Advances in Trauma Treatment: Trauma, Memory, and the Restoration of the Self

Dr. van der Kolk’s research transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifi cally areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, somatically based therapies, EMDR, psychodrama, play, yoga, and sensory integration methods such as dance and movement.

He’ll describe how movement affects memory processing and how trauma affects time awareness. By attending this workshop, you’ll gain a new understanding of the neuroscience of traumatic stress and the research demonstrating the effi cacy of mind-body treatment approaches. Dr. van der Kolk will present research data evaluating each set of interventions, show videos of clinical examples, and discuss the integration of these approaches during different stages of treatment.

Dr. van der Kolk’s course has been receiving rave reviews around the country and we hope you can join us -- You will leave the workshop feeling transformed and equipped with new tools and techniques to use with your clients immediately!

Topics of the Workshop Include:

Neuroscience, Brain Development, and Early Life Trauma

• How the brain regulates itself
• Developmental psychopathology: The derailment of developmental processes & brain development due to trauma, abuse and neglect
• How the brain responds to treatment
• Interpersonal neurobiology
• Adaptations to trauma early in the life cycle
• Challenge of affect regulation
• Chronic destructive relationships towards self and others
• Dissociation and amnesia
• Self-blame, guilt and shame
• Chronic distrust and identification with the aggressor
• Instinct of purpose

Attachment, Trauma, and Psychopathology

• How to overcome the destabilization and disintegration
• The compulsion to repeat – origins and solutions
• Difference between disorganized attachment and traumatic stress
• Attachment and attunement

Neuroscience, Trauma, Memory and the Body

• The neurobiology of traumatic stress
• Learned helplessness and learned agency
• Coming to stillness
• Restoring active mastery and the ability to attend to current experiences
• Somatic re-experiencing of trauma-related sensations and affects that serve as engines for continuing maladaptive behaviors
• How the body keeps the score and how trauma is played out in the theater of the body
• How trauma affects the way you experience yourself and your surroundings
• Trauma and fragmentation of the self
• Dealing with parts: managers and firefighters

Treatment and Interventions of Trauma-Related Disorders

• Affect and impulse dysregulation
• Disturbances of attention, cognition and consciousness
• Distortions in self-perception and systems of meaning
• Getting in touch with one’s self
• Somatization and biological dysregulation
• The development of DTD in the DSM-5® as a diagnosis and its implications for assessment, diagnosis and treatment
• The role of body-oriented and neurologically-based therapies to resolve the traumatic past
• Alternatives to drugs and talk therapy
• Memory processing: EMDR – how it works and for whom
• Experiences with self regulation: breathing, moving, mindfulness, and yoga
• Play and theatre
• Dance, movement and sensory integration
• Applied Neuroscience: Rewiring the brain with Neurofeedback

Objectives​

• Examine & explain how traumatized people process information

• Describe how sensorimotor processing can alleviate traumatic re-experiencing

• Describe the range of adaptations to trauma early in the life cycle

• Explain how trauma affects the developing mind and brain

• Summarize the recent advances in neurobiology of trauma

• Describe how movement affects memory processing

• Identify the difference between disrupted attachment and traumatic stress

• Describe how adverse childhood experiences effect brain development, emotion regulation & cognition

• List and describe techniques of physical mastery, affect regulation and memory processing

• Summarize treatment strategies alternatives to drugs and talk therapy

Disclosure Information

Please remember to check speaker/planner conflict of interest disclosures prior to registering. Click here for more info.

Workshop Agenda

Registration opens at 7:30AM for the live, in-person event. The workshop runs from 8:30AM-4:30PM daily. There will be two 30 minute breaks around 10AM and 2:45PM with an hour lunch.

For a complete course agenda, please download the workshop brochure from the Brochures and Handouts tab.

Click here for course completion and CE/CME information, and FAQ.