Case Consultation Workshops for Clinicians on Comprehensive Treatment of Trauma: How to Collect the Herd
“Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other. We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.”
-Irvin Yalom
Compared to the big, often troubled world, the boundaried little island of the therapeutic relationship becomes the place where change can and will safely occur. It is powerful, personal, transformational work that happens in the consulting room. As clinicians, you show up everyday ready for study, eager to learn someone thoroughly, and though you are steeped in neutrality, your human love and vulnerability envelop the room. What an incredible day at the office.
Even though the work is about social understanding, the experience by the clinician of psychotherapy can be very isolating and solitary. When the work gets hard, which it often does, clinicians innately want to seek out their herd. All humans thrive in connection, and the work of a psychotherapist is no exception. Being the clinician means always working inside the wounds, and sometimes the only way to combat the seclusion is to convene.
Issues in the Treatment of Trauma
Since March of 2020, the landscape of psychotherapy has drastically changed, both in volume of people seeking treatment, and in the prevalence and complexity of issues in the treatment of trauma. My experience as a clinician and social work supervisor with 20 years of psychotherapy experience, is that over the last 3 years, newer clinician’s feel their confidence is shaken. This likely was not what you had imagined as you sat in your advanced educational programs awaiting a career as a helping professional. Case loads have been pushing past the point of comfortability, waiting lists keep growing and growing, sessions are being held at hours you once deemed sacred, the compensation doesn’t always feel proportionate to how much you are giving of yourself, and yet the requirement of showing up feels more dire than ever. It won’t be the first time you will hate to admit that you are frayed. As a devoted helper, it is your natural inclination to help harder and learn bigger, but you are undoubtedly better when you don’t go it alone. If you are to sustain yourself in this work, it is imperative that you invest in a community that thoroughly supports and upholds you.
Collecting the Herd
Being able to explore these collective experiences in a group setting not only alleviates the isolation that comes with doing this work, but offers a shared space with other clinicians who all have the drive to do better and feel more confident.
“Social connection builds resilience, and resilience helps create post-traumatic wisdom, and that wisdom leads to hope. Hope for you and hope for others witnessing and participating in your healing, hope for your community.”
― Bruce D. Perry, What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
Case Consultation Workshops for Clinicians on Comprehensive Treatment of Trauma offer an opportunity for clinicians to get answers to questions you will learn are much more commonly asked and contemplated when working with patients with a complicated trauma history, and provides both a safe and educational space to process, deconstruct, and broaden your clinical framework.
The Curriculum
Provides the foundation for the treatment of a whole, complex person with a complicated history of trauma through case consultation and didactic presentations and discussions on a comprehensive study of Trauma.
Focuses on the therapeutic complexities of working with extensive and complicated traumatic histories by addressing the relationship between clinician and patient.
Provides a boundaried, confidential, safe environment to expand clinical knowledge in the treatment of trauma while acknowledging the role and impact of the therapist.
Weekly didactic, trauma - focused presentations on topics related such as: Resiliency and Assessment, Affect Regulation, Attachment Dilemmas and Relationship concerns, Issues of Transference and Countertransference, Co-occurring disorders, and best evidence based treatment and practices.
For Case Consultation, each clinician presents and workshops one pre-approved case (case appropriateness determined ahead of time through a 1:1 meeting).
Convenes weekly for 1.5 hours, for 6 week sessions
Has a maximum of 6 clinicians per group
Workshops are confidential and by invitation only
Provides participants with 1.5 CEU’s per sessions, a total of 9 CEU’s per course
Meetings are held in person or via Telehealth
Format
The first 30 minutes is case presentation of history, diagnosis, conceptualization, and areas in which the clinician is feeling stuck or uncertain.
The remaining time is then utilized to:
Facilitate discussion surrounding case conflicts, challenges, issues of transference and counter transference, treatment strategies and interventions
Facilitate discussion on a predetermined adjunctive topic relative to the presented case to provide a greater depth of knowledge on complicated trauma histories
Ideal Candidates
Have 1-5 years of post-masters clinical psychotherapy experience and are a licensed clinician
Are committed to providing individual insight oriented, talk psychotherapy with patients with histories of trauma
Value an opportunity to share your clinical work, provide feedback to others, and more thoroughly broaden and intensity your clinical knowledge and experience
