Full Course Description
Neurobiology of Attachment: The Power of "We"
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze how relationships are shaped by early attachment histories to better understand your clients.
- Evaluate how each form of attachment influences the capacity for future closeness and impact on relationships in clients.
- Justify how “sense of self” does not have to be limited to the body so clients can have healthy relationships.
Outline
Attachment Research Made Simple
- Brain-to-brain and mind-to-mind connections
- Child and adult attachment research
- How attachment relationships shape the brain
- Neural integration and self-regulation
- Interpersonal communication and interneuronal linkages
- The categories of attachment
Understanding Attachment and Relationships
- Navigate relationships and how they influence the brain and vice versa
- The importance of a “soul friend” and “feeling felt”
- How mirror neurons influence relationships
- Neural correlates of interpersonal attunement and resonance
The Essential Pathways Toward Trust, Truth and Transformation
- Illuminating the pathways of change
- Connections between the mind, the embodied brain and relationships
- Transformation to create neural integration
- Differentiate between empathy, compassion, kindness and joy
- The power of MWe
Copyright :
06/05/2021
Attachment Begins in Utero: There’s No Such Thing as a Blank Slate
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine two (2) ways that the neurobiology of touch supports a secure parent-infant attachment relationship.
- Demonstrate 3 ways to enhance secure attachments in parent-infant relationships for (or to) - outcome.
- Evaluate two ways that FirstPlay Therapy Infant Play Therapy promotes the infant-parent attachment relationship.
- Distinguish two differences between pre-symbolic play and symbolic play.
Outline
Infant Mental Health and Infant Play Therapy
- Demystifying infant mental health
- Busting the misconception that infants don’t experience trauma
- Culturally sensitive - the Therapeutic Powers of Play
Increase a Neuroception of Safety
- The parent/infant relationship is everything
- Understanding an infant’s window of tolerance
- Supporting co-regulation
- Attunement to infant cues and body language
FirstPlay Infant Play Therapy
- Ages birth to 36 months
- Developmental Play Therapy for nurturing gentle touch
- Therapeutic storytelling to facilitate a cue-based attuned reciprocal relationship
Copyright :
06/05/2021
Attachment Ruptures and Repair in Children & Adolescents
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the concept of relational trauma.
- Distinguish the link between interpersonal trauma and attachment wounds.
- Determine 3 ways the "Crisis of Connection" can manifest in the course of therapy.
- Utilize the analogy of “fawns in gorilla suits” and three ways it can be used in therapy with youth and family.
- Determine three unique challenges of termination with youth experiencing attachment trauma.
Outline
- Interpersonal Trauma and its Impact on Attachments
- Intrusion – if needed, distance is not required
- Stealth Therapy – therapy without calling it therapy
- Crisis of connection – therapeutic relationship threatens closeness
- Fawns in Gorilla Suits – vulnerability and protection
- Termination challenges
- Grief – longing for the missed attachment
- Case Study: 2 sisters, ages 5 and 11 confronting attachment trauma in early life
Copyright :
06/05/2021
Creating Secure Attachment in Teens: Balancing Interdependence & Autonomy
Program Information
Objectives
- Recognize how maladaptive attachment impacts clients’ connections and exacerbates mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, opposition, defiance and mood stability.
- Determine the risk factors of developing insecure attachment: parental substance misuse or abuse, a mental health diagnosis in the parent or child, a child with a history of abuse or neglect, and more.
- Distinguish attachment patterns that are healthy versus those that are rooted in trauma.
- Demonstrate strategies to meet physical, emotional and mental needs to build attunement.
Outline
The Art of Compromise
- Parents Promoting Interdependence – Being the Safe Place and Secure Base
- Recognizing when Attachment with Parents has been Impacted by Trauma
- Relationship between Attachment and Mental Health
- Avoiding Attachment Ruptures
- Encouraging interdependence and autonomy
- Understanding needs
- Exploring and Expanding Peer Relationships
- Healthy and positive attachments
- Compromise and other social skills
Power Sharing, not Power Struggling
- Timeline for Success
- Parents moving into the consultant role
- Teens earning freedom by being responsible and earning trust
- Teaching recovery and problem solving
Copyright :
06/05/2021
Expressive Arts to Build Safety and Connection with Your Most Vulnerable Clients
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine four ways that expressive arts assist with the healing process.
- Distinguish between the scope of practice of talk therapy vs expressive arts.
- Design a treatment plan to include expressive arts in either their personal work with clients or as a treatment team with adjunct professionals.
- Demonstrate how to incorporate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into your assessment and therapy practice in a creative way.
Outline
Expressive Arts with Commercially, Sexually, Exploited Youth
- Video case study
- A visual experience of art to support healing for youth who have been commercially sexually exploited
- Understand the use of expressive arts vs being an expressive arts therapist
Why the Arts Work
- Discussion on how the creative process allows for a deeper level of knowledge and understanding of self
- Assess physiological needs and safety in a non-intrusive way
- Helps to avoid or heal attachment ruptures and support belonging and love
- Builds Confidence and Self Esteem
Take Away Activity
- Maslow’s Hierarchy (allows for psychoeducation, creativity)
- Profound, powerful tool to support needs instead of assuming need
- Resources shared
Copyright :
06/05/2021
Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Attachment: Repairing the Internal Attachment
Program Information
Objectives
- Evaluate the steps of working with clients' “protective parts” to improve treatment outcomes as proposed by the IFS model.
- Propose how to address the “protector” fears as they arise for the client during the therapy session.
- Apply the core concepts of IFS intervention to repair the internal disconnections created by trauma.
Outline
- Facilitate internal attachment work
- Learn to address the fears/concerns of protective parts
- Establish a trusting relationship with proactive and reactive parts
- Resolve internal conflicts
- Gain permission to proceed with healing
Copyright :
07/05/2021
Emotional Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) for Healing Attachment Wounds
Program Information
Objectives
- Evaluate the EFIT model as a secure base for effective therapy with individual clients.
- Implement evidence-based stages to increase closeness, safe attachment, and connection.
- Develop client interactions that expand the client’s sense of self and open engagement with others.
- Determine how working with emotion as a key change agent will help clients move toward secure attachment.
Outline
- Employ the basic structure of emotion, as well as how we change models of self and others
- Utilize the empirically validated EFIT “roadmap” to guide clients through their vulnerability and motivation to a clear picture of stability and growth
- Validate the client’s sense of competence and worth in every session
- Limitations, risks, and areas for further research
Copyright :
07/05/2021
Disorganized Attachment: Don't Lose Sight of the Child in the Midst of Chaotic Behavior
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine why a secure attachment is a protective factor in mental health.
- Assess the three main features of intersubjectivity.
- Distinguish how you might use each feature of PACE in developing an engagement with a disengaged child.
- Construct a story that includes the child’s trauma while reducing the fear and shame associated with the trauma.
Outline
Disorganized Attachment in Children/Teens
- Compassion for the way kids behave (it’s the behaviour, not the child)
Severe Attachment Ruptures Impact on Child Functioning
- Mistrust and Self-Reliance
- Dysregulation of affective, behavioural, and cognitive states
Restoring Sense of Self and Developing Ability for Connection and Repair
- Learning to Trust with Comfort and Joy
- Transforming stories from despair to hope
Copyright :
07/05/2021
Relational Trauma and Compromised Attachment in Adulthood: From Victim to “Overcomer”
Program Information
Objectives
- Apply the Life Script to assess and treat attachment patterns.
- Assess Attachment Communication Training to help couples achieve trust and security.
- Appraise experiential interventions (first year attachment cycle, inner-child metaphor, psychodrama) to promote positive change.
- Develop new neuronal networks in the Limbic brain to desensitize fear and anxiety, approach rather than avoid frightening memories and emotions.
Outline
Life Script
- Assess and treat attachment-related trauma in adults and couples
Attachment Communication Training
- Mitigate destructive ways of relating, and foster trust, safety and security in relationships
Experiential Interventions
- First year attachment cycle – psychoeducation about early childhood attachment
- Inner-child metaphor – therapeutic method to address early life perception and emotion
- Psychodrama – utilizes role play
Copyright :
07/05/2021
Boldly Showing Up - Attachment, Shame, and Vulnerability Through a Culturally-Safe Lens
Program Information
Objectives
- Demonstrate how emotional literacy can increase communication and attachment within families.
- Analyze how shame, vulnerability and legacy burdens impacts family connections.
- Evaluate the impact of culture and the role of the therapist within the therapeutic setting.
- Analyze the value of looking beyond the presenting problem to explore the authentic self.
Outline
Looking Beyond Presenting Problem with a Culturally Safe Lens
- Increasing intersectionality in the therapy room
- Authentic self of the clinician within the therapeutic system
The Belief Structures of Shame and Vulnerability
- How shame shields are developed
- The effects of vulnerability and attachment
Intersectionality of Historical Family and Society Narratives
- The impact of family narratives on attachment
- How cultural beliefs and narratives affect attachment
Copyright :
07/05/2021
Impact of Generational and Racial Trauma on Attachment and Security
Program Information
Objectives
- Develop a therapeutic environmental plan to facilitate safety for marginalized clients during therapy sessions.
- Learn how to determine the appropriate intervention for a defensive response based upon the client’s arousal level.
- Improve connection with clients of colour through using statements of alliance.
- Identify personal defences and beliefs that interfere with authentic connection in the therapeutic space.
- Learn how to use the foundational DBT principles of validation and mindfulness to communicate and embody felt safety in your clients.
Outline
- Understanding racial trauma and generational trauma
- How trauma impacts healthy attachment and the developing mind
- Key trauma defence strategies within communities of colour
- How to facilitate a felt sense of cultural, emotional and physical safety in your therapeutic space
Copyright :
20/04/2021
Attachment & Attuned Parenting: The Power of Showing Up
Program Information
Objectives
- Characterize the three types of non-secure attachment and describe how they manifest in parenting styles that limit parent/child connection.
- Categorize how caregiver presence and attuned parenting fosters resilience in children.
- Assess the four “S’s” of attachment and relate their significance to clinicians and educators.
Outline
Influences of caregiver state of mind on interactions with child
- Awareness
- Attunement
- Resonance
Attachment: the four S’s that foster children’s well-being and resilience
The practical tools of “The Power of Showing Up”
- Clinical methods from Dr. Siegel’s approach
- Educator-focused takeaways
Questions & Answer
Copyright :
14/01/2020
Polyvagal Theory for Children: Practical Application to Build Safety, Create Attachment & Develop Connection
Program Information
Objectives
- Evaluate the foundational principles and features of the Polyvagal Theory in order to elicit trust in the young clients you work with.
- Apply the features of the Polyvagal Theory to inform clinical treatment interventions for children.
- Analyze the Social Engagement System and how the brain-face-heart connection evolved.
- Analyze when a child’s Social Engagement System is compromised by stress and trauma and help to reset it.
- Construct how a therapy session can be planned and carried out to maximize client safety, social engagement and regulation.
Outline
Polyvagal Theory – Application for Children
- Foundational Principles and features
- Applying Polyvagal Theory in Clinical Practice
Harnessing your Social Engagement System
- How to Reset when Compromised by Stress and Trauma
- Elicit Trust - Voice, Rhythm, Racial Expressions, Touch
- Exercises that hone in on various vocal qualities
- Create and maintain an open facial expression with defensive children
- Strategies to incorporate safe touch
Playfulness and Paradox to Suspend Defensiveness
- Surprise the brain of a defensive child with novel responses to:
- Grab attention
- Down-regulate sympathetic activation
- Interrupt automatic defensiveness
- Generate curiosity
Movement and Breathing Exercises to Create Connection
- Ventral vagal activities for open and engaged state
- Promote attachment behaviour
- Dorsal vagal activities to pendulate between arousal and relaxation
- Rhythmic activities for maintaining regulation
- Counteracting shut down, guarded or angry behaviour (responses)
Copyright :
14/01/2021
Grieving and Remembering Well: Tools for Healing
Program Information
Objectives
- Assess the dynamics of different types of grief in clients and the healing processes associated with each.
- Determine the relationship between traumatic events and grief as it relates to the healing process within clients.
Outline
- Background
- The Death Shapes Grief
- River of Grief
- Witnessing Grief
- Pure Grief vs. External Triggers
- Grief vs. Trauma
- Positive Psychology
- Survivor’s Guilt
- Grief Needs
- Grief in Therapy
- Worst and Best Things to Say
- Pitfalls of Getting Over Loss
- Healing
- Complicated Grief
- Goals of Grief Work
Copyright :
23/03/2018
Attachment-Focused EMDR to Heal a Relationship Trauma
Program Information
Objectives
- Debate the importance of the therapeutic relationship and therapist flexibility in adapting to the client’s needs.
- Develop resources for overcoming roadblocks in the therapeutic session.
- Implement the modified protocol in therapeutic sessions with clients affected by a relationship trauma.
Outline
- Introduction of Laurel Parnell and EMDR
- Introduction of session
- Exploring the Presenting Problem
- History
- Establishing the Bilateral Stimulation
- Installments
- Peaceful Place
- Nurturing Figures
- Protector Figures
- Wise Figure
- Checking the EMDR Target from Past Session
- Picture
- Attempting to Bridge to Find an Early Incident
- Modified Protocol
- Checking the Target
- Checking the SUDS
- Socratic Interweaves
- Checking the SUDS
- Checking for a Positive Cognition (PC)
- Body Scan
- Checking the Recent Trigger
- Processing the Trigger
- Imagining a Future Scenario
- Closure
- Session Summary
Copyright :
01/01/2015
The Biology of Loss: How to Foster Resilience When Attachments Are Impaired
Program Information
Objectives
- Measure the impacts of childhood trauma on psychological functioning and well-being in adulthood.
- Differentiate how to uncover early traumatic events of childhood and unconscious feeling states.
- Devise how to cultivate deeper therapeutic presence by bringing awareness to unconscious patterns and processes that may be exacerbating client symptoms.
- Demonstrate how to keep clients engaged in present-moment experiences using a mind-body framework.
- Evaluate recent developments in attachment research and trauma.
- Extrapolate how early loss can translate into maladaptive behaviours in adulthood.
- Propose 3 examples of skills for building resilience in the face of loss.
Outline
- Defining the impacts of trauma and hidden emotional stressors
- Understand the role of stress in the development of disease
- Review the stress reaction from the perspective of systems theory
- Understanding the nature of resilience as adaptation
- The ways in which we can overcome stress and foster resilience
- The social context of stress and problematic behaviours
- Moving past reaction to understanding origins as adaptations
- The attachment drive as a biological necessity
- A paradigm for developing resilience in the face of attachment loss
Copyright :
19/03/2021