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. In my talk I shall explore this perspective from an attachment point of view, draw on Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle, and point to therapeutic implications. Copyright : 15/04/2021

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? Copyright : 15/04/2021

Understanding the impact of stress and adversity on social connectedness: A Polyvagal Perspective

The Polyvagal Theory explains how social behaviour turns off defences 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 behaviour to regulate physiological state can be effective in treating psychological disorders that are dependent on defence systems. Copyright : 16/04/2021

A mind-body approach to race-based stress and trauma

Join leading psychologist and expert Dr. Gail Parker as we discuss a mind-body approach to healing race-based traumatic stress.

Watch and learn:

How race-based traumatic stress is different from other forms of trauma and adversity
How racial wounding impacts the body and mind
Tools for emotional regulation and healing
Why yoga and restorative practices are key
And so much more!

Copyright : 01/04/2021

Restoring Embodiment, Empowerment, and Safety: Healing Power Wounds underlying Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics and Disorganised Attachment

Copyright : 15/04/2021

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 five dimensions of consciousness: time, thought, body, emotion, and intersubjectivity. The restoration of the self through the integrated experience of these five dimensions of consciousness in the aftermath of trauma will be described. Clinical case examples involving the use of mind/brain/body techniques will be utilized to illustrate relevant concepts.

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

Copyright : 16/04/2021

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. Copyright : 16/04/2021

Trauma & Attachment – interpersonal neurobiology and the traumatic transference

Join world renowned trauma and attachment expert Janina Fisher, PhD as we discuss the latest methods for working with attachment.

Learn:

How attachment history shows up in the ‘here’ and ‘now’
Understand the ‘dyadic dance’ and interpersonal neurobiological regulation
Traumatic attachment, transference and counter transference
Changing traumatic patterns in relationships - how and why corrective experiences are necessary for lasting change
And so much more!

Copyright : 04/03/2021

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

Copyright : 12/03/2021

Treating trauma – essentials for working with inherent relational complications

Join international trainer and esteemed psychotherapist Michael Soth for an innovative discussion on the complexities of working with trauma.

Learn:

How trauma affects internal attachment and the internal family system
The self-care system and working alliances with different parts in the internal family system
The internalisation of the ‘wounding object’ in developmental trauma
How the ‘wounding enters’ the consulting room and the client’s conflict becomes the therapist’s conflict
Essential information for working with relational complications
And so much more!

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. We will discuss these emotions that range from positive to negative, and how to understand and use them therapeutically.  

Participants will be able to:

Identify at least three emotional reactions to their clients and how they relate to the dynamics of the clients.
Define enactment and give an example from clinical practice
Describe strategies to manage countertransference feelings and use them to support an effective therapy with dissociative clients.

Common enactment issues in supervision

The modern - and especially somatic - trauma therapies, aided by revolutionary neuroscientific understandings, have made a profound contribution to the field over the last 20 years. Increasingly, trauma therapists come into supervision distraught, frustrated and dispirited because it is not working as it ‘should’. The assumption that the same trauma theories and techniques can equally well be applied to developmental trauma is now becoming questionable. As soon as developmental trauma is involved, what really matters is the client's implicit and unconscious experience of the therapeutic relationship, regardless of the therapist's competence and input. The relational complications and vicissitudes that arise between client and therapist used to be the province of psychoanalysis and depth psychotherapy, but they can now be seen to be relevant to trauma work, too. In this talk you’ll learn:

the quality of relationship and the oscillations of the working alliance
recognising charged moments in the intersubjective field and the three kinds of contact
appreciating the enactment of wounding dynamics between client and therapist as potentially transformative
the developmental functions of rupture and repair - how are the notions of transference, countertransference and enactment relevant to trauma work?