Compassion Fatigue Solutions

This is a workshop organised by Michael Kerman of Leading Edge Seminars. Although I do not know Janina Fisher, the topic might be particularly relevant for helping professionals in gaining a better understanding of how trauma affects not only their clients but also helpers themselves when working with a lot of traumatic material with clients (vicarious trauma).

Led by Janina Fisher, PhD
2-day workshop
Dates: Thursday, December 4 and Friday, December 5, 2008
Time: 9:00 am to 4:30 pm
Location: Metro-Central YMCA
Fee: $309 until Sept. 11; $339 after Sept. 11

In the context of trauma, attachment failure is inevitable and inescapable, leaving a lasting imprint on all future relationships, including the therapeutic one. Instead of experiencing therapy and the therapist as a haven of safety, the traumatized client will be driven by powerful wishes and fears about relationships, while therapeutic work on the trauma will be compromised by the client’s vulnerability to autonomic dysregulation and transference crises.

Increasingly, therapists interested in the treatment of trauma have become aware of the necessity to treat the attachment issues concurrently with the trauma issues. In this workshop, we will address the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour, the effects of sub-optimal attachment experiences on mind and body, how to understand the effects of traumatic attachment on the therapeutic relationship, and how to work with both the somatic and relational legacy of attachment.

Using interventions drawn from the spheres of psychodynamic psychotherapy, neuroscience and attachment research, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (a body-centred talking therapy for the treatment of trauma), this workshop will combine lecture, demonstration, video, and experiential exercises to explore —

* A neurobiologically informed approach to understanding the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour and on transference
* Strategies for overcoming the effects of disorganized attachment on the therapeutic relationship
* Somatic interventions that challenge trauma-related relational patterns
* The role of the therapist as a “neurobiological regulator” of the client’s dysregulated affective and autonomic states

By the end of the seminar, you will be able to —

* Identify trauma-related attachment patterns and styles
* Describe disorganized attachment behaviour in adults and its implications for treatment
* Discuss somatic consequences of avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized attachment styles
* Define criteria for choosing cognitive, psychodynamic, or somatic interventions for attachment issues
* Utilize somatic interventions to address attachment issues in psychotherapy

For more info: www.leadingedgeseminars.org