This workshop will focus on integrative approaches to identify and resolve implicit relational enactments with clients who have complex trauma and dissociation. Enactments – the unconscious repetition of trauma – can emerge from unresolved issues in both the client and the therapist. Enactments of trauma create intense relational conflicts, and the therapist may unwittingly participate by becoming defensive and withholding, or by appeasing or caretaking the client. Enactments are inevitable and cannot be prevented but can be successfully worked through as an essential part of therapy for trauma survivors. We will discuss ways to work with enactments in the therapeutic relationship that preserves curiosity and compassion.

Kathy Steele’s Bio

Kathy Steele, MN, CS has been in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia for over three decades, specializing in the treatment of complex trauma, dissociation, attachment difficulties, and the challenges of complicated therapies. She is an adjunct faculty at Emory University, and a Fellow and past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Ms. Steele teaches internationally and consults with individuals, groups, and trauma programs. She has received a number of awards for her clinical and published works, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from ISSTD. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, and has co-authored three books, including The Haunted Self (2006), Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation (2011), and Treating Trauma-related Dissociation: A Practical, Integrative Approach (2017).

Kathy Steele’s Relational Enactments
in Trauma Therapy Workshop

This workshop is part of Intensive Training in Treating Dissociative Disorder Certification Course. The entire course covers the following topics.

1. Treating Complex Dissociative Disorders: Practical Integrative Approach
2. Self-harm and Suicidality
3. Working with Chronic Shame
4. Working with Inner Critic
5. Stabilization
6. Working with Dissociative Parts
7. Working with Resistance
8. Treating Traumatic Memory
9. The Therapeutic Relationship
10. Enactment

The 10 workshops will be available via online courses from January 2024.

Dear mental health professionals, this is psychoanalyst HeaKyung Kwon.

I am delighted to introduce Kathy Steele’s "Relational Reenactment in Trauma Therapy" workshop.

One of the reasons why it is challenging to treat trauma patients is that they tend to focus excessively on the therapist's attitude and words rather than addressing their own issues and difficulties when they come to the therapy room. Therefore, when therapists encounter such patients, they become perplexed, and many therapists' parts become activated, preventing them from fully utilizing their abilities and skills and making it difficult for them to be there solely for the patient. Furthermore, when the therapist becomes confused or defensive, trauma patients often sense the therapist's discomfort and may even detect unconscious emotions and thoughts that the therapist has not recognized. They may turn these into issues, causing therapists to feel tied up and unable to freely express their abilities, often leading to unsuccessful therapy. Of course, therapists may fall into self-blame and self-doubt.

Those who attended my Integrative Trauma Therapies Seminar will remember that there are trauma patients who can focus on their own issues and problems in psychotherapy and those who make the therapist the focus of their treatment.

This workshop is about patients who continuously trigger the therapist and are triggered by the therapist. It teaches how to recognize and deal with such patients' reenactment of their trauma in the therapeutic relationship.

The relational reenactment that occurs when treating complex trauma patients is something that therapists cannot entirely avoid, no matter how much training they receive or how well they engage in self-reflection and effort.

We cannot avoid it, but if we understand the core of this reenactment, recognize it in therapy, and understand what is needed in those moments, we can transform these challenging moments into beautiful and moving healing opportunities.

I hope that many of you will attend Catie's "Relational Reenactment in Trauma Therapy" workshop and learn how to transform therapeutic crises into beautiful healing experiences.

Thank you.

Psychoanalyst HeaKyung Kwon

[Registration]

• Tuition: $250

• If you register by October 18th, tuition will be discounted to $200

• Please write an email to support@psychologykorea.com with 1. Your name, 2. Profession, 3. Email Address, 4. Cell Phone Number, 5. Payment via WISE or Payment via Paypal
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