Each day will provide 6 CEU’s through the Maryland Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists.  All sessions will together earn 36 CEU’s.

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In this Maryland-based training program, participants can take as few as one and as many as six one-day workshops on trauma-related topics. Each one-day workshop will provide participants with a certificate of attendance for that day’s topic. Those taking part in all six workshops will earn a completion certificate from the Expressive Trauma Integration (ETI) Series I training program.

Each of the six workshops is based on the latest theory and practice in trauma interventions.  Each is designed as an experiential learning event in which participants will practice using theory and practice on themselves.

The target audience is practitioners seeking a toolbox of innovative interventions to be integrated into a client-centered, multi-disciplinary approach to trauma treatment.

 

Each one-day workshop will provide participants with a certificate of attendance for that day’s topic. Those taking part in all 6 workshops will earn a completion certificate of the Expressive Trauma Integration (ETI) Series I training.

While each one-day workshop will stand on its own, the six days complement one another. Together they provide participants with knowledge of a trauma-informed approach and skills to apply the knowledge in their own practice. Each session will include suggested readings.

 

Objectives of ETI Series I Workshops:

• Build understanding of the complex impacts of trauma or cumulative stress on individuals and communities, at neurobiological, emotional, physical and spiritual levels, and tools for assessing this;

• Provide up-to-date information on how trauma affects the nervous system including brain functioning, sensory processing, emotional regulation, and capacity to differentiate past and present, and how to use this knowledge in therapy;

• Explore experiential modalities (bottom-up) of treatment; review why they generally are more effective than cognitive modalities in trauma treatment, and consider when cognitive modalities (top-down) may be preferable;

• Examine the connection between trauma and cumulative general stress, why treatment of trauma requires attention to both; and how to help clients address both.

• Review psychoeducation as a critical response to trauma, learn why it is so essential and when and how to do (experiential) psychoeducation with clients and their families;

• Examine how attachment styles affect brain development and the implications of each for trauma survivors;

• Learn and experience action method attunement and related tools for working with attachment trauma (in particular, complex/developmental trauma and reactive attachment disorder);

• Review the essential contribution of spontaneity, creativity, and movement to neurogenesis, neuroplasticity (rewiring of the brain) in trauma therapy and self-sustainability;

• Gain understanding of the role of emotional regulation in trauma treatment and how to use experiential grounding modalities to expand it;

• Examine design and use of an Individualized Sustainability Plan (ISP) to sustain gains made in therapy and to reduce vulnerability to triggering of trauma responses;

• Explore the use of ISP for caregivers to sustain self while caring for others;

• Examine Post-traumatic Growth (PTG) as a meaning-making process and how it can exist even when trauma symptoms are still present.

• Build understanding of resilience as a continuum and not a trait and the resulting benefits in self-compassion.

• Lean when (and when not) trauma processing is necessary.

• Learn how to combine the use of mindfulness and self-compassion with action methods.

• Review key concepts of crisis response, particularly Psychological First Aid (PFA) and the Do’s and Don’ts of PFA.

• Review key concepts of Expressive Psychosocial Support and what is the trauma response timeline.

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Target Audience: 
Social workers, mental health counselors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other clinicians working with trauma survivors. 

 

Topics:

1. Introduction to Trauma and the Brain 1-2-3 – TBA​

2. A Framework for Building Secure Attunement  – TBA​

3. Experiential Self-Regulation in Trauma Therapy – TBA​

4. How Do You Lay a Foundation for Trauma Processing?  – TBA​

5. Self-Sustainability Plan in Trauma Treatment  – TBA​

6. PFA & Expressive Psychosocial Support After Trauma– TBA

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Location: TBA
From 9:30-4:30 (6 hour workshop – 1 hour lunch, bring your own). Registration is limited to 12 participants.

Cost:

​​$180 early registration usually before 15 of each month.

$200 – late registration usually after 15 of each month per one day workshop

Please contact for special rate for students.

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Cancellation Policy:  
Cancellations two weeks before workshop $100 refund. 

No refund for cancellations less than three days before start of workshop.

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Cancellation of Courses:

ETI reserves the right to cancel any workshop. In the event a workshop is canceled, every attempt will be made to contact the participants before the workshop date. Participants in canceled workshop will be given the opportunity to change to another workshop with space available or to cancel their registration for the workshop and receive a 100 percent refund of tuition for that workshop.

 

Continuing Education (CE): 
Expressive Trauma Integration is an approved sponsor of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Board of Professional Counselor & Therapists for continuing education credits (Category A CEUs).

Each one day workshop counts as 6 contact hours towards the requirements of CE in counseling in the state of Maryland. Your certification will be mailed to you after the workshop is done.

 

If for some reason you experience technical difficulties registering please follow the instruction for manual registration.

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More information on the workshops:

1.  Introduction to Trauma and the Brain 1-2-3

In this introductory one-day workshop, participants will experience and learn the use of expressive arts-inspired methods of psychoeducation in teaching about trauma and the brain, and its impact on trauma survivors and caregivers.

Numerous studies and reports confirm the value of psychoeducation for trauma survivors.  A grasp of key information about common post-trauma responses, including how the brain responds to trauma, helps trauma survivors make sense of emotional responses that otherwise seem overwhelming.   Survivors can also learn to better read their own emotional warning signs and develop more effective responses.

The Six Stage Trauma Integration Roadmap will be presented to provide a conceptual framework for understanding and responding to trauma.  This roadmap, the heart of the ETI approach, helps survivors describe their experience in stages of: 1-Routine, 2-Event, 3-Withdrawal, 4-Awareness, 5-Action, 6-Integration; and then determine their entry point to the roadmap.  

Though the need for psychoeducation is broadly recognized and efforts to provide it are widespread, lecture and reading remain the most common methods for providing it.  These didactic methods are notorious for low retention in learning.  In Ph.D. research with trauma survivors and human service providers, the presenter found participatory experiential approaches to be superior to an oratorical approach in retention of content. 
 

2. Attachment & Developmental Trauma: A Framework for Building Secure Attunement 

During the first two years of childhood, the brain is wired to develop through reciprocity and attuned attachment.  When this fails to happen, the resulting sense of mis-attunement leads to a continuous state of physiological distress. Since the resulting trauma is caused in reference to others, treatment must, therefore, take place in the context of an attuned relationship.

This workshop will focus on theories and treatment practices of complex and developmental trauma (attachment and reactive attachment disorder).  This will include the use of expressive therapies techniques (movement, drama, and psychodrama) to facilitate attunement, embodiment, and spontaneity with clients. 

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3. Experiential Self-Regulation in Trauma Therapy

Self- regulation is at the core of trauma therapy, for virtually all survivors must deal with ongoing stress symptoms and outbursts of emotions. Triggers and secondary alerts encountered in the course of daily life frequently send survivors back to the early “withdrawal” stage of the ETI model.

In this one-day workshop, participants will be introduced to body-oriented approaches for helping trauma survivors to regulate emotions and regain a sense of calmness.  These will include mindful movement, improvisational art expression, sculpting, body-mapping, and sensory/bilateral integration tools to facilitate emotional regulation in the context of trauma therapy. 

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4. How Do You Lay a Foundation for Trauma Processing? 

This day-long workshop will review findings from recent research and practice on resilience, neuroplasticity and post-traumatic growth. We will consider in particular how to work with clients in ways that utilize their strengths and resources as a foundation for trauma processing. 
Participants will then be guided experientially through a sequence of interventions for facilitating trauma processing.  These interventions are selected based on research findings on the effectiveness of experiential modalities in facilitating neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. 

5. Self-Sustainability Plan in Trauma Treatment

Setbacks after encouraging progress are common for trauma survivors.  An Individualized Sustainability Plan (ISP) is a set of techniques and practices designed to provide ongoing cognitive, physical, emotional, spiritual and social maintenance for clients as they face adversities.  An ISP supplements existing therapy and therapeutic approaches, providing a foundation of personal stability. In trauma therapy, an ISP is integral to the trauma integration process, providing survivors with an adaptive plan that will prepare and assist them to self-sustain after therapy is over.
This introductory day workshop will introduce the concepts underlying an ISP and review relevant practices to developing an ISP in the context of trauma therapy. These include a review of recent findings about gut-microbiome (balance) known as the brain-gut-axis and how it is key for emotional wellbeing. Participants will be also introduced the use of experiential self-compassion and expressive arts in creating an ISP framework.

This workshop will also engage participants in self-exploration in framing their own ISP. Practitioners working with trauma survivors are candidates for secondary trauma themselves and thus in need of their own on-going self-sustenance while caring for others. 

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6. Psychological First Aid & Expressive Psychosocial Support After Trauma

Critical incidents caused by accidents, crime, violence, and natural disasters are inevitable in all communities and readiness to respond is essential. 

Meeting basic survival needs is, of course, the highest priority in crisis response, but it should not be the only concern. Psychological first aid made available even in early responses to a crisis has been found to be effective in mitigating stress responses and assisting trauma survivors to develop coping skills for post-trauma symptoms. 

In this one day, workshop participants will be introduced to concepts of psychological first aid (PFA) as well as key concepts of psychosocial support and the three stages of trauma response: PFA, Psychosocial Support, and Trauma Processing. Additionally, participants will be introduced to specific grounding activities found to be effective in the aftermath of critical incidents. 

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