Treating Trauma in Intimate Relationships - Healing the Trauma Legacy in Couples Therapy

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Janina Fisher, PhD Related seminars and products

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Janina Fisher, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and former instructor at The Trauma Center, a research and treatment center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known as an expert on the treatment of trauma, Dr. Fisher has also been treating individuals, couples, and families since 1980.

She is past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of the neurobiological research and newer trauma treatment paradigms into traditional therapeutic modalities.

She is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation (2017) and the forthcoming book, Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma (in press).

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Janina Fisher has an employment relationship with the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. She is a consultant for Khiron House Clinics and the Massachusetts Department of MH Restraint and Seclusion Initiative. Dr. Fisher receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. Dr. Fisher has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Janina Fisher is on the advisory board for the Trauma Research Foundation. She is a patron of the Bowlby Center.

Alternate Options

Objectives

1. Discuss the neurobiological effects of traumatic experiences on individuals and couples as it relates to case conceptualization.
2. Describe the role of animal defense survival responses in perpetuating relational conflict to inform clinical treatment interventions.
3. Identify signs and symptoms of a client’s traumatic attachment in dyadic interaction.
4. Provide psychoeducation about trauma and attachment to clients.
5. Define implicit memory and articulate the role of implicit memory in evoking the sense of threat.
6. Identify and verbalize repetitive patterns of action and reaction in the couple.
7. Utilize practice of new patterns in session and evaluate their relative success in reducing couple conflict.
8. Increase the ability of couples to observe their nonverbal communication and its impact on the relationship.
9. Describe physical sensations that a client can feel when shame and resentment occur.
10. Teach couples to articulate physical sensations arising in their interactions.
11. Summarize sensorimotor psychotherapy practices that can be interfaced with psychotherapy practices to alleviate the volatility in couples.
12. Identify interventions that can be used in-session to increase positive affect in the presence of the other.
13. Provide homework for couples focused on practicing new patterns of action and reaction to improve engagement.

Outline

Day 1 Program

The Effects of Early Relational Trauma: Emotional, Physiological, Relational

• What is a ‘trauma’?
• Single events versus enduring conditions
• Remembering with our emotions and our bodies
• Procedural or conditioned learning
• Effects on brain and body

• Triggers and Triggering: stay prepared for danger
• Animal defense survival responses in human beings
• Effects of traumatic adaptation on relationships

• How trauma-related patterns affect the capacity for intimacy
• Body and emotional memories re-create the sense of danger
• Chronic conflict as activation of animal defenses
• Why couples cannot process conflicts or tolerate empathy

• Create neutral space in therapy sessions
• Provide psychoeducation about trauma
• Inhibit destructive patterns in the therapy session
• Practice of new patterns as ‘experiments’

• Mindfulness-based awareness of the ‘play-by-play’
• Notice the effects of their actions on partner reactions
• Observe with curiosity: “Am I getting what I want this way? Is this working?”

Day 2 Program

Shift from “Processing” Issues to Changing Patterns of Response

• A repair model for psychotherapy in place of an insight model
• The therapist as referee rather than empathic listener
• Limits and boundaries on conflict in the therapy
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

• Brief introduction to sensorimotor psychotherapy
• Teach couples somatic awareness and dialogue techniques
• Work with the body to decrease tension and ‘charge’ in the relationship
• Use movement and gesture as vehicles for communication

• Externalizing techniques deter conflictual verbal exchange
• Diagram patterns of conflict
• Use diagramming to help couples take responsibility for their actions and reactions
• Connect to the wounded child in each partner
• Acknowledge the role of child selves in their conflicts
• Sooth and protect the hurt child self
• Increase self-compassion and compassion toward partner

Target Audience

• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Psychologists
• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals