Emotional Abusive Behaviors and A Closer Look at Gaslighting: Clinical Tools to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Personal Power

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Amy Marlow-MaCoy, LPC Related seminars and products

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Amy Marlow-MaCoy, LPC, focuses her practice on treating complex and developmental trauma in adults raised in narcissistic, emotionally immature, and toxic families of origin.

She is the author of the Amazon best-selling book The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse (Callisto Media, 2020), a workbook designed to help individuals identify, understand, and begin to heal from emotional trauma and abuse caused by gaslighting in interpersonal relationships.

Amy has been trained in Level 1 Internal Family Systems therapy. She also provides supervision to LPC candidates and regularly consults with other clinicians regarding treatment of adult children of narcissists. She earned her Master of Education in counseling psychology degree from Temple University.

Speaker Disclosure:

Financial: Amy Marlow-MaCoy maintains a private practice. She receives royalties as a published author and receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.

Non-financial: Amy Marlow-MaCoy is a member of the American Counseling Association.

Objectives

1. Analyze how gaslighting in the context of romantic relationships, friendships, and family relationships can lead to long term effects like trauma, anxiety and depression.
2. Employ in-session approaches to help clients become aware of gaslighting behaviour in their lives and recognize the consequences.
3. Differentiate gaslighting from other forms of emotional abuse to improve your ability to recognize the subtle signs that clients may be victims.
4. Employ body-based approaches to help clients who have experienced gaslighting validate their experience and rebuild trust in themselves.
5. Utilize techniques from a variety of therapeutic approaches to unravel problematic beliefs that can prevent victims of gaslighting from making therapeutic progress.

Outline

• Define what gaslighting is in measurable terms
• Review of term Gaslighting
• Romantic/intimate relationships
• Friendships
• Family relationships
• Work
• How gaslighting shows up on a larger scale: social media and advertising
• Gaslighting and communal trauma in minority groups

• How this shows up for our clients
• Loss of self-confidence
• Emotional disturbance
• Increased vulnerability to emotional abuse
• Decreased autonomy
• Increased risk of codependency
• Retraumatizing survivors of abuse and trauma

• Review of Evidence-based treatments
• Insight and self-awareness – how to help clients recognize gaslighting in their lives
  • Self-forgiveness and compassion techniques to heal from shame and interrupt self-criticism
  • Body-based approaches to help clients validate their experience and rebuild trust in themselves
  • Assertiveness training — teach clients to express needs clearly, directly, and openly
  • 5 steps to help clients set healthier boundaries
  • Teach clients to identify traits of healthy relationships
  • Unravel problematic beliefs with
  • IFS, DBT, narrative therapy and somatic experiencing techniques
  • Research limitations

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Licensed Professional Counselors
• Physicians
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Other Mental Health and Social Work Professionals