Presented by internationally renowned trauma expert, Janina Fisher, Ph.D. The techniques you’ll learn during this workshop will make even the most complex clients easier to treat - and the interventions you’ll learn directly address the underlying causes of post-traumatic stress. Dr. Fisher will give you tools from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a body-centered talking therapy. These simple body-oriented interventions can be easily integrated into traditional talking therapies to address trauma-related challenges such as: Dysregulated autonomic arousal Overwhelming affects and sensations Intrusive images and memories Impulsivity and acting out Dissociative phenomena Numbing and disconnection This workshop will cover recent neuroscience research that explains how traumatic experience becomes deeply embedded in both mind and body. Learn how to better assess and make sense of trauma-based symptoms and then how to apply neurobiologically informed treatment techniques in clinical practice. Objectives: Describe the neurobiological effects of traumatic experience. Identify implicit and procedural memories of trauma. Recognize role of autonomic arousal in exacerbating symptoms. Discuss how “the body keeps the score”. Describe basic principles of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Integrate mindfulness-based techniques in traditional treatments. Identify animal defense survival responses in trauma patients. Delineate role of substance abuse, eating disorders and self-destructive behavior as trauma symptoms. Implement ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ interventions to address unsafe behavior. Describe a somatic approach to resolving traumatic experience. Differentiate past experience from present moment experience. Utilize right brain-to-right brain communication to improve the effectiveness of trauma treatment. Outline: The Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma How the mind and body react to threat and danger Autonomic arousal and affect tolerance Inability to feel safe in the body Loss of the ability to self-witness The Nature of Traumatic Memory “The body keeps the score” (Van der Kolk) Implicit memories: is it memory? Remembering situationally: ‘here’ or ‘there’? Neurobiologically-informed Trauma Treatment Regulating the traumatized nervous system and restoring a witnessing self Psychoeducation: knowledge is power Reframing the symptoms Avoid ‘self-defeating stories’ (Meichenbaum) Treat the symptoms, not just the event Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Trauma and procedural learning Tracking the body as a source of information Use the language of the body Body-centered techniques into talking therapy treatments Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity Mindfulness practices in therapy Differentiate thoughts, feelings and body experience Dual awareness of everyday experience Teach mindfulness to clients Challenges of Trauma Treatment Secondary symptoms: anger, self-harm and suicidality, aggression, substance abuse, and eating disorders Treatment-resistant depression and anxiety Complex symptoms as manifestations of animal defense responses Therapy as a Laboratory for the Practice of New Actions Dis-identifying with the symptoms Develop a new language and a new story Capitalize on somatic resources for modulating the nervous system New resources that address specific trauma symptoms The Role of Neuroplasticity Neuroplastic brain change Principles of neuroplasticity Treatments to enhance neuroplastic effects Somatic Resolution of Traumatic Events Repair and transformation rather than re-processing Address uninvited memory Tell the story to ourselves: creating internal safety Right brain-to-right brain communication: feeling safe with others About the Author: Janina Fisher, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and instructor at the Trauma Center, founded by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD. A faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an EMDR International Association consultant, past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, and former instructor, Harvard Medical School, Dr. Fisher lectures nationally and internationally on the integration of the neurobiological research and new trauma treatment paradigms into traditional psychotherapies. |