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Transforming Trauma-Related Resistance and Stuckness
Monday, July 18, 2022, 8:00 AM to Friday, July 22, 2022, 5:00 PM EDT
Category: CE Events: Adult Individuals

Coming to therapy is a cry for help, requiring the ability to acknowledge vulnerability. But for those who have been abused, abandoned, or rejected, being vulnerable is associated with powerlessness, humiliation, and violence. Almost every kind of traumatic or painful experience in life involves incompetence or cruelty perpetrated by other human beings. No matter how much clients sincerely want our help, they cannot control the triggering of instinctive fight, flight, or submission defenses in the presence of other human beings. Should the client commit to therapy or flee? Combat the therapist’s every effort? Or “submit” by coming but not fully participating? To seek help may bring initial relief in a moment of crisis but also inevitably raises doubts: Is it better to trust or avoid trusting? Whether resistance manifests as a passive aggressive ‘no’ to every therapeutic intervention, a struggle for control of the therapy, or desperation for help alternating with resistance to accepting it, the underlying dilemma is the same. What we label “resistance” may actually reflect inherent trauma-related conflicts activated by all forms of treatment and all types of therapist. In this workshop, we will explore the complex relationships between these trauma-related conflicts and stuckness or resistance in psychotherapy. Using techniques drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and other mindfulness-based models, participants will learn how to de-code the impasse and help clients work with it as an internal conflict, not a therapeutic issue. When we help them “befriend” the resistance, we become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Hosted by MAK Continuing Education, LLC, Cape Cod Institute in Eastham, MA and online for 15 CEs. For more info, visit the event webpage.