What if you could give clients immobilized by trauma fast relief, without having to worry about retraumatizing them by rehashing what happened to them? Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) are some of the preeminent bottom-up energy psychology approaches for rapidly calming the body and restoring balance after trauma-induced stress and anxiety. These techniques are easy to learn, backed by over 200 research studies, and have been used to treat everything from test anxiety to PTSD in veterans to survivors of genocide in Rwanda. In this workshop, we’ll explore how and why EFT works, as well as its many applications for any client population. You’ll learn:

• The two phases of EFT: first, using it to aid in emotional regulation, and then using it to treat traumatic memories
• How to integrate EFT’s different techniques into trauma treatment
• Why EFT goes beyond “tapping,” integrating aspects of multiple approaches from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Erickonian Hypnosis

There’s no question that trauma lives in the body and brain. But even the most acclaimed trauma treatment approaches can be overly procedural, hard for clients to tolerate, and difficult for clinicians to master. Brainspotting, a research-backed treatment method based on finding somatic cues through the use of eye gaze for the treatment of stress and trauma, solves these problems. It helps clients access emotional energy trapped deep in the nonverbal, noncognitive areas of the brain both safely and quickly. In this workshop from the developer of Brainspotting, you’ll watch live demonstrations to learn how the method works, and rethink how you view the human condition and human suffering from a more developmental and neurological point of view—the neuroexperiential model. You’ll also discover:

• How Brainspotting differs from other trauma processing therapies
• How Brainspotting can be used to treat a multitude of symptoms, including anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, and substance abuse
• How to integrate Brainspotting into ongoing treatment, especially with complex developmental trauma such as attachment issues and dissociation
• How to be less directive in therapy and empower your clients in effective ways

Discover the Hakomi Method — one of the world’s most established somatic psychotherapy approaches to trauma healing. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to integrate Hakomi’s relational mind-body techniques with somatic trauma work, embodied movement, and therapist self-attunement. Go beyond focusing on techniques by enhancing the way you show up for your clients — in body, presence, and connection. 

In this workshop, you’ll discover: 

• The 5 principles of Hakomi method and how they are used to guide psychotherapeutic treatment 

• How to determine the core focus of a session and integrate new discoveries, beliefs, and behaviors 

• How to be present with your client in the most meaningful way 

These days, many therapists are wondering how they can “be real” with their clients to deepen the therapeutic relationship, while also holding clear boundaries and navigating countertransference with the utmost care. It feels like a conundrum given that most of us were trained to believe that we must hide ourselves from clients in order to be effective. In this workshop, we’ll explore how therapists can be their authentic selves, both online and in person, while maintaining ethical standards that protect both you and your clients. You’ll discover: 

• A model for how to show up authentically and use self-disclosure appropriately 

• How to show up online as a therapist in a way that gets your message out ethically 

• Crucial countertransference pitfalls with clients that can rupture the therapeutic alliance 

Looking for a research-supported, skills-based approach to trauma that’s both accessible and effective? Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has become one of the most recognized and sought-after therapies for a variety of difficult to treat client problems, designed to empower clients to establish mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. And in the realm of trauma treatment, it’s among our most effective interventions. In this workshop, we’ll explore how DBT’s structured, skills-based approach can help stabilize clients before deeper trauma work, or work as a standalone intervention. Guided by the latest research and policy in evidence-based practices, you’ll learn the clinical process and content of DBT that will help you apply the essentials of DBT to trauma treatment. You’ll also learn:

• How to help trauma survivors “extinguish the fire” of symptoms, not just continuously walk through it
• Skills for combating loneliness, emotional dysregulation, and common other challenges in this time of unique uncertainty
• Skills from the Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness modules
• How validation, dialectical strategies, and communication styles can help clients effectively balance acceptance and change

For many clients with complex PTSD, life can feel like a draining onslaught of negative feelings: worthlessness, hopelessness, anxiety, and loneliness. And for the therapists who treat them, it’s hard to cultivate hope while addressing trauma-related volatility and vulnerability. Fortunately, incorporating Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy techniques into treatment has been shown to reduce the aftereffects of relational trauma and early attachment wounds, allowing therapists to help clients create a path forward. In this workshop, you’ll be applying neuroscientific principles to therapeutic decisions about extreme symptoms as you address common adaptations for relational trauma such as neglect, shame, and substance abuse. You’ll learn to help clients:

• Unload distorted thoughts and beliefs, discharge troubling sensations, and release feelings of unworthiness, loneliness, and unlovability
• Address protective parts in a trauma-specific manner, and gain the permission of these parts to access hidden vulnerabilities
• Use cognitive, body-centered, and emotional tools release pain

This event is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the IFS Institute and does not qualify for IFS Institute credits or certification.

How can therapists facilitate real change in a more humanistic and client-centered way? This dilemma is the cornerstone of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which begins with a simple question: how can we help our clients be more open, aware, and actively engaged in building a meaningful life? Once we’ve helped clients answer this question, they can extend those gains to their relationships, their body, and even the wider culture. Backed by over 1,400 randomized trials and drawing from healing approaches from all over the world, ACT is uniquely suited to helping clients face today’s biggest challenges—not just personal problems surrounding diet, sleep, exercise, and physical diseases, but also social concerns, like how to be a better parent, how to grapple with prejudice, and how to become a kinder human being. In this experiential workshop, you’ll learn every major part of the ACT model. You’ll also learn:

• Why today’s popular diagnostic frameworks are deeply flawed, and a more inclusive approach to diagnosis
• What ACT looks like in practice, through exercises you can use alone or with clients
• How to make the body more central in your interventions
• How to help clients take action based on what matters most to them

As the world around us continues to shift, clients living at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities may be navigating additional cultural stressors and finding it harder to show up in spaces where they don’t feel safe. Treating trauma that stems from experiences of racism and ambiguous loss can be challenging. These losses run deep in the lives of minoritized clients, but they’re generally unrecognized by society, and despite the pervasiveness of racialized stress and discrimination in the everyday lives of people of color, many clinicians don’t feel adequately equipped to address the trauma of racism. Through interactive discussion and experiential exercises, participants will gain the knowledge to develop culturally informed strategies to treat Black, Indigenous, and other clients of color who’ve experienced racial stress or trauma. You’ll also learn:

• What culturally responsive therapy looks like in practice
• How to work with racial trauma in an embodied way
• How to incorporate multiple frameworks into culturally responsive practices, including EMDR, IFS, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

It sometimes feels as if the landscape of couples and sex therapy has been well-trodden, but the truth is there’s still a wealth of unexplored territory, especially when it comes to using psychedelics to treat relational trauma in individuals, couples, and polyamory groups. These drugs, including ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin, go where other pharmaceuticals cannot, and a wealth of new research suggests they could be the answer to helping partners bypass some of the most common roadblocks that keep them stuck. But how do you actually apply psychedelics in couples and sex therapy given their newcomer status and legal quandaries? In this workshop, you’ll learn the answers to these questions and more through the lens of integrative relationship therapy, as we walk through actual couples therapy sessions and explore popular theories about how psychedelics will bolster couples and sex therapy in the future. You’ll also learn:

• The three phases of psychedelic-assisted therapy: preparation, experience, and integration
• How psychedelics can help treat childhood and adult sexual trauma, and trauma after affairs
• How to help clients let go of old narratives that no longer serve them and their relationships
• How to help partners experience increased pleasure, shared joy, and profound connection
• How to facilitate structured and meaningful conversations and guided practices

Polyvagal Theory and EMDR are two leading-edge therapy approaches with ample implications for healing. In this workshop, you’ll discover how these popular neuro-informed frameworks can be woven together to support clients in the treatment of addictions, anxiety, depression, grief, chronic pain, and adjustment disorders, as well as in their more common application with trauma and PTSD. You’ll learn how to:

• Apply the most important principles of Polyvagal Theory across a variety of practices and clinical presentations
• Use data provided by heart rate variability and vagal tone in your therapy room to support your client
• Apply neural exercises to help clients regulate emotions
• Apply core principles of EMDR therapy to treat trauma, depression, and anxiety

Humility, authenticity, and relational safety are essential to truly trauma-informed care—yet many clinicians receive limited training in working with complex and relational trauma. In this powerful conversation, Dr. Ramani Durvasula will be joined by Kimberly Shannon Murphy (Hollywood stuntwoman, author, and trauma survivor) to explore Kimberly’s childhood experiences of trauma, family denial, and the damaging impact of antagonistic and narcissistic dynamics. They’ll discuss the critical need for therapists to be both trauma- and antagonism-informed, and reflect on Kimberly’s journey through therapy—what helped, what didn’t, and what her experience teaches us about gaps in trauma training and care.

• Client-informed insights into what survivors need from therapy
• The pitfalls of pressuring survivors toward forgiveness
• Practical strategies for integrating trauma- and antagonism-informed approaches into clinical practice

Historically, couples therapy hasn’t been considered a treatment for trauma. Yet it can be a powerful modality for spurring growth, resolving painful patterns, and helping clients build a strong sense of self. If early developmental trauma occurred for one or both partners, the client may struggle with impulse control, vulnerability, and trust while also feeling like a victim within their relationship. And if trauma has occurred between the partners, it may be causing disillusionment that’s stalling relationship development. For this reason, it’s important to be able to recognize trauma in the context of couples therapy. In this workshop, you’ll learn to:

• Recognize and address three main types of trauma that can surface in couples therapy
• Confidently apply strategies for resolving trauma
• Differentiate between when it’s best to treat trauma individually or as a couple
• Leverage couples therapy to help trauma survivors strengthen their sense of self
• Recognize the subtle role of shame in stalling couples development

Do you ever find yourself getting stuck and exhausted with clients who’ve experienced trauma? You’re not alone. Traditional trauma approaches only get us so far, as our clients’ unresolved conflicts inevitably keep sabotaging their efforts toward healing. The truth is that stubborn trauma often requires complex treatment, not just standalone therapy. In this workshop, you’ll learn the essentials of somatic interventions, parts work, and EMDR, and how combining them in an integrative approach is the key to treating particularly stubborn trauma. We’ll also watch and break down video demonstrations of these mind-body approaches, so that you’ll walk away with concrete tools to support your trauma work.

You’ll also learn how to:

• Access and work with preverbal memories in therapy
• Build powerful somatic and imaginal resources to support trauma healing
• Integrate somatic repatterning, parts work, and EMDR Therapy for deeper, more effective treatment

Tapping in is a resource for  supporting resilience, helping clients with emotional regulation, and healing developmental deficits—one that’s untapped for many clinicians In this workshop, you’ll learn from live demonstrations exactly how you can use attachment-focused EMDR and its four foundational resources to guide your clients toward increased resilience, emotional regulation, and developmental repair. Not only will you acquiring skills to tap in resources drawn from EMDR, you’ll learn how you can use resource figures, such as an ideal mother, to repair damage from early childhood, abuse, neglect and rejection. You’ll learn to:

• Draw on the five basic principles of Attachment-Focused EMDR in your work
• Employ bilateral stimulation to “tap in” or “install” resources
• Name the four foundational resources: Peaceful Place, Nurturing Figures, Protector Figures, Wise Figures
• Activate imagery of an ideal mother and utilize bilateral stimulation to help access healing for developmental repair

Medical crises can have lasting psychological and physical impacts, often resulting in medical trauma—distress triggered by invasive, life-threatening, or overwhelming medical experiences. Unlike other forms of trauma, medical trauma can be ongoing, with symptoms like hypervigilance, avoidance, and emotional distress triggered by bodily sensations, medical environments, or healthcare interactions. It may arise from sudden diagnoses, painful treatments, loss of autonomy, or inadequate care, often leading to anxiety, depression, and difficulties with medical adherence.

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to recognize and treat medical trauma, differentiate it from other traumas, conduct targeted assessments, and implement interventions that promote recovery. You'll also learn symptom-focused strategies, including pain management techniques, and explore systemic barriers that complicate care, leaving with practical tools to support clients in healing and navigating healthcare challenges. You’ll also learn:  How to address trauma-related thoughts, physiological distress, and somatic symptoms

• How to differentiate medical trauma from other forms of trauma
• How to assess hidden medical trauma that may be driving anxiety and depression
• Targeted care and strategies to help clients navigate healthcare barriers

“I can’t talk about that. It’s too painful.” If you’re a therapist who works with trauma, this is likely a familiar refrain. “It wasn’t so bad” is another.  Remembering traumatic events can be extremely distressing and many clients can’t tolerate it.  Luckily for us as therapists, we don’t have to feel stuck when our clients are unwilling or unable to talk about a painful past or can talk about it only without emotion.  In this workshop, you’ll learn how to refocus clients onto the effects of trauma rather than the events, using powerful, practical interventions adapted from neuroscience, EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and mindfulness-based therapies. You’ll discover how to help clients:

• Transform feelings of aloneness, terror, inadequacy, and shame into feelings of competence and agency
• Usher in new here-and-now experiences that allow clients to feel an internal sense of safety without revisiting the traumatic event
• Guide clients in creating new narratives about themselves and the world that help them to heal, not just remember

Couples often begin therapy with the complaint, "We can't communicate." Feelings of frustration, disappointment, and despair often lie behind this common problem, along with a mistaken belief that communication techniques will easily restore love and connection. But true healing and reconnection requires something deeper: embracing differentiation. In this workshop, you’ll explore this essential developmental stage and identify the emotional capacities required for partners to relate to each other clearly—not as idealized extensions of themselves, but as separate, unique individuals. You’ll learn to help couples:

• Identify where they are in the developmental model
• Move through the challenging terrain of the differentiation process
• Draw on practical strategies to increase genuine understanding, respect, and appreciation
• Transform relational trauma into opportunities and growth

Traumatic stress and ADHD share significant associations, according to a growing body of research on trauma and childhood maltreatment. Studies show that people with ADHD score higher than their neurotypical peers on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) questionnaire. So how do we explain the connection between trauma and ADHD? How do we tease apart the diagnoses? And what do their similarities mean for symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment? In this workshop, we’ll use a holistic, trauma-informed frame to explore these complex questions, looking at trauma and ADHD as both distinct and co-occurring experiences. You’ll also learn:

• How untreated ADHD can lead to trauma, and vice versa
• Why epigenetics is key to understanding trauma’s role in ADHD symptoms
• How ADHD and trauma affect different parts of the brain and how this impacts behavior
• How to avoid reductionism when working with neurodivergent clients

Grieving clients are often experiencing not just loss but trauma. As practitioners, it’s important that we’re able to recognize and address both as we help them move toward healing. This requires tools and techniques for close listening, looking to the body for clues, and releasing regret, anger, and rumination. In this workshop, you’ll explore:

• The difference between grief and trauma, and how they intersect in traumatic grief
• When focusing on the story of a loss helps, and when it keeps clients stuck
• Tools that help clients move toward healing when grief involves guilt, sudden death, lengthy illness, suicide, addiction, or old wounds
• Somatic techniques to release grief that becomes stuck in their body

Trauma healing is most effective when we integrate both the body and mind—yet most therapeutic approaches focus on one or the other. In this workshop, you’ll explore the powerful intersection of Somatic Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to create a holistic and embodied approach to trauma recovery, one that provides cognitive tools to reframe thought patterns and emotional responses as well as tools to access the body’s wisdom to release stored trauma and regulate the nervous system. Through practical exercises, experiential learning, and clinical insights, you’ll discover:

• How trauma impacts both cognition and the nervous system
• How to pair body-based awareness with cognitive restructuring for deeper transformation
• Guided exercises that combine movement, breathwork, and thought reframing
• Techniques to move from dysregulation (fight/flight/freeze) into resilience
• How to identify and shift the automatic thought-body patterns that reinforce trauma responses.

Covert narcissism is an often-overlooked form of narcissism, in part because it’s hard to detect. Unlike their overt counterparts, covert narcissists don’t display grandiose, attention-seeking behaviors that reveal their narcissistic tendencies. Instead, they often present as modest, self-effacing, and even insecure, making it more difficult to recognize narcissistic traits like passive-aggression, blaming, low empathy, assurance-seeking, emotionally manipulating others, and a lack of accountability.

In this workshop, we’ll use schema therapy, an emotion-focused, needs-meeting approach that provides the skills for clinicians to learn how to identify and heal the underlying insecurities of the covert narcissist. We’ll also explore the origins of covert narcissism, including early trauma, high degrees of enmeshment, and attachment ruptures. You’ll also learn to:

• Work with both partners when covert narcissism shows up in couples therapy
• Identify patterns and activating conditions associated with covert narcissism, such as cultural influence, religion, and socioeconomic status
• Help covert narcissists quiet and convert their inner critic, let go of self-defeating patterns, and develop adaptive responses
• Address potentially triggering conditions in the therapy relationship
• Use somatosensory exercises and behavioral pattern-breaking skills with covert narcissists

The Solution Focused Approach is often misconstrued as being focused on positivity instead of presenting problems. That couldn’t be further from the truth. While the work does center around moving toward a client’s positive hope for the future, it doesn’t ignore the problem at hand. In this workshop, you’ll explore how to use the Solution Focused approach to respectfully address clinical issues—from depression and trauma to anxiety and relationship issues—and guide clients toward a place of well-being and healing. You'll discover:

• A new perspective on trauma work that integrates a strong focus on outcome
• How to help clients quickly achieve goals by accessing often buried, positive aspects of their wider experience
• How to help clients internalize their own strengths & access them in their own inner language

Few topics spike our anxiety and judgment like infidelity. But one of the realities of living in the digital age is that it's easier than ever to cheat—and easier than ever to get caught. Betrayal has the power to rock the very foundation of a relationship: partners likely feel lost, overwhelmed with emotions, and unsure of their next steps. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to effectively support both the betrayed and betraying partners and navigate common barriers to healing. Using a compassionate, multi-stage approach, we’ll explore different skills to help couples restore trust, foster emotional repair, and move toward post-traumatic growth and renewed connection after betrayal. You’ll also learn:

• Reflection questions to ask both partners
• How to help partners cope with flashbacks and intrusive thoughts
• How our culture shapes our views of infidelity
• How to help partners decide whether, when, and how to talk about the infidelity with family and friends

In this immersive workshop, you’ll explore the profound intersection of developmental trauma, embodiment, and movement-based healing. Drawing from the principles of Body-Mind Centering (BMC), pioneered by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, participants will have opportunities to embark on a deep somatic exploration of the different ways early relational experiences have shaped their nervous system, movement patterns, and emotional landscape.

Through guided experiential practices, breath, and developmental movement explorations, participants will experience the wisdom of their body in new and transformative ways as they gain tools to reconnect with the body’s innate capacity for healing and adaptability. You’ll explore:

• The impact of developmental trauma through movement, sensation, and neurophysiology
• Early motor patterns and the role they’ve played in emotional regulation and resilience
• Somatic and movement-based interventions for nervous system regulation and trauma integration
• Developmental gaps through movement analysis and facilitate bridging those gaps

Trauma doesn’t just leave emotional scars—it rewires the brain. Stress-induced structural plasticity (SISP) enables the brain to rapidly adapt under chronic or traumatic stress, but it also creates neural pathways that can reinforce patterns of self-criticism, shame, and emotional dysregulation. While these changes are rooted in survival, they often shape how clients perceive themselves and cause them to navigate the world in imiting and rigid ways. In this workshop, you’ll learn a new approach for addressing these neurobiological adaptations, as well as how to guide clients as they rewrite maladaptive inner narratives into supportive, self-compassionate ones by tapping into the brain’s remarkable capacity for neuroplasticity. Using a blend of science and practical application, we’ll walk through strategies to help clients foster resilience and rebuild a healthier, more empowering relationship with themselves. You’ll also learn:

• Self-compassion strategies like mindful touch, cognitive reframing, and psychosensory interventions
• How to reframe shame as an adaptive response rather than an inherent flaw
• How to guide clients in mental rehearsal, and how small, consistent shifts can rewire the brain
• Why self-compassion is harder for some clients than others, and how to work with them