Intensive Trauma Treatment Certification Workshop: EMDR, CBT and Somatic-Based Interventions to Move Clients from Surviving to Thriving

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Jennifer Sweeton, PsyD, MS, MA Related seminars and products

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Dr. Jennifer Sweeton is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and internationally-recognized expert on trauma, anxiety, and the neuroscience of mental health. Dr. Sweeton has been practicing EMDR for nearly a decade and has treated a variety of populations using EMDR and other memory reconsolidation approaches, including combat veterans, individuals with PTSD and complex trauma, and those suffering from treatment-resistant anxiety. She completed her doctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and the National Center for PTSD. Additionally, she holds a master’s degrees in affective neuroscience from Stanford University, and studied behavioral genetics at Harvard University.

Dr. Sweeton resides in the greater Kansas City area, where she owns a group private practice, Kansas City Mental Health Associates. She is a past president of the Oklahoma Psychological Association and holds adjunct faculty appointments at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She is the president of the Greater Kansas City Psychological Association. Dr. Sweeton offers psychological services to clients in Oklahoma, Kansas, and internationally, and is a sought-after trauma and neuroscience expert who has trained thousands of mental health professionals in her workshops.

 

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Jennifer Sweeton is in private practice. She has an employment relationship with the Oklahoma City VAMC. Dr. Sweeton receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.  She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.

Non-financial: Jennifer Sweeton has no relevant non-financial relationship to disclose.
 

Objectives

1. Analyze the brain regions involved in trauma.
2. Assess the clinical implications of the freeze response in trauma treatment.
3. Determine how clinicians can assess for simple, complex, and intergenerational trauma.
4. Evaluate how bottom-up techniques like grounding and breathwork can increase felt safety in clients.
5. Analyze methods clinicians can use to gauge when clients are ready for intense trauma work.
6. Determine how narrative therapy exercises can be employed in session to help clients talk about hotspots.
7. Justify how somatic approaches can be used to address the physical symptoms of trauma survivors.
8. Determine how exposure, titration and pendulation can be used to “slow” emotions in clients.
9. Support how EMDR-based techniques can be used with clients to resolve traumatic memories.
10. Differentiate between EMDR, EFT and neuromodulation approaches.
11. Develop plans for working with anger, resistance, and suicidality in clients who’ve experienced trauma.
12. Debate the potential risks and limitations of trauma treatment techniques.

Outline

The Neuroscience of Trauma and Mechanisms of Change

• Key brain areas involved in trauma
• Fight, flight, freeze, fawn survival responses
• Clinical implications of the freeze response
• The neuroscience of EMDR, exposure therapy and cognitive therapy

Connect Clients to a Diagnosis: Trauma Assessment Tools

• Simple vs. complex trauma
• Intergenerational trauma
• Symptom clusters and physical manifestations
• CAPS-5 and PCL-5
• Primary Care PTSD Screen
• Dual diagnosis

Stabilize Your Clients Prior to Trauma Work

• Trauma treatment roadmap – order of operations
• Bottom-up techniques to reconnect and feel safe in the body
• Self-soothing techniques
• Grounding strategies
• Breathwork
• Gauge when a client is ready for intense trauma/cognitive work

Proven Skills and Techniques from Evidence-Based Approaches:

• Somatic Approaches: Address Physical Symptoms of Trauma
  • Relevance of Polyvagal theory and early trauma
  • Assess for readiness to apply somatic tools
  • Teach body awareness
  • Manage unease with “Felt sense” exercises
  • Resourcing strategies to create a safe space
• CBT Coping Skills: Manage Emotions
  • Identify inaccurate trauma-related cognitions
  • Exposure, titration and pendulation to slow emotions
  • Cognitive reframing and reappraisal interventions
  • Memory reconstruction techniques

EMDR-Based Techniques: Resolve Traumatic Memories

• Adaptive Information Processing Theory EMDR vs EFT vs neuromodulation
• Resourcing strategies
• Combine memory reprocessing with cognitive restructuring
• Using “restricted processing” with complex trauma

Narrative Therapy Exercises: Rewrite Traumatic Experiences

• Interventions to help clients talk about hotspots
• Reclaim identity with the “Tree of life” exercise
• Awareness and closure - create life stories

Solutions to Trauma Treatment Roadblocks

• How to handle the angry client
• Strategies for the resistant trauma client
• Boundary concerns
• Dealing with crises, suicidality, substance use

Reintegration and Post-Traumatic Growth

• Better than normal - the neuroscience of post-traumatic growth
• The therapeutic alliance as a brain-based approach
• The power of forgiveness in moving forward
• Meaning making exercises

Research, Limitations and Potential Risks

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Case Manager
• Addiction Counselors
• Therapists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals

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