Saturday, January 25, 2025

Complex Trauma - Tool Kit

Target Audience:

 

●          Mental Health Counselors

●          Social workers

●          Marriage and Family Therapists

●          Psychologists

●          Addiction Counselors

​

​​Strengthen your foundation and understanding of complex trauma while increasing the tools you have to work within the population.

​

When you treat clients with complex trauma there are so many intricacies. From diverse histories and ranges of responses to attachment issues, co-occurring disorders and dissociation, no two clients are exactly alike.

 

With so much complexity you can quickly find yourself in uncharted territory. But theory and overviews just aren’t enough, you need practical “do this” guidance to navigate this labyrinth.

 

I know. I used to have the same struggles. Now as trainer and consultant specializing in complex trauma, I help therapists like you overcome the challenges that can steal your confidence and stall your treatment plans.

 

And now, in this one-day training I’ll provide you the keys to unlocking a new level of confidence and competency in this critical area of therapy.

 

When you join me, you’ll get the solid foundation you need to work with complex trauma clients, ready not just understand today’s most in-demand therapies like IFS therapy, EMDR, and somatic approaches but actually put strategies from them into practice with your clients right away.

 

In just one day, I’ll provide you with detailed instruction, step-by-step guides, and case studies that will make it easy for you to:

• Master the art of comprehensive trauma assessments

• Discover IFS therapy tools to "unburden” clients from their wounded parts, emotions, and beliefs

• Utilize meaning-making to help clients reshape their narratives toward healing

• More intuitively engage the body in therapy for holistic treatment

• Address attachment issues to help clients build healthier relationship

• Insights and key considerations for working with co-morbidities

• And more!

 

Don’t miss this chance to walk away with a set of actionable strategies you can immediately apply in your practice.

​

​

Outline:

 

Complex Trauma Essentials: Brain Body Science Simplified

Recognizing Signs and Symptoms

Understanding Triggers and Avoiding Re-traumatization

Educating Clients about Trauma and Its Effects

Overview of the Brain's Response to Trauma

Somatic Experience in Trauma Treatment

Use the Window of Tolerance therapeutically while teaching resourcing in session

 

Complex Trauma Assessment and Diagnosis

Conducting Comprehensive Trauma Assessments

Differential Diagnosis and Co-occurring Disorders

Collaborative Treatment Planning

 

Attachment and Relationship Repair in Trauma Recovery:

The Foundation for Effective Treatment

Understanding Attachment Styles in Complex Trauma

Addressing Interpersonal Challenges

How clients’ bodies have attachments to psychosomatic patterns

The attachment clients make to their trauma and impediments to therapy

Promoting Secure Attachment and Healing Attachment Wounds

 

Go-To Trauma Stabilization Techniques All Therapists Need

Grounding and Self-Regulation Strategies

Mindfulness and Relaxation Exercises

Emotion Regulation Skills from DBT

 

Trauma Narrative and Processing:

Top Skills and Strategies to Help Clients Make Sense of Their Trauma

Exploring and Validating the Client's Trauma Narrative

Managing Dissociation and Flashbacks

Cognitive Restructuring and Meaning-Making

Facilitating Family or Group Narratives for Healing

​

Integrating IFS, EMDR, Somatic Techniques and More into Your Sessions

The power of choice and perspective as key themes in effective treatment

Use an IFS framework to identify protective and wounded parts related to trauma

How IFS "unburdens" clients from their wounded parts, emotions and beliefs

5 EMDR resourcing strategies to establish safety and resilience

Psychosomatic techniques to address the physical manifestations of trauma

Key considerations for working with grief, addiction and other co-morbidities

Research, limitations and treatment risks

Indications and contraindications

 

​

Learning Objectives:

 

Utilize appropriate clinical evidence-based assessments to identify traumatic events and make a trauma diagnosis.

Incorporate an understanding of motivational processes as a fundamental aspect of trauma treatment including addressing impairments in motivation as a target for intervention.

Demonstrate to clients how attachment impacts their life, behaviors, thoughts, cognitions and how they can use this information to change their attachment style.

Teach clients a simplified version of brain science to foster a therapeutic environment of normalizing trauma symptoms and validating individual challenges.

Empower clients to take ownership of treatment goals and outcomes by guiding them to recognize the influential role their choices play in the therapeutic process.       

Use interventions from EMDR, IFS and somatic approaches to best fit a particular client’s needs. 

Use parts work tools to interact and integrate parts creating greater progress with clients who tend to have parts that sabotage any success in moving forward.

​​​​

​

Biography:

 

Jennifer Sluga, LPC, SAC, is an EMDRIA Consultant who owns Trauma Life Consulting, where she is a therapist, trainer, consultant specializing in complex trauma. ​For years, Jennifer has worked with survivors of trauma, helping them heal through therapy and support. Additionally, she dedicates time to training clinicians, community members and advocates on issues related to sexual violence and military trauma. This includes effective treatment practices, principles of trauma-informed survivor-centered care, the impact of trauma on survivors and systems, and social/cultural issues in sexual assault/military trauma treatment and advocacy. She is devoted to helping people to resolve old, unhealthy patterns of thinking and behaving that prevent them from reaching their full potential. As a result of this solution-focused approach, clients report feeling more empowered to make more mindful and positive decisions about the direction of their life.