Description
Overview
Working with clients who suffer from complex PTSD can often feel like being on a roller coaster. The extreme reactions, multiple comorbidities, difficulty with boundary issues and volatility in relationships make these clients challenging even for the most skilled therapists. Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy has a unique way of addressing and overcoming the complexities of relational trauma. It deals with the cognitive by addressing and unloading distorted thoughts and beliefs, it incorporates the body as it supports the movement and discharge of physical sensations, and it facilitates the release of painful feelings (such as unworthiness, loneliness, and unlovability) by healing the wounds that parts of us carry.
Learning objectives:
- Explore the different types of trauma and examine the ways IFS is different from traditional phase-oriented treatment.
- Demonstrate how to incorporate IFS with other models of treatment and address protective parts in a trauma-specific manner so your clients can unlock access to the wounds they protect.
- Discover the differences between empathy and compassion as it relates to Self-energy.
- Learn essential strategies to effectively gain permission from protective parts to access hidden vulnerability.
- Discover the unique way IFS approaches early attachment wounding.
- Delve into common adaptations of relational trauma such as neglect, vulnerability, shame and substance-use.
- Review the range of traumatic wounds and discover the various forms of healing associated with complex PTSD and dissociation.
- Incorporate neuroscience knowledge as it relates to the IFS model and review the neurobiology of PTSD and dissociation.
- Investigate how neuroscience can inform therapeutic decisions with extreme symptoms and will discover the unique ways in which IFS addresses attachment trauma.
- Review common roadblocks to healing and discuss ways to successfully overcome them so your clients can effectively release the pain they carry.
Course Content Level
Intermediate/Advanced
Target Audience
This course is suitable for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, family therapists, students and anyone interested in attachment, trauma, addiction or neuroscience.
Webinar 1 | Healing Trauma with IFS
- Explore the different types of trauma and examine the ways IFS is different from traditional phase-oriented treatment.
- Demonstrate how to incorporate IFS with other models of treatment and address protective parts in a trauma-specific manner so your clients can unlock access to the wounds they protect.
- Discover the differences between empathy and compassion as it relates to Self-energy.
- Learn essential strategies to effectively gain permission from protective parts to access hidden vulnerability.
Webinar 2 | The Challenges of Healing
- Discover the unique way IFS approaches early attachment wounding.
- Delve into common adaptations of relational trauma such as neglect, vulnerability, shame and substance-use.
- Review the range of traumatic wounds and discover the various forms of healing associated with complex PTSD and dissociation.
Webinar 3 | The Neuroscience of Trauma
- Incorporate neuroscience knowledge as it relates to the IFS model and review the neurobiology of PTSD and dissociation.
- Investigate how neuroscience can inform therapeutic decisions with extreme symptoms and will discover the unique ways in which IFS addresses attachment trauma.
- Review common roadblocks to healing and discuss ways to successfully overcome them so your clients can effectively release the pain they carry.
Biography
Frank Anderson, MD, completed his residency and was a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is both a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He specializes in the treatment of trauma and dissociation and is passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with the IFS model of therapy.
Dr. Anderson is a Lead Trainer at the IFS Institute with Richard Schwartz and maintains a long affiliation with, and trains for, Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Center. He serves as an advisor to the International Association of Trauma Professionals (IATP) and was the former chair and director of the Foundation for Self Leadership.
Dr. Anderson has lectured extensively on the Neurobiology of PTSD and Dissociation and wrote the chapter “Who’s Taking What” Connecting Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology and Internal Family Systems for Trauma in Internal Family Systems Therapy-New Dimensions. He co-authored a chapter on “What IFS Brings to Trauma Treatment in Innovations and Elaborations in Internal Family Systems Therapy” and recently co-authored Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual.
His most recent book, entitled “Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems” was released on May 19, 2021.
Dr. Anderson maintains a private practice in Concord, MA.
