The Art of Trauma Treatment

With FREE bonus video:

Course Title: Trauma and Attachment: Ghosts and Angels from the Nursery, and the Problem with Burying Grief
Trainer: Kate Brown
Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes

Our trauma masterclass offers a range of complimentary perspectives, portraying concepts and different treatment intervention strategies for therapists working with the various manifestations of trauma in their client population.

Our three presenters each outline their own particular approach to trauma treatment (EMDR, Sensorimotor, and Attachment-based) as well as making some important distinctions between trauma, developmental injury and attachment trauma issues highlighting the need for a range of appropriate interventions tailored to the individual client.

Dr Kathrin Stauffer: “EMDR in the Treatment of Trauma”

EMDR is a very successful approach for treating the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and can be said to have revolutionised trauma therapy, especially through a dramatic shortening of the number of therapy sessions required. Whereas originally the approach was mostly applied to one-time trauma suffered in adulthood, in recent years practitioners have developed a plethora of modifications that allow many other applications including phobias, chronic pain, and early childhood trauma.

Kathrin presents an overview of EMDR including the range of applications and postulated modes of action, as far as we understand these. She uses clinical material from her own experience of processing trauma for which there are no explicit memories but only current body sensations, emotional flashbacks, or similar disturbances. Finally she outlines the differences between EMDR for adult trauma and EMDR for early trauma and presents some of her work with clients who were emotionally neglected as children.

Miriam Taylor: “The Well-Resourced Therapist”

In this presentation Miriam looks at trauma from a relational field perspective. The message is about the necessity for therapist self-care – it is not a luxury but an integral part of the work. The presentation focuses on the resources available to the therapist and how we can increase our resilience to more comfortably bear witness without either dissociating or being pulled into trauma contagion.

Two simple concepts drawn from neuroscience research are reconceptualised to help us consider the relationship in trauma therapy. Reference is made to the therapist’s own relationship to trauma, and Miriam thinks about the ways in which we as individuals get pulled into helping.

Because trauma is fundamentally experienced in the body, of particular importance for both therapist and client are body-based resources related to safety, grounding and resilience, and attention is given to how we can use these. Participants are encouraged to reflect on their range of resources and how they might develop them further, and on the gains of the work which might include mutual healing.

Clinical examples illustrate some of the main dilemmas for the therapist, and these are interspersed with some personal reflection points, developing both the Shared Mindful Field and somatic supports.

Tony Buckley: “Keeping the Body in Mind”

In this presentation Tony Buckley discusses a key somatic approach to trauma treatment. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy integrates cognitive and somatic interventions in the treatment of trauma, emphasising body awareness, practicing new actions and building somatic resources.

With an emphasis on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy’s “embedded relational mindfulness,” key components of this approach are illustrated: uncoupling trauma-based emotions from body sensations; building somatic resources; and developing a somatic sense of self.

Tony outlines the key learning points which address interventions for all three-treatment phases in a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy approach to trauma treatment: stabilization and symptom reduction, work with traumatic memory, and re-integration.

Bonus video:

Kate Brown: “Trauma and Attachment – Ghosts and Angels from the Nursery, and the problem with burying grief”

Kate explains aspects of trauma theory, such as how different sorts of trauma have different impacts on a person’s life and psyche, and how a person’s attachment style will often determine how a person copes with certain traumas.

The ground-breaking work of Judith Lewis Herman’s work ‘Trauma and Recovery’ is used to emphasise the impact of trauma in such symptoms as hypo and hyper-arousal, sensitivity to intrusive memories of traumatic events, and limiting of exposure of events which have reminders of previous traumas.

Kate will use clinical examples of how a client’s early traumas may be enacted in the therapeutic relationship, and how a therapist’s unprocessed trauma may impact the therapy. She concludes with exploring how our attachment styles impact how we process trauma, and the implications of Attachment Theory for our clinical work with traumatised patients.