Total Credits: 3 including 3 American Psychological Association, 3 Association of Social Worker Boards, 3 National Board of Certified Counselors
After 25 years of long-term follow-up interviews, we have discovered the essential ingredients of all effective trauma treatment. Our clients are not cookies and so it is clear that not one approach is the solution to a myriad of both vulnerabilities and resources that our clients possess. Change is a natural process that exists organically in nature. Believe it or not, effective treatment for trauma follows the same phases of change. What clients tell us is that through all the different types of therapy they experience – the missing piece is the work with their partners, families of procreation, and family of origin. Humans are relational beings, why aren’t the relationships considered as part of the healing process? The abuse, violations, and trauma of our clients, for the most part, happen in the context of relationships. It makes sound clinical sense that healing would be more effective and efficient, also in the context of relationships. This workshop will present a practical three-tiered strength-based contextual model which simplifies the understanding and treatment of the complex nature of intergenerational trauma and neglect. We will explore the repetitive cycles of trauma and will learn how to harness the natural cycles of change when working with couples and families through the Collaborative Change Model (CCM). CCM is a meta framework that can be applied to all treatment models, it is taking the natural cycle of change and making it conscious and present in the room. The meta framework allows the therapist and clients to collaborate and create change together. We will learn a relational blueprint for change. In Stage One of the Collaborative Change Model, therapists create a context for treatment through assessing resources and vulnerabilities, emphasizing safety and the importance of acknowledgement. We will also explore the vulnerabilities and resources of the therapist, through ethical attunement. We will experientially learn how to assess what models will best work for the client and how to integrate techniques and modalities to create change. We will learn how to design and implement the role of their relationship throughout the process of change. In Stage Two, the action mode, the focus is on techniques and interventions to use for particular symptomatic patterns of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Emphasis will be given to working with couples when one of the partners has a trauma history or to helping an individual client.
Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, is the Executive Director and founder of The Center for Contextual Change, Ltd. She is currently on the faculties of University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, The Chicago Center For Family Health, and the Family Institute of Northwestern University. Previously, Ms. Barrett was the Director of Midwest Family Resource and has been working in the field of family violence since 1974. Mary Jo was the first Family Preservation, in home counselor in the state of Illinois, on a contract with the Department of Children and Family Services in 1978. Ms. Barrett’s newest book, Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change, co-authored by Linda Stone Fish, was released in June 2014. Her trainings and published works focus on the teaching of the Collaborative Change Model, systemic and feminist treatment of sexual abuse, interpersonal violence and complex trauma; both survivors and offenders, adults and children, and eating disorders, couple therapy, and Compassion Fatigue.