2-day workshop in Tel Aviv: 10 & 11 April (2 – 8pm)
Many therapists view their role as inherently and necessarily active: the client comes to them in distress or in need, and it is the therapist’s task to be proactive and intervene. Like a doctor who is expected to diagnose and prescribe the right medicine, they, too, feel that it is their job to ‘do’ something.
Consequently they assume that – as soon as therapy is working less than perfectly – it may be because they are not ‘doing’ enough. The therapist is then under constant pressure to deliver the ‘right’ therapeutic approach, otherwise they are not worthy of calling themselves a therapist and being paid.
However, the therapist’s internal pressure to be active and helpful can be subliminally picked up by the client and translated unconsciously as the therapist’s expectations of them: to be a ‘good client’, i.e. to co-operate, to progress, to get better, to change.
Therefore, at certain moments in the process, the therapist’s capacity to simply ‘be’, to be outwardly passive, and inwardly calm and patient can be as important as the therapist’s activities, including all knowledge, skills and techniques.
In this workshop I invite practitioners of all approaches to explore their therapeutic stance between the equally important polarities of ‘doing’ and ‘being’.
Through shared experience and thinking we will explore some basic notions such as:
trust in the process, attunement to the inner rhythm, qualities of therapeutic presence and how they enable the therapeutic space, what can happen when ‘nothing is happening’ and most of all: the permission to ‘be’.
This workshop is anchored in principles of Body Psychotherapy and relational psychoanalysis and will offer participants insights and tools in facing some of the challenging dilemmas of the therapeutic endeavour.
Annual Conference EMDR UK & Ireland – Bristol, 25 & 26 March 2011
I will be offering a presentation at this year’s national EMDR conference, March 26th, entitled:
Using EMDR with various types of developmental trauma
Complex trauma is based on underlying developmental trauma. However, developmental trauma is a very broad, non-specific category. There are several typologies and classification systems of developmental trauma available, with various degrees of usefulness to EMDR practitioners.
Having researched and assessed these different theories, in this workshop I will offer an integrative synthesis relevant to EMDR practitioners.
An understanding of the different types of developmental trauma can enhance our work both in terms of faster and more accurate diagnosis of developmental issues and also in eliciting relevant material and designing interventions. To establish key features of the client’s developmental issues, we can use a holistic spectrum of physical, affective and cognitive factors, including the client’s posture and body language, habitual cognitions and attitudes and modes of relating and expression.
Most developmental theories share a common view of the key factors of developmental trauma: the child’s developmental stage, the intensity of the traumatising event, the available resources etc. But they vary greatly in terms of underlying meta-psychology and techniques and interventions.
For further details, see the EMDR Association website.
CONFER – Broken Boundaries, Invaded Territories – the challenges of containment in trauma work, 14 March 2011, London
One of the most excruciating aspects of trauma is the invasion or collapse of boundaries, not just in the moment of trauma, but as lasting damage. Traumatised clients usually bring to therapy an ongoing background feeling of threat, both to their physical and emotional survival and to their sense of identity. Not knowing where “I” ends and the “Other” begins is an expression of chaos and confusion in the client’s inner world that echoes strongly in the therapeutic relationship. Because of this most methods of trauma therapy are highly concerned with re-building and establishing safe, containing boundaries as the foundation for any therapeutic work. But is it really possible to by-pass the client’s embodied experience of shattered safety by introducing safe therapeutic boundaries? Can we, as therapists, contain the impact of trauma without engaging with chaos, confusion and vulnerability in the consulting room? This talk will explore the paradoxical nature of boundaries and containment and their role in trauma therapy.
For further details, see the CONFER website.
CONFER – Trauma Skills School – March 7-11 2011, Edinburgh
I will be offering an afternoon session at this Trauma School organised by CONFER, on Tuesday ,March 8th, entitled:
Relational Body Psychotherapy – An Integrative Approach to Trauma Work
Offering interactive regulation to engage with and complement the patient’s disturbed auto-regulation, the therapist becomes a container for the trauma. As most of the psycho-biological stress of the trauma is communicated non-verbally, via right-brain to right-brain atonement, this process relies on the therapist’s own sense of embodiment and internal body-mind regulation. In this presentation, based on case material, we will explore how body psychotherapy offers treatment options and techniques that are capable of reaching down into the roots of trauma in somatic experience. We will look at how therapists can develop the internal resources and capacities needed to regulate the body-mind impact of traumatic relational dynamics.‘Character structure theory’ is a comprehensive method of diagnosing and working with habitual patterns, as manifested in the body.
For further details, see the CONFER website.
Working with Trauma
November 23rd 2010: One-day workshop at Oxford Cooperative Training Scheme
This one day workshop focuses on trauma in the body and it will address the following topics :
· What is trauma and PTSD?
· Brain function during and after trauma
· Different types of trauma
· Disturbances to self regulation in trauma
· How re-traumatision occurs and what we can do about it
· Trauma in practice: basic principles of a body-based approach
This workshop is designed as a combination of teaching and experiential work.
Venue: Cherwell Conference Centre
Date: Tuesday, November 23rd 2010
For further details, see the OCT
CONFER – Trauma Skills Summer School July 5th – 9th, London
I will be offering an afternoon session at this Trauma School organised by CONFER, on Tuesday, July 6th, entitled:
Relational Body Psychotherapy – An Integrative Approach to Trauma Work
Offering interactive regulation to engage with and complement the patient’s disturbed auto-regulation, the therapist becomes a container for the trauma. As most of the psycho-biological stress of the trauma is communicated non-verbally, via right-brain to right-brain atonement, this process relies on the therapist’s own sense of embodiment and internal body-mind regulation. In this presentation, based on case material, we will explore how body psychotherapy offers treatment options and techniques that are capable of reaching down into the roots of trauma in somatic experience. We will look at how therapists can develop the internal resources and capacities needed to regulate the body-mind impact of traumatic relational dynamics.‘Character structure theory’ is a comprehensive method of diagnosing and working with habitual patterns, as manifested in the body.
For further details, see the CONFER website.