Trauma Certificate Level II: A Three-Stage Approach to Incorporating Expressive & Creative Therapies • Part 2

Please Note: This training is ONLY open to Level II Trauma Certificate participants. For information about the Level II Trauma Certificate Program, click here.

In this core training for the Level II Certificate Program, participants will learn a three-stage treatment approach utilizing Expressive Therapies to facilitate healing for trauma survivors.

Day one:

Stage 1 – Into the “out of the box” where we will learn how to join with clients while helping them connect with inner memories and feelings. In this first stage, we will address the mourning phase, enabling the client to express anger, frustration, mistrust, sadness and other feelings that need to be expressed and processed using Psychodrama, Drama Therapy, Music, Art therapy and other Expressive modalities. This creates distancing and clarity in order to free some space which will enable clients to create an inner container to hold stage two.

Stage 2 – “Reconstruction” where we help clients to access, define and experience creative new ways to fix the traumatic scene. This second stage is the correction phase. Using techniques derived from Drama Therapy, and guided imagery, clients have the opportunity to take charge and to redirect the traumatic scene. This unique experience produces a new and revised re-frame for traumatic events. When accomplished and implemented, this new frame will be added to any flashback experience, thus easing clients’ pain and tension and allowing them to move on to the third stage.

Day two:

Stage 3 – “The creative expression” where we help clients re-connect to vitality, potency and creativity. In this stage the client is connected to a form of suitable artistic expression which leads to a tangible “creative product” including: artwork, music, a dramatic or a written piece. This innovative creation will lead to the completion of the therapy process by utilizing the clients’ creative force to produce an aesthetic product from the shattered pieces of the traumatic experience. The training is highly experiential, interactive and fun, giving clinicians the opportunity to learn the model by doing it in a supportive and safe environment.