Julie M. Rosenzweig – Advanced Practical Clinical Skills for the Trauma-Informed Therapist

Outline

Creating a Trauma Therapy Framework

• Neuropsychological principles
• Attachment and regulatory concepts
• Identify your vulnerability hot spots
• Setting your clinical intention

The Therapeutic Alliance

• Listening for adaptive attachment narratives
• Use of self and the intersubjective experience
• Interrupting client’s sense of aloneness through using ‘we’ language

Establishing and Sustaining Emotional Safety

• Strengthen the client’s internal resources
• Provide practical neurobiology info to clients
• See, hear, and acknowledge therapeutic ruptures
• Steps in healing ruptures, including the art of apology

Recognizing Therapeutic Impasses and Getting Unstuck

• It’s not about client resistance
• Opportunities in impasses
• Being fully present
• Pause, pacing and moment-to-moment tracking

Traumatic Transference

• Vicarious traumatization prevention and intervention
• Compassion fatigue buffers
• Self-care: before, during and after

Neuroscience-Informed Trauma Treatment Strategies

• Memory processing & reconsolidation
• Choosing bottom-up versus top-down processing
• Paying attention to the body
• Moving through emotional activation

Building Narrative Coherence & Restoring Resilience

• Identifying survival-based sources of courage, creativity & innovation
• Re-vising meanings in trauma stories
• Reflective functioning (mentalizing)
• Techniques and tips from narrative therapy

Additional Considerations

• Sex & gender
• Couples and trauma-informed approaches
• When to seek consultation