awareness of complex causation
Awareness of mixed feelings
Interactive effects, shared responsibility for outcomes
Appearance vs reality

Program Information

Objectives

Demonstrate understanding of the 10 markers of reflective functioning.
Be able to measure success or failure of a repair process in a couples therapy session.
Integrate process and evaluation of process in couples therapy interventions.

Outline

“Are We Ok Now?” How to know when couples have truly healed
Resolution of Trauma: The ten markers you need to know when working with couples
Reflective Functioning with Couples

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/29/2023

Working at the Interface of Attachment, Trauma, and Attachment Trauma

Effectively discerning attachment and attunement wounding from trauma is foundational to effective therapy. This presentation will enable clinicians to discern attachment from trauma and from attachment trauma, and understand critical elements of the interface between these psychological wounds to enable effective and targeted therapeutic interventions.

Program Information

Objectives

Participants will be able to differentiate attachment, attunement, and traumatic wounding
Participants will be able to design therapeutic interventions that work at the interface of attachment and trauma impacts
Understand the sequelae of impacts following attachment trauma

Outline

Comprehend attachment and attunement wounding
Differentiate type I and type II traumatization
Understand the critical interface between attachment and traumatic wounding that often interrupts therapeutic progress

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/29/2023

Trauma-informed TEAM-CBT: Strategies to place secure attachment at the forefront of therapy

This presentation is for anyone who has felt stuck with clients who refuse to engage with treatment and seem to be in an endless round of avoidance, unhelpful coping mechanisms, and deep distress.

TEAM-CBT is an advanced form of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by renowned psychiatrist and author, Dr David Burns. This presentation will give you a practical framework to use some of the most helpful methods of TEAM-CBT that address problems of trauma.

Discover the latest innovations in the CBT field and help your trauma clients move towards healing.

Program Information

Objectives

After the presentation participants will be able to evaluate each of the 4 factors of the acronym TEAM.
Participants will revise the reasons CBT might have been difficult to apply within the population of trauma survivors and analyze different techniques to overcome those issues.
Participants will be able to measure client satisfaction in session by implementing routine outcome measures to track progress or severity of symptoms.
Participants will be able to identify and employ communication tools to strengthen the empathic connection with their clients.
Participants will be able to explain the benefits of working with resistance and plan to use a paradoxical cost-benefit analysis to boost motivation for change in their clients.
Participants will be able to devise more effective treatment plans which incorporate the elements of T E A M with a broader selection of effective methods to target people with PTSD.

Outline

The components of TEAM-CBT; Testing, Empathy, Assessment of Resistance, and Methods
Strengthening the therapeutic alliance
How to address outcome and process resistance
Methods and mistakes to avoid

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/29/2023

COMPLEX TRAUMA: RECOGNISING AND RESPONDING EFFECTIVELY TO OUR CLIENTS - A day of theory and training for working beyond single incident trauma.

Complex trauma is highly damaging but frequently unrecognized and inappropriately treated. While current research in the neurobiology of attachment has major implications for treatment of trauma, the potential of these insights is not widely operationalized in clinical practice, and confusion about the differences between ‘complex’ and ‘single incident’ trauma persists.

This training event addresses the stakes of recognizing and responding to complex trauma (which comes in numerous guises) in light of current research findings and their implications for treatment.

Clinical and research insights establish that effective approaches to complex trauma are “phased” and need to engage physical as well as cognitive and emotional processes (‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’) This poses challenges to standard perspectives (i.e. insight-based and cognitive behavioral) which privilege ‘talk’ and which thus require reconsideration. Core features of effective therapy for complex trauma will be delineated and discussed.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise differences between single incident and complex trauma and their treatment implications
Formulate the necessary components of effective therapy for complex trauma
Analyze ways in which standard psychotherapeutic approaches may require adaptation for use in the treatment of complex trauma
Categorize the three phases of recommended treatment for complex trauma
Assess the roles of dissociation and enactments in complex trauma treatment
Evaluate the relationship between research findings pertaining to complex trauma and their application to clinical practice

Outline

Session 1

Definitions, diagnosis, challenges
`Complex’ and ‘single incident trauma (PTSD) - the stakes of the distinction and the implications for treatment.
The neurobiology of experience: stress, overwhelming stress, and their many impacts
What lens are we looking through? Trauma and dissociation.
Clinical implications: stages of therapy & overall frame.
Ongoing challenges in therapy for complex trauma.
Traumatic re‐enactment & enactments in the therapy room.
Trauma theory.
Attachment and Development.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.

Session 2

Clinical implications of the research base- importance of non-verbal and the body (`bottom up’ and `top down’).
The challenge to `standard’ psychotherapeutic approaches.
Current validated approaches.
Mental health and adaptation to trauma.
The importance of dissociation.
Key features of effective therapy for complex trauma.
Working clinically: Initial stages of therapy.
Towards self-regulation (the centrality of safety).
Phased treatment.
Transference and countertransference.
The high stakes of therapist well-being.
What the current research tells us.
Vicarious trauma, self-care, and supervision.
Evaluation and closing.

Target Audience

Counselors
Psychotherapists
Coaches
Psychologists
Hypnotherapists
Social Workers
Case Workers
Pastoral Care Workers
Community Workers
Nurses
Psychiatrists

Copyright : 04/29/2021

Applying Attachment Theory to Heal Intergenerational Trauma in Families and Individuals

Attachment and trauma are overlapping realities.

Program Information

Objectives

Apply insights to enhance assessment / formulation skills
Appraise attachment and trauma in multiple intergenerational contexts
Integrate best practice research in our chosen therapeutic models

Outline

Two social levels of intergenerational trauma— culture (Australian Aboriginal / First Nations People) and family—and current views on change mechanisms for treatment consideration
Assessment of attachment and trauma with and without research measures: The role of person-centered insight
Identification and assessment of attachment-related capacities (e.g., emotion regulation) as a platform for understanding severity of trauma
Treatment options and considerations: Two complementary case studies— (1) culture-wide considerations in the Australian context, and (2) an adult with disorganized attachment history.

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Copyright : 05/30/2023

Techniques to Help Clients Restore Trust in Themselves so They can Trust You Part 1 & 2

Trauma can leave us fearfully doubting ourselves, disconnecting us from ourselves and others. The younger we are the more extensive and insidious the impacts are on our lives and relationships. Attachment Theory helps us understand this.

In this presentation, I will demonstrate various ways you can help your clients reconnect with their own truth, knowing, and wisdom. I will demonstrate ways you can help them see and deal with fears. I will demonstrate ways you can connect your clients to the parts of them that are calm and wise and that do know what to do.

I will show you safe and beneficial ways of working with dissociation. I will model and differentiate ways of staying warmly connected with the client, of ‘following their process’, and of helping them be with their inner processes.

We will use journaling techniques as they are powerful tools of connection to self. Clients can continue to develop

The presentation will be experiential. When you experience something that works for you, it goes down to your foundations, and you will be able to do it with others. So bring paper, pencils or pens you like to use. This is preferable to working on screens.

Program Information

Objectives

Build confidence working in different channels; somatically (movement), with active imagination (think Jung and guided imagery), with art therapy (squiggle drawings), with different parts of clients (the wounded baby, the wise and loving elder) and relationship with self (journaling and free writing).
Integrate fresh information arising each time channels are switched as clients quickly and deeply have therapeutic insights and healing in these modes.
Support actions arising in the processes.
Modify and apply these skills to practice and utilize them according to therapy style of practice and client’s needs.
Safely experiment with and employ the techniques.
Design and develop new ways of working effectively with the techniques most appropriate to the client’s needs.

Outline

What’s my truth now? Simple journaling exercise. This can become a mantra so your client can access their truth and act on it throughout the day.
Using journaling to dissociate safely and to access the wise elder within.
What’s in the way of me and my truth and happiness, intergenerationally? Again employing journaling and active imagination channels to contact the moods we absorbed from our mothers/fathers/grandparents/caregivers and to break our loyalty to their trauma responses and states that are not good for us.
What does the baby me need and how can I meet those needs? I’ll use and model active imagination, guided imagery, polyvagal comforting speech tone and rhythm to distinguish our attachment disruptions, and to bring compassion and comfort to the baby us. And yes, you’ll also be journaling.
Distinguish your key learnings and formulate ways you can integrate them into your therapy style.

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

A Somatic Approach to repairing Trauma and Attachment Ruptures: Restoring the natural rhythms of connection

Life is a series of regulation plateaus and changes. We gain and lose these regulation capacities moment to moment, day to day, week to week. This is a natural and often unconscious part of life. Over time individuals, families and relationships develop their own unique regulation patterns.

With trauma, either a single incident or long-term, these patterns become interrupted, unintegrated, and dysregulated. This affects our ability to stay in embodied connection with ourselves and with people and situations in our lives.

Consistently poor or absent parental attunement is also a major disruptor of our capacity to maintain these regulatory patterns of flow within self and between self and others. In such circumstances the most potent regulator, a safe and secure ongoing human connection is unavailable, inconsistent, or threatening. Resulting in anxious, avoidant, and disordered attachment patterns.

In this somatically oriented seminar, we will identify and observe how these disruptions occur energetically in the physical body. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral correlates of different regulatory patterns will be presented. Special focus will be given to how these patterns affect one’s current attachment patterns and sense of connection. In the context of a few case studies, some interventions will be presented and demonstrated that have been found to be effective in the restoration of these natural energetic regulatory rhythms.

Program Information

Objectives

Recognize the many different energetic regulatory patterns of the body that can be observed and worked with.
Demonstrate how these patterns are interrupted / dysregulated by Trauma and Misattuned Attachment
Theorize the impact of these interruptions on client’s current capacity for healthy sustaining relationships with self and other..

Outline

Increase their observation skills regarding somatic regulatory patterns
Apply a few simple subtle interventions to assist clients to change these patterns
Create more understanding of their own regulatory patterns and how this impacts their therapeutic work.

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Treating Attachment and Trauma Issues from a Systemic Family Therapy Approach

Broaden your perspective on trauma from a family systems approach, and its capacity to help to heal attachment and traumatic wounds. You will also learn how to apply Circular Questioning in family sessions to give you a 'scaffolding' in your work with families as well as a powerful method for helping families recover from individual and family traumas.

Program Information

Objectives

Appraise trauma in a family systems context.
Determine what a family system is and to differentiate between dysfunctional and functional systems.
Apply Circular Questioning applied to trauma work and include it in your work with families.

Outline

Understanding Trauma from the perspective of the Autonomic Nervous System and Family Systems.
Common symptoms in pre-school and school children.
Protective Factors in Trauma.
Attachment: Secure Attachments in Functional Family Systems.
Circular Questioning - a powerful technique in Family Therapy, applied to Trauma.

Target Audience

Psychotherapists

Trauma and Attachment

Christina Reese has dedicated her life’s work to helping those with trauma cope to live healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives. In her newest book, Trauma and Attachment, she has created a resource to guide clients from a place of fear, anxiety, and trauma to healthy attachment.

In this comprehensive yet accessible book, Dr. Reese provides an attachment framework for treating clients who have experienced a multitude of traumas, ranging from abuse and neglect to medical traumas, natural disasters, and exposure to violence. Through a variety of worksheets, exercises, and activities, this book provides clients with the tools they need to develop a foundation for healing so they can find feelings of safety and security within relationships again.

Inside, clinicians will find tools to help clients heal from the impact of:

Abuse by helping them establish safety and security within relationships.
Neglect by teaching them to find their voice and express their needs.
Medical trauma by helping them adjust to a new normal and better tolerate uncertainty.
Natural disasters by using mindful grounding techniques to navigate sensory triggers and cultivate mind-body awareness.
Witnessing violence by restoring clients’ sense of felt safety and helping clients identify what they can control to keep themselves safe.