Diane Poole Heller – Working the Edge in Healing Trauma: Can Therapy Sometimes Be Too Safe?

While most therapists are sensitive to the hazards of retraumatizing clients by pushing them too far, too fast, what about the dangers of playing it too safe? When is too much risk avoidance a disservice to clients and an indication of the therapist’s overprotectiveness getting in the way of growth? In this workshop, we’ll look closely at how to understand clients’ threat threshold and establish an optimal pace in trauma recovery, drawing fully on their resilience and capacity for self-healing. Through video clips and demonstration, you will learn how to:

• Use resourcing and other methods to set up corrective experiences with clients learning how to handle increasing arousal and discomfort
• Recognize your own tendency to be overprotective and rescue vulnerable clients
• Invite and empower clients to face manageable challenges and find ways to test their own limits

What you’ll learn in Working the Edge in Healing Trauma

Objectives

1. Articulate strategies to leverage corrective experiences in treatment
2. Summarize the effects of establishing therapeutic presence to help improve client engagement
3. Summarize strategies to help clients test their own limits to improve clinical outcomes
4. Summarize strategies to help reinforce resilience and capacity for self-healing in clients

Outline

Overview of working with disorganized attachment in trauma clients

• Identifying secure attachment
• Establishing safety and tracking in the body

Step-by-step discussion through client demonstration video

• How to directly untangle the disorganized attachment
• How to help clients “reclaim their light”
• How to use Polyvagal Theory to help our clients

Concluding remarks from Diane Poole Heller

• Final remarks on client outcomes

Who is this Working the Edge in Healing Trauma course for: 

Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapists and other Behavioral Health Professionals

About Diane Poole Heller

Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D.: At a time when psychotherapists trained primarily in the “talking cure” are increasingly recognizing the need to “read” clients’ nonverbal communications, particularly those buried in early attachment issues, she has been a leader in addressing the unconscious issues that clients are often unable to express.

With an approach grounded in Attachment Theory, Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing method of trauma resolution, and spiritual healing techniques, she’s traveled around the world teaching integrative mind-body methods that deepen the resonance of the therapist–client bond.

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