This two-day training is intended to be part of a training series, the first part of which is the one-day Level 1 training. Unless you are an experienced clinician working in this three phased approach with complex trauma clients over the longer term, it is recommended that you attend the Level 1 training prior to Level 2.

This Level 2 training is designed for practitioners who work in a counselling and/or therapeutic relationship with complex trauma clients, and utilise clinical assessment, case formulation and treatment/care planning in their daily practice.

This two-day interactive professional development training presents the three-phased approach for working ‘bottom up and top down’ with clients who have complex trauma histories. Informed by current research, it assumes foundational knowledge around complex trauma, trauma-informed practice, attachment theory and affective neuroscience, and builds on it.

Day 1 presents and applies strategies for Phase 1 (Safety and Stabilisation) work and introduces Phase 2 (Trauma Processing). It focuses on whole of body (i.e. somatic, emotional and cognitive) approaches to assessment, resource building and trauma processing.

Day 2 covers application of strategies for safe Phase 2 work informed by an understanding of traumatic memory and explores Phase 3 (Integration), building your skills to better support your clients to integrate their trauma into their life story, engage actively in their daily life and strengthen their sense of self.

The training promotes the critical importance of Phase 1 work – attending to safety and self-regulation at all times – and the centrality of a healthy therapeutic alliance.

By participating in this professional development training, participants will:

• Apply key skills and techniques for Phase 1 (Safety and Stabilisation) work in the context of attachment dynamics, relationship, and building resources and recognising the critical importance of Phase 1 work for all clients
• Acquire knowledge and skills for safe Phase 2 (Trauma Processing) work including understanding traumatic memory; working with the window of tolerance, dual awareness, transference, countertransference, enactments and trauma adaptations to enable safe trauma processing; therapy titration; and working with dissociation
• Acquire knowledge and skills for Phase 3 trauma work (Integration) including meaning making, connecting with others and the ability to experience pleasure

Who should attend?

This training is designed for practitioners with foundational complex trauma knowledge and clinical skills, and who work in a counselling and/or therapeutic relationship with complex trauma clients, and utilise clinical assessment, case formulation and treatment/care planning in their daily practice. Psychologists, clinical psychologists, counsellors, psychotherapists, mental health nurses, social workers, general practitioners, psychiatrists and other allied health professionals will find this training appropriate.