Part I: Understanding Trauma and its Reverberating Effects
3 Classes–18 CEUs
Presenter: Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAPA
- Depathologizing clients: a strengths-based approach
- Defining trauma and its relationship to “loss”
- Trauma and its effect on the brain
- Fight/flight and freeze responses
- The process of dissociation
- Trauma and its impact on declarative and non-declarative memory
- The somatization of trauma: common physical complaints
- Moving beyond talk therapy
- Using “focusing” and “somatic experiencing” to enhance body work
- Trauma in a family-of-origin context: roles, boundaries, and communication
- The childhood response to trauma: inevitable creative coping strategies
- Trauma and the challenges of attachment
- “Shifting the locus of control”: A model for understanding the introjection of shame and “badness”
- Dysfunctional family dynamics
- The impact of trauma on affect regulation
- Cognitive, emotional, behavioral manifestations of trauma in adulthood
- Trauma and addictive behaviors: the cycle of self-medication and re-traumatization
Learning Objectives
- Identify at least four strengths-based approaches to clients’ symptoms and trauma histories, and explain the concept and value of reframing.
- Describe the impact that trauma and repeated fight/flight responses have on the different parts of the brain.
- Analyze the impact that chronic childhood trauma has on declarative and non-declarative memory.
- Describe the connection between trauma, suppressed memory, and somatization.
- Define and apply at least two strategies designed to re-connect clients to their bodies and treat somatic symptoms.
- Explain the relationship between family-of-origin dynamics including: boundaries, roles, and communication styles and dysfunctional coping strategies.
- Apply theories of attachment and affect dysregulation to the symptomatology of trauma survivors.
- Diagram the family pyramid, the dynamics of attachment, and shifting the locus of control.
- Identify at least ten adult manifestations of prior trauma, abuse, and neglect.
- Describe the cycle of trauma and addiction and relate it to issues of dissociation, affect regulation, and loss of attachment.
- Identify at least four effective ways to address self-harm and addictive behaviors in trauma survivors.
Part II: Creatively and Effectively Treating Trauma
3 Classes–18 CEUs
Presenter: Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAPA
- Assessing for a history of trauma
- Incorporating objective assessment tools into treatment
- Identifying and working with co-morbidity
- Differential diagnoses for affective and anxiety disorders
- Identifying “medication myths” and how they relate to non-compliance
- Learning how to challenge resistance to medication
- Working collaboratively with primary care physicians to address the medical and mental health needs of trauma survivors
- State-of-the-art pharmacological treatment of anxiety and depression
- Exploring non-pharmacological treatment strategies to better manage depression and anxiety
- The do’s and don’ts of incorporating creative strategies
- Matching treatment issues to creative interventions
- Guidelines and goals for effective treatment
- The fundamentals of trauma treatment: laying a foundation before trauma retrieval occurs
- Enhancing safety and containment
- Pacing and grounding traumatized clients
- Addressing abreactions and flashbacks
- Exploring art therapy techniques, movement, breath work, writing, guided imagery, role play, tapping, spirituality
- Creative approaches to managing self-injurious behaviors: contracting with “CARESS”
Learning Objectives
- Describe and apply at least six objective assessment tools designed to address issues of trauma and co-morbidity.
- Identify the diagnostic criteria for assessing affective and anxiety disorders in trauma survivors.
- Identify the most commonly used anti-depressants and anxiolytics, and summarize how to present the issue of pharmacological treatment to “resistant” clients.
- Describe at least four “medication myths” that add to client resistance and explain how to work through those misconceptions to increase compliance.
- Define at least six non-pharmacological ways to treat depression and anxiety disorders in trauma survivors.
- Demonstrate an ability to prepare clients for creative interventions while specifying when creative work is and is not appropriate.
- Describe at least eight fundamental goals for safe, effective trauma treatment.
- Demonstrate an ability to promote client safety and to address issues of pacing and re-grounding.
- Describe and practice at least three strategies to promote containment, address flashbacks, and make abreactions productive rather than destructive.
- Identify and practice at least six art therapy techniques and two guided imagery techniques designed to help clients work through abuse memories, improve ego-strength, and self-esteem.
- Explain the cycle of self-harm and the role that affect dysregulation, dissociation, and reinforcement plays in the chronicity of the behavior.
- Describe CARESS and explain its role as a substitute for standard safety contracts with trauma survivors
Part III: Trauma and the Therapeutic Alliance
3 Classes–18 CEUs
Presenter: Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAP
- Understanding the power differential in the client/therapist relationship
- Traumatic transference: manifestations and challenges
- Addressing issues of trust, boundaries, and client testing
- Counter-transferential issues and therapist efficacy
- Empathic disequilibrium, enmeshment, withdrawal, and repression
- Symptoms of vicarious traumatization and burnout
- Addressing therapist self-care
- The nature of the therapeutic alliance
- Ethical issues and concerns
- Legal obligations
- Reporting abuse and its impact on treatment and the therapy relationship
- Turning reporting into an act of client empowerment
- Issues pertaining to client termination
Learning Objectives
- Explain the notion of seeking treatment from both clients’ and therapists’ perspectives and identify the similarities and differences that impact treatment outcomes.
- Define traumatic transference and summarize at least five manifestations in trauma survivors.
- Identify at least five ways in which trauma survivors test therapist boundaries and manifest trust issues in the therapeutic alliance.
- Describe at least six ways in which counter-transference adversely affects therapists’ efficacy.
- Identify and describe at least six symptoms of vicarious traumatization and cite at least six ways to enhance self-care and reduce professional burnout.
- Identify and discuss Dolgoff’s ethical principles and the hierarchy of professional responsibilities and obligations.
- Identify at least five red flags that indicate compromised therapists’ ethics.
- Discuss the specific duties of social work practice including: the duty to protect life, to report and warn, and the preservation of client confidentiality.
- Identify and describe legal issues of reporting abuse and neglect.
- Analyze the impact that reporting has on the therapeutic relationship and identify ways to reframe reporting as an act of client empowerment.
- Distinguish between five different termination modes and identify the clinical reasons why clients engage in unplanned terminations.
- Describe the most appropriate process for planned terminations and identify at least four issues that emerge when therapy ends.
