Trauma, Presence and Essence
Advanced Programme for Working with People Graduates

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Often as therapists and counsellors, we hear so many heart-breaking stories that we can get overwhelmed, lose track of our own inner boundaries and actually end up feeling traumatized by the session. Obviously, in order to work with deep traumas we ourselves need to look at our own traumas and deal with them in a compassionate and present way.

One of the hallmarks of working with trauma work is that the therapist often ends up with a broken connection to her or his grounded sense of self. In this work a basic understanding of how to work with and stay present when shock, overwhelm and activated trauma responses occur in the role of being a therapist. We will teach practical tools to work with in both your therapeutic practice and in your daily lives.

We now understand more fully how long-term stress causes deep somatisation; which means that trauma gets stored in the tissue of the body and in the Autonomic Nervous System. This then limits our connection to feeling, sensation and the healthy regulation of many organs as well as affecting our behaviour and capacity to respond in healthy, effective ways to challenges and potentially nourishing situations. It is very obvious that awareness and application of this makes extreme sense on many levels which enhance our effectiveness, well-being, healing and enjoyment of life. Emphasizing, practicing and having various body-oriented tools triggers awareness, cultivates presence and allows the emergence of our essential being.

In this course you will go deeply into recognizing and applying profound personal inner resources which activate living presence from structures which have formally been held back and frozen. We will explore ways to self- regulate in the therapeutic context as well as in the rest of our lives and of course the work will occur in the loving warm field that is always part of Working with People which of course supports healing and opening our deep trust in humanity.

 

Themes we will Explore:

• Deepening the understanding of trauma and the many ways

  trauma-related issues and structures manifest

• Learning the necessity and effective nuance of working with

  resources that vastly increase our potential to facilitate healing.

• Recognizing the overt power and the subtle manifestation of our

  natural, instinctive fight, flight and freeze response to danger

• Understanding how to effectively work with dissociation.

• Rediscovery and refinement of our felt sense and the wisdom of

  body orientation

• Developing more grounding,centring and presence skills

• Learningtheartofhowtoself-regulateandnotoverwhelm yourself or the client

• Recognition,acceptanceandrespectofourboundariesandthe boundaries of a client on more subtle levels

• Recognizing the importance of pacing and time as refined tools.

• Learning not to interpret but to watch and observe.

• Learninghowpresenceandtrustcreatestransformation

• Learningandunderstandingspecificstagesofdevelopmental

  psychology and how it can support the client tremendously

• Learning to trust presence and our essential nature

 

This is an in-person program for WWP Graduates.