ABOUT THIS WEBINAR

When is Therapy Inappropriate After Trauma?

In this webinar, Dr. Odelya Gertel Kraybill addresses why it is important NOT to conduct grief and trauma processing at this time, in response to the COVID19 crisis. Rather, we should be deploying Psychological First Aid (PFA) and Psychosocial Support (PSS) Interventions (containment-based psychotherapy) even with our current clients, using experiential methods, and focusing on resources.  

 

Experiential methods are especially useful in times of high stress - they are potent in promoting self-regulation and re-establishing containment in the midst of chaos. A focus on resources is essential, for many clients are overwhelmed in so many ways that the very foundations of life seem threatened.   Restoring a connection to these resources must precede any other work.

 

This 90-minute presentation blends up-to-date theoretical and clinical inputs with detailed, step-by-step guidance in how to use experiential methods in assisting clients in a time of high stress.    It includes: 

 

• A "Trauma Response Timeline" that breaks down post-trauma experience into phases and describes treatment options appropriate for each.

• Two alternatives to therapy that every caregiver should know how to provide:  Psychological First Aid and Psychosocial Support.

• A strategy (described and demonstrated) for helping clients connect to personal resources, even when they doubt that they have any.

• 4 exercises to help clients feel grounded and able to do self-regulation.

• 2 "re-set" exercises for moments when survivors feel overwhelmed by fear or panic.

• 3 experiential exercises for containment.

Workshop Series:
Self-Regulation

in Online Sessions - SOLD OUT!
Recording Coming Soon

This three-session workshop series is for therapists eager to optimize their work with clients on self-regulation via teletherapy.  The series will review the theory and practice of self-regulation and how to adapt it to the online environment in the context of COVID19.
Each series will unfold in three weekly sessions 1½ hours in length.  
 
Objectives:
1) An expanded tool-box for self-regulation works with clients who were already trauma survivors and now face additional crises of the current pandemic.
2) Increased therapeutic adeptness in incorporating bottom-up experiential modalities (expressive arts and somatic/body-oriented approaches), top-down approaches (cognitive and behavioral narrative processing), and in combining the two.
3) A clear understanding of how experiential self-regulation facilitates neuroplasticity and enhance vagal tone, and how to deploy tools for self-regulation in ways most likely to facilitate these.
   
Topics
Session One: Introduction to safety and experiential grounding.
Session Two: Introduction to embodiment and body-focused self-regulation.
Session Three: Integration work, incorporating art, grounding, and body-work.
 
Target audience:
Mental health counselors, social workers, psychotherapists, psychologists and other clinicians working with clients affected by stress, chronic stress, trauma, and complex trauma. 
​
Dates on Zoom:
Sunday, May 3, 10, 17
Time: 4-5:30 PM EST

Cost:
$135 for the series, payable in advance.   

 
Experiential modalities are bottom-up modalities.  In other words, they target the lower parts of the brain, where trauma leaves deep imprints, by engaging processes of creativity, spontaneity, and movement. Since trauma is a moment frozen in time that lives on into the present, the most powerful antidote for unfreezing is movement. This can be a movement (even in work with adults, not just with kids).  Or it can be a symbolic, ritual kind of movement that helps clients to physically experience a shift from a feeling of contraction (stagnation) to expansion.
​
What is experiential-self-regulation?
This is a particular form of self-regulation that focuses on body-awareness, grounding, and embodiment.
​
​What if I miss a workshop?
You will be missed. We will send you a recording of the session.
You are responsible for payment for all sessions even if circumstances do not allow your participation.

 

 

Designing An Individualized Sustainability Plan (ISP)

SOLD OUT! Recording Coming Soon

This five-session workshop series is for therapists interested in helping their clients design an individualized sustainability plan (ISP) and expand the scope of therapeutic intervention to address all aspects of wellness (emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual, and social).

 

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.

 

Dealing with the stress and trauma of COVID19 requires a more complex set of interventions than normal, that target all aspects of wellness.

 

This workshop series will introduce you to the concepts underlying an ISP and review approaches to developing an ISP in the context of therapy. 

 

These include a review of recent findings from nutritional psychology, the use of experiential self-compassion, expressive arts, sports and movement, etc. in creating an ISP framework.

 

As part of the learning process, participants will create and explore 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. 

 

The series will unfold in five weekly sessions, each 1½ hours in length.   

 

Topics

1. Session One: Introduction to ISP, the ETI framework, and roadmap after stress/trauma.

2. Session Two: Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth in the Context of ISP.

3. Session Three: Simplified Experiential Self-Compassion

4. Session Four: Body Wellness (gut, brain, nutrition, inflammation, immune system, etc.).

5. Session Five: Integration and Narrative Processing.
    

Target audience:

Mental health counselors, social workers, psychotherapists, psychologists and other clinicians working with clients affected by stress, chronic stress, trauma and complex trauma. 

​

Dates:

Sunday, June 14, 21, and 28, and July 5 and 12

Time: 4-5:30 PM EST

Location: Zoom

 

Cost:

$225 for the series, payable in advance. 

 

7.5 CEU's Category A Maryland Counseling Board.

Workshop Series:
Self-Regulation with Kids

in Online Sessions 
SOLD OUT!

Recording Coming Soon 

This is a series of two workshops for therapists seeking to optimize their teletherapy work on self-regulation with clients aged six to eighteen.  The series will introduce the basic theory and practice of Self-Regulation and how to adapt it to the online environment.  

​

Self-regulation is the ability to manage extreme (positive or negative) emotions, sensations, and thoughts. It’s a core objective of therapy, especially in trauma therapy.  Now, in this time of COVID19, self-regulation is challenging for virtually everyone, since chronic, complex stress from any source sets the nervous system off.

​

​Strengthening self-regulation is well-recognized as foundational in therapy in general and trauma therapy in particular. In therapy, the goal is for clients to expand their ability to respond to triggering events in a way that makes these sensations tolerable, without throwing them off-balance (eg: hyper—too high a response or hypo—a numb or shutdown response). 

​

In these interactive 2 hour sessions you will learn a new experiential language to introduce psychoeducation to your clients (and their parents).  In hands-on exercises, you will practice and learn how to employ this language in working with clients to facilitate self-regulation.

​

Objectives:​

1. Understand and learn to apply a conceptual framework for assessing client symptoms of stress and trauma (ETI Roadmap) and work with clients on self-regulation in the context of that framework.

2. Learn tools (in a process of more than 10 exercises that can also be used with clients) for self-regulation work with clients aged 6-18, who are trauma survivors or who experience stress and anxiety symptoms.

3. Increase therapeutic adeptness in blending bottom-up experiential modalities (expressive arts and somatic/body-oriented approaches) and top-down approaches (cognitive processing) into one seamless therapeutic process.  

4. Develop a clear understanding of the foundational role that self-regulation plays in facilitating neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, and vagal tone, and a good understanding of how to deploy experiential tools for self-regulation in ways that facilitate these in clients.

 

Topics

Session One: Introduction to ETI Roadmap, facilitating safety and body-awareness.

Session Two: Introduction to Experiential Top-Down & Bottom-Up Approaches.  Step-by-step Guide to Developing Self-Regulation.

 

Target audience

Mental health counselors, social workers, psychotherapists, psychologists and other clinicians working with clients affected by stress, chronic stress, trauma and complex trauma. 

​

Dates

Sundays, May 31 and June 7

Time: 4-6 PM EST

Location: Zoom

 

Cost

$110 payable in advance.

 

CEUs

4 CEUs through the Maryland Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists.