Trauma & Memory Workshop: Clinical Strategies to Resolve Traumatic Memories and Help Clients Reclaim Their Lives

CPD

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Speaker

Peter A. Levine, PhD Related seminars and products

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Peter A. Levine, PhD, holds doctorates in both medical biophysics and psychology. The developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a body-awareness approach to healing trauma, and founder of the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, which conducts trainings in this work throughout the world and in various indigenous cultures, with 26 faculty members and over five thousand students. Dr. Levine was a stress consultant for NASA on the development of the space shuttle project and was a member of the Institute of World Affairs Task Force of Psychologists for Social Responsibility in developing responses to large-scale disasters and ethnopolitical warfare. Levine’s international best seller, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, has been translated into 22 languages. His recent interests include the prevention of trauma in children, and he has co-written two books, with Maggie Kline, in the area: Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes and Trauma-Proofing Your Kids. His most recent book: Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past, was recently released to rave reviews. Levine’s original contribution to the field of body psychotherapy was honored in 2010 when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP). Levine was also honored as the recipient of the 2020 Psychotherapy Networker Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Peter Levine is the founder and president of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education, the president and editorial director of Ergos Institute Press, and receives a consulting fee from the Meadows Addiction Center. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Levine receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Peter Levine is a senior clinical fellow and advisor to the Meadows Addiction Treatment Center. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Humanistic Psychological Association, and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

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Objectives

1. Articulate the four major developmental stages that increase vulnerability to trauma and how to recognize them in your clients.
2. Determine the naturalistic mechanics of trauma and survival responses of flight, fight, freeze and collapse as it relates to clinical treatment.
3. List the different types of memory systems and comprehend the connection to the mind and body’s way of processing the types of memories.
4. Identify the various forms of memory and their impact on working with clients in therapy.
5. Explain ways to identify which memory systems are operative and how to access these (memory) components in a systematic fashion to promote self-regulation, integration and empowerment with clients.
6. Discover the evolutionary underpinnings of trauma and the Polyvagal theory and their clinical implications.
7. Demonstrate the importance of “Bottom-Up” processing versus “Top-Down” processing to improve treatment outcomes.
8. Analyze the effects of stress on somatic and emotional syndromes in clients.
9. Incorporate Dr. Levine’s simple containment tools to more effectively engage your client in trauma therapy.
10. Implement Somatic Experiencing© techniques to help clients heal traumatic memories.
11. Demonstrate practical tools for therapeutic work with emotional and procedural (“body”) memories.
12. Describe how to avoid the pitfalls of generating spurious (“false”) memories and help clients come to peace with their troubling memories and haunting emotions.

Outline

Trauma and the Body

• Developmental trauma
  • Pre-natal through age 5
• Evolution and Polyvagal foundation
• How the body stores trauma
• Clinical research

Deeper Understanding of Memory and Clinical Implications

• Explicit – More Conscious Memory
  • Declarative
  • Episodic
• Implicit – Less Conscious Memory
  • Emotional
  • Procedural/Body Memory
• Clinical application for memory systems

Traumatic Memories

• Long-term memory vs short-term memory
• How the brain and body store memory
• Memory engrams with somatic markers
• Fight, flight, freeze response

How Clients Get “Stuck”

• Tonic immobility - The fallback to freeze Freeze couples with Fear
• Dissociation
• Bracing and terror
• Euphoric dissociaton
• Collapse

Somatic and Emotional Reactions to Trauma

• Symptoms and complexities of each in therapy
• Emotional – anxiety, depression
• Somatic – chronic pain, fibromyalgia
• Autonomic – migraines, irritable bowel
• Resolving Traumatic Reactions

The Basic Stages of Trauma Treatment

• Containment of strong sensation and emotion
• Pendulation – The dual opposites of sensation
• Titration – going gradually
• Completion
• Renegotiation of active for passive responses
• Allow things to settle: Self-Paced termination

Therapeutic Approaches to Heal Traumatic Memories

• The importance of “Bottom-Up” processing
  • The Paul MacLean’s Triune Brain In an Unspoken Voice
• Somatic Experiencing©
  • Renegotiation vs. Reliving
  • Restoration of self-regulation
  • Somatic experience of trauma
  • Developing internal awareness
• The mind-body connection in trauma work
• Help reinforce trust and acceptance in clients
• Incorporating client’s spiritualty in trauma work 

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Therapists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Addiction Counselors
• Occupational Therapists
• Case Managers
• Nurses
• Other Helping Professionals

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