Developing Your Trauma Toolkit – Workshop

Developing Your Trauma Toolkit –  7^th & 8^th May, 2020

This 2-day workshop will introduce the central principles of trauma-informed practice & help therapists develop confidence in working with clients’ trauma. Combining current trauma research, experiential exercises, skills practice & taking a somatic approach, it will explore some of trauma’s neurological aspects, develop familiarity with interventions that address these aspects & help in trauma work and aid the practitioner in developing their trauma toolkit.

Course Content

• Key components, sources & symptoms of psychological trauma;
• Window of tolerance – the importance of regulation and how to use it in therapy;
• Fight/Flight/Freeze responses;
• Three phase/stage approach to working with trauma and the therapist’s role in each;
• Trauma’s brain-body link & the relevance of a body-based approach to working with it;
• Some dynamics of attachment trauma;
• The importance of the therapeutic relationship using a polyvagal lens
• Some stage-specific practical skills and interventions to help in your work to:
  • Help clients expand their window of tolerance and learn to regulate
  • Bring a client back from a hypo/hyperaroused state
  • Help clients identify their feelings and behaviours
  • Start to process traumatic memories using the body
  • Help clients develop resources, re-orientate to & appreciate their strengths;
  • Begin to integrate their experiences and make meaning of their trauma.

Facilitator, Patricia Allen-Garrett, BSc (Hons) Psychology, Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy (MIAHIP, ECP)