Schedule: 9:00am-5:00pm Friday, April 20th and Saturday, April 21st. Registration begins at 8:30am on Friday, April 20th. Refreshment will be provided for the morning and afternoon breaks. Participants will be responsible for their own lunch. Free Parking.
A Practical, Integrative Approach to Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders
This two day workshop will offer an integrative approach to create safety, reduce and resolve symptoms, and stabilize clients who have complex PTSD and dissociative disorders. Many clients with complex trauma are challenging, with a high level of crisis and chaos, have problems with the therapeutic relationship, and entrenched dysfunctional coping patterns. We will first examine how to understand and plan these demanding treatments in a sequenced, rational and tailored manner that supports increasing integration and improved functioning. Next, we will focus on specific principles and prognostic factors that can guide therapists in thoughtfully choosing interventions that are most likely to be effective. Interventions will be drawn from a variety of top-down and bottom-up modalities that are based on a coherent theoretical foundation. Participants will learn specific interventions to facilitate a collaborative therapeutic relationship. We will explore when and how to approach traumatic memory in the context of the therapeutic relationship. Emphasis will be place on how to work with various degrees of dissociation. A sequenced and systemic approach to dissociation will be discussed, with highly practical interventions. Participants will also explore the concept of resistance and how it can best be addressed in a collaborative manner with chronically traumatized clients.
Participants will be able to:
1. Name five essential principles of treatment in working with Complex
PTSD and dissociative disorders.
2. Discuss the differences between a parent-child model and a collaborative
model of the therapeutic relationship, and list at least 3 ways a collaborative relationship can be established.
3. Define disorganized attachment and how it is associated with
dissociation, with treatment implications.
4. Define dissociation and name at least four ways to work with clients who
have dissociative disorders.
5. List contraindications to working with traumatic memory.
6. Employ at least five interventions to support integration in clients with
dissociative disorders
About Kathy Steele, MN, CS
Kathy Steele, MN, CS has been in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, USA for over three decades and is also an Adjunct Faculty at Emory University. She is a Fellow and past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and is the recipient of a number of awards for her clinical and published works, including the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award from ISSTD. She has numerous publications in the field of trauma and dissociation, including three books. Kathy is known for her humor, compassion, respect, anddepth of knowledge as a clinician and teacher, and for her capacity to present complex issues in easily understood and clear ways.
