Working with Trauma, Dissociation, and Psychosis
What you'll learn
- • Identify possible interrelationships between trauma, dissociation, and psychosis, including ways that psychosis itself, and reactions to psychosis by others, can be traumatizing
- • Describe a variety of possible causal routes from trauma to psychotic experiences, and understand the possible role of dissociation within that process
- • Utilize proven cognitive strategies to address command and persecutory voices, and other common yet distressing experiences found in trauma-associated psychosis
- Click "see more" for details on Continuing Education Credit
- • Plan to integrate CBT for psychosis with various trauma therapies to effectively treat clients who have experienced both trauma and psychosis
- • Demonstrate a collaborate approach to helping clients develop coherent and compassionate stories of trauma and recovery which provide an alternative to both fragmented “psychotic” stories, and to helplessness-inducing “mental illness” stories.
- 6 hours of Continuing Education Credit is provided by Commonwealth Educational Seminars for the following professions in the US:
- Psychologists: Commonwealth Educational Seminars is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Commonwealth Educational Seminars maintains responsibility for these programs and their content.
- Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists: Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) awards CEs for Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists in the following states: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MS, MO, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NC, ND, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WY. Please note that it is the responsibility of the licensee to check with their individual state board to verify CE requirements for their state. CES maintains responsibility for these programs. In addition, CES is an approved CE provider for Florida Marriage & Family Therapists (CE Provider # 50-9633) and an approved Continuing Education Provider for Texas Marriage & Family Therapists (Provider Number 558).
- Licensed Professional Counselors/Licensed Mental Health Counselors: Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) awards CEs for the above listed professions in the following states: AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NC, ND, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WY. Please note that it is the responsibility of the licensee to check with their individual state board to verify CE requirements for their state.
- Nurses: As an APA approved provider, CES programs are accepted by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). These courses can be utilized by nurses to renew their certification and will be accepted by the ANCC. Every state Board of Nursing accepts ANCC approved programs except California and Iowa, however CES is also an approved Continuing Education provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing (Provider # CEP15567) which is also accepted by the Iowa Board of Nursing.
Requirements
- This course will still make sense to those without prior training in CBT or any trauma therapies, although such prior training will likely be helpful in understanding some of the material.
Description
Develop a humanistic understanding of how adverse life events can lead to reactions such as dissociation and psychosis, and then learn approaches and skills which will allow you to support people in changing those reactions and turning toward recovery!
After taking this course, you will be able to bring a truly trauma informed perspective into your work with people who are struggling with the most serious disorders.
Topics covered include:
· Optimal style of therapy
· Shifting from “what’s wrong” to “what happened” & “what next”
· Building coherent, self-compassionate recovery narratives
· Incorporating mindfulness approaches
· Overcoming dissociative splits
· Shifting from suppression to boundaries along with some openness
· Finding & working with themes in metaphorical expressions
· Spiritual considerations
Work toward the possibility of true healing, not just “managing an illness”!
Though mainstream approaches still commonly focus on biological factors, a large body of research now provides strong evidence that psychosis is often an understandable reaction to trauma, abuse, and other adverse experiences, with dissociation commonly at the center of that reaction.
This course presents a science based yet very humanistic and understandable conceptualization of the complex difficulties which can occur in response to adverse life events, and then teaches how CBT and other approaches can be used to help people change their relationship with these experiences, opening up possibilities for recovery.
Included in the course are video lectures, slides with some diagrams, lots of case examples, exploratory exercises, and links to additional resources for study.
The course will take 6 hours to complete.
6 hours of continuing education credit is available for social workers, psychologists, and nurses in the US, and also for licensed professional counselors and marriage and family therapists in many states in the US. (See the “What am I going to get from taking this course" section for more details on CE credits.)
Grievance Policy: Ron Unger LCSW and Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) seek to ensure equitable treatment of every person and to make every attempt to resolve grievances in a fair manner. Please submit a written grievance to: Ron Unger, 4ronunger@gmail.com Grievances will receive, to the best of our ability, corrective action in order to prevent further problems.
Who this course is for:
- This course will primarily be of interest to mental health workers who work with people who have experienced both trauma and psychosis
- The ideal student might be a therapist, but case managers, peer support specialists, nurses, medical providers and other support workers will also find much they can use.
- The course may also be of interest to people with lived experience of psychosis and to family members who would like to better understand these tricky experiences and what might possibly help people do better.
Course content
- Preview02:15
- 01:05Notes on Taking This Course
Instructor
![Ron Unger](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
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Ron Unger is a therapist with 17 years experience specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Psychosis, who also has extensive experience teaching continuing education seminars on that and on related topics. He has served as adjunct faculty at Portland State University, and has taught continuing education courses in various states in the US. He is chairperson of the education committee for the US Chapter of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches for Psychosis (ISPS).