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An 8-session integrative therapy workshop exploring indigenous tools for living on how to work and sit with complex trauma without burnout.
This workshop is for professionals at all levels, who are working with marginalized people. We will explore Indigenous perspectives and practice hands on learning about complex trauma to help keep you grounded and be more comfortable when in difficult situations. A variety of Aboriginal/ Indigenous treatment modalities are woven throughout, including experiential exercises and land based healing techniques.
Though the training will benefit clinicians, it is also specifically designed for frontline non-clinical workers in social work, victim services, first responders and similar professions. It is facilitated by instructors and Elders from the Indigenous Focusing Orientated Therapy Program, and is clinically supervised by Shirley Turcotte, RCC.
ITFL emphasizes knowledge and application through classroom instruction, applied scenario-based learning, and clinical practice and supervision (when taught to clinicians). A variety of Indigenous treatment modalities are woven throughout, including experiential exercises, storytelling, ceremonial processes and land-based healing techniques. Together these provide concrete tools and approaches for working with complex trauma in ways that avoid burnout and triggering, while at the same time maximizing impact and achieving better outcomes.
This program is offered in collaboration with Love & Kindness Wellness Services.
Objectives and dates
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM EACH BASKET
(Each session is referred to as a “basket”)
The dates are April 1, 2, 8, 9, 22, 23, 29 and 30. Fridays are 6-9pm and Saturdays 11am-2pm (all times EDT)
BASKETS 1 & 2:
Basket 1: April 1, 2022 | 6pm – 9pm
Creating a protected land-based space for hearing, sharing, and creating land-based ways of setting “the load” down.
Basket 2: April 2, 2022 | 11am- 2pm
Sensing the difference between a reaction and an authentic ‘felt sense’; Hearing the wisdom of our collective knowing and ancestral shared trauma knowledge.
BASKET 1 & 2 OBJECTIVES
(i) Participants will be able to describe ways to clear and create a protected land-based space for hearing and sharing trauma
(ii) Participants will be able to demonstrate how to hear trauma without being traumatized by it
(iii) Be able to describe vicarious trauma and intergenerational trauma
(iv) Be able to define a flashback and triggers and identify ways to attend to them quickly
(v) Identify indigenous helpers and how to lean into the land to create a hearing space
(vi) Participants will be able to identify the 6 steps of focusing
(vii) Describe the difference between feelings, reactions, and felt sensed
BASKETS 3 & 4
Basket 3: April 8, 2022 | 6pm – 9pm
Exploring the inner critic and the intergenerational benefits and necessity of the critic. Using that ‘critical voice’ as a helper in finding our authentic personal and collective voices.
Basket 4: April 9, 2022 | 11am – 2pm
Collective and Personal Grief & Loss explored as Justice and Transformation to help move us
personally and collectively forward and into a relationship with our grief.
BASKET 3 & 4 OBJECTIVES
(i) Participants will be able to identify ways to transform and lean into land-based techniques to manage triggers and work effectively in difficult situations and with difficult people
(ii) Participants will be able to describe regression and identify ways to respond when someone is in a difficult emotional state
(iii) Participants will be able to understand the Critic and how to connect with the collective intergenerational wisdom laying deep under the critic
(iv) Participants will be able to understand Grieving as an action into social justice:
(v) Participants will learn how to recognize the various levels and roots of grief that clients are experiencing and connecting with the land to find out what may help to move into creating a relationship with grief.
BASKETS 5 & 6:
Basket 5: April 22, 2022 | 6pm – 9pm
Exploring Dreams & Twisted Thoughts (day or night) as guides for resolving complexities and collective intergenerational connection
Basket 6: April 23, 2022 | 11am – 2pm
An introduction into applying the focusing steps and tracking in addressing complex trauma
BASKET 5 & 6 OBJECTIVES
(i) Participants will learn how to explore Dreams and Twisted Thoughts (day or night) as guides for resolving complexities and collective Inter-generational connection.
(ii) Participants will be able to identify the dimensions of dreams – including the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – from aboriginal perspectives.
(iii) Participants will become familiar with applying the focusing steps and tracking in addressing complex trauma, particularly those who are in non-clinical settings.
BASKETS 7 & 8:
Basket 7: April 29, 2022 | 6pm – 9pm
Spirituality considerations in navigating and unpacking complex, intergenerational trauma
Basket 8: April 30, 2022 | 11am – 2pm
Reviewing and strengthening acquired clinical skills to work with complex trauma using
the decolonized/ Indigenous therapeutic skills
BASKET 7 & 8 OBJECTIVES
(i) Participants will become familiar with ways to incorporate spirituality considerations in navigating and unpacking complex, intergenerational trauma
(ii)Participants will become familiar with ways of giving back and strengthening acquired clinical skills to work with complex trauma using the decolonized/Indigenous therapeutic skills