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Consultations via Zoom, Micro-Soft Teams, in-person or telephone, assist seasoned and therapists new to complex and relational trauma to:
Assisting individuals with a history of trauma or abuse is usually long term and at times may be challenging for both client and therapist. Trauma clients may present with a range of complex and confusing or unrecognized symptomatology.
Naomi Halpern provides case consultations to health care professionals working with complex trauma and severe stress. Topics for individual case consultation include:
– Ross and Halpern, 2009
Many therapists express concern they may have unwittingly overstepped professional boundaries or under-responded to the complex needs, presentations and challenges of this client group. Powerful feelings of grief, shame and anger or alternatively, numbing and detachment can arise in response to a client’s challenging material or behaviour.
Unrecognised or unaddressed, these counter-transferential responses may lead to blaming or disliking a client and to a defensive engagement, with profoundly negative impacts on therapy.
Vicarious trauma and empathic strain can significantly impact the therapist’s emotional and physical wellbeing, sense of professional competence and interpersonal relationships. When acknowledged and embraced, these normal feelings and responses can provide powerful insights and guidance to the course of therapy.
Finding the middle path, where the therapist is neither pushing a client to do work they are not ready for, nor colluding in avoidance of painful material, requires the capacity to sit back and reflect on what is occurring in and out of the therapy room.
Therapists have much to offer from a skill perspective, as well as their own life experiences and personal qualities. The therapeutic relationship is best able to facilitate healing when the therapist is committed to his or her own personal journey, recognising the ‘wounded healer’ in us all.
As we endeavour to provide our clients with nonjudgmental and empathic understanding, it is equally important for therapists to have a safe space to receive the same. Case consultation offers the opportunity to learn new skills, get back on track and reinforce or restore confidence in your capacity to assist your clients on their journey.
Ultimately, the therapist is responsible for the therapy session while the client is responsible for their healing.
These tax deductible consultations are suitable for:
Delphi Training and Consulting acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands and waters which we share. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge and recognise it is the oldest living culture in the world and that sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
Delphi is an inclusive and safe organisation. We respect, celebrate and support diversity, the inclusion of children, young people and adults from LGBTQIA+ communities, people with disabilities, people from CALD backgrounds and people with diverse religious beliefs or affiliations.
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