This short course presents brief interventions designed to address and remove common barriers to successful treatment of pain conditions. Topics include: ways to reverse and regulate the emotional and physical impact of traumatic experiences; the necessity of medicine for the mind as well as the body; how to utilize the polyvagal nervous system in planning treatment strategy; how to help pain patients create healing connections with self, other and the divine; and how to teach people in pain to build on success. This session will include live demonstration and experiential practicum. Case consultation is welcome.
Whether brief or long-term, the treatment of childhood trauma should include an opportunity for the youngster to abreact (express strong emotion), correct (find individual, community or even fantasized solutions), and to discover contexts (perspectives and understandings of the events that occurred). Dr. Terr will thoroughly discuss and exemplify these three modes of treatment, selecting brief therapies as the clinical examples.
High conflict and chronically distresses add to each others’ trauma while triggering historical trauma. Reducing, calming or eliminating the emotional triggers is an essential part of changing their negative ingrained patterns. See a live demonstration and/or experience a process to bring about immediate relief of painful memories (and sometimes) not even having to talk about them.
Effective treatment of post-traumatic problems needs to include addressing the imprint of trauma on the physical experience of the self as helpless and in danger. Recovery needs to incorporate dealing with defensive efforts that helped ensure survival, incorporate physical experiences that contradict feelings and sensations associated with helplessness and disconnection, as well as an effective way of integrating fragmented memories of trauma. Experiencing physical mastery (as in yoga and specific body based techniques) often is necessary to initiate new ways of perceiving reality and promote new behavior patterns.
This workshop will offer a theoretical and clinical orientation to the treatment of trauma, personal and relational, in couples therapy. The regulation of emotion and the healing power of attachment events will be emphasized.
Starting with a review of recent studies on the neurobiology of trauma, Dr. van der Kolk will examine the utility of approaches from the fields of hypnosis, body oriented therapies and EMDR, both with research data and videotaped clinical interventions. The integration of these approaches during different stages of treatment will be discussed.
The majority of people who seek psychiatric care have histories of trauma, chaos or neglect. Advances in the neurosciences, attachment research and in information processing show how brain function is shaped by experience, and that life itself can continually transform perception and biology. Overwhelming experiences alter the capacity for selfregulation and memory processing due to changes in sub-cortical, i.e., “unconscious” levels of the brain.
Ignoring the impact of trauma on the client's family overlooks powerful dynamics that are crucial to treatment outcome. Participants in this workshop will learn how to involve the trauma sufferer's partner and other family members as resources in the healing process. Participants will learn how to better educate clients about the typical symptoms of trauma, the stages of trauma recovery, how to help family members both soothe and set limits with the traumatized person, and the typical pitfalls families encounter - including the depleting response of "enough already" as a family member tries to heal from a trauma.
Dreaming is a vital, nightly function of the brain. Disturbing dreams or recurrent nightmares are frequent symptoms of an acute focus on unresolved conflicts and events. Clients can learn to reclaim comforting sleep even before the overt reasons for seeking therapy are directly addressed. The potential of individualized metaphors structured within lucid dreaming empowers clients to "seize" the night." Hypnotic techniques offer an intriguing path that bypasses a client's ingrained fear of "falling to sleep."
Starting with a review of recent studies on the neurobiology of trauma, Dr. van der Kolk will examine the utility of approaches from the fields of hypnosis, body oriented therapies and EMDR, both with research data and videotaped clinical interventions. The integration of these approaches during different stages of treatment will be discussed.