Relational Strategies to Effectively Treat Challenging Trauma Clients: Early Bird Pricing Ends Sept 27th Sept

Relational Strategies to Effectively Treat Challenging Trauma Clients: Early Bird Pricing Ends Sept 27th Sept

User profile image Angela - EENet Yoda Master

Event date: -

Event type: Single day (a day or less)

Workshop Description

This practical workshop, led by a leading expert on trauma and based on the book Trauma and the Struggle to Open Up, will address ways to effectively navigate the therapeutic relationship with trauma survivors to help facilitate recovery and growth while avoiding common pitfalls.

The therapeutic relationship is of utmost importance in all helper-client interactions, but it is especially important when working with trauma survivors - who often bring with them some unique challenges. For example, trauma clients may:

  • Have more difficulty trusting the therapist/helper
  • Minimize their own traumatic experiences
  • Become help-rejecting
  • Either avoid trauma work or rush too quickly into the work
  • Be more likely to experience transference and to enact past relationships within the therapeutic relationship


These challenges can make it difficult for helpers to find point of entry and ways to connect, as well as putting us at risk for unknowingly rupturing the relationship. Having closely examined the ups and downs of the therapy relationship with trauma survivors, Dr. Muller will address the following questions:

  • How can we tell when we've unknowingly compromised safety in the relationship?
  • What happens to the relationship when clients or therapists rush into the process, and how can this be addressed?
  • How can subtle conflicts in the relationship become useful in treatment?


Dr. Muller points to the different choices therapists make in navigating the relationship - choices that can have a strong impact on outcome.  The workshop also acknowledges that recovery from trauma is a deceptively complicated process. When clients reveal too much, too soon, they may feel worse - making the pacing of therapy critical. Here too, the key is in the therapist-client relationship.  On the other hand, sometimes clients and helpers avoid talking about the trauma for fear that it will be too scary to handle. Dr. Muller walks us through the relational approaches that help pace the process of opening up - so that clients find the experience helpful, not harmful. Throughout the workshop, theory is complemented by case examples, practical exercises, and segments from Dr. Muller's own treatment sessions.  The workshop focuses on clinical skills that are directly applicable in our work as helpers.

Participants will learn how to:   

  1. Help clients pace the process of opening up
  2. Bring safety to the therapeutic relationship early on
  3. Navigate and use conflicts in the relationship
  4. Recognize their own feelings in the treatment (e.g., the wish to rush into trauma work, or the wish to avoid it)
  5. Help clients mourn traumatic losses to bring posttraumatic growth
    For a detailed schedule, click here

Note:  Workshop registration includes a copy of Dr. Muller's new book: Trauma & the Struggle to Open Up:  From Avoidance to Recovery & Growth.  The book complements the workshop, providing material for attendees to further their learning.

Who Should Attend?

Counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologist, psychiatrists, helping professionals working in health, education and social service settings and in private practice, and who have a core professional training.

About the Presenter

Robert T. Muller, Ph.D., trained at Harvard, was on Faculty at the University of Massachusetts, and is currently at York University in Toronto. Dr. Muller is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma & dissociation (ISSTD) for his work on trauma treatment. His psychotherapy bestseller,Trauma and the Avoidant Client, has been translated widely and won the 2011 ISSTD award for the year's best written work on trauma. Dr. Muller's newest book is titled Trauma and the Struggle to Open Up: From Avoidance to Recovery and Growth.

As lead investigator on several multi-site programs to treat interpersonal trauma, Dr. Muller has lectured internationally (Australia, UK, Europe, USA), and has been Keynote Speaker at mental health conferences in New Zealand and Canada. He founded an online magazine, "The Trauma & Mental Health Report," that is now visited by over 100,000 readers a year. With over 25 years in the field, he practices in Toronto.

For more information or to register: 

www.missionempowerment.ca


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