In doing trauma work, students often ask about the role of emotions. Sometimes students even have the idea that they are supposed to avoid emotions. While emotions can interfere with trauma therapy, the deeper truth is that helping clients access their natural emotions and learn from them is an important part of good therapy; it is essential to becoming a whole person. On this path we will explore how certain emotions (such as disgust and anger) are “gatekeepers” and are essential to opening to other emotions and living a fuller wiser vital life.

Trauma and Memory

How to work with traumatic memory is one of the most misunderstood and contentious issues in trauma treatment today. Many therapists do not understand that there are multiple memory systems in the brain and body. These range from these most conscious, so called “normal” or declarative memories, to emotional and procedural memories, which are deeply unconscious, and are things that the body has learned to do. So, for example, the way we have learned to bicycle, ski, or to do the things to protect our lives against threat and danger, are all things that the body does that the body has been prepared to do and learns how to execute.

We must learn to deal very differently with each of these memory systems. This helps us to avoid the generation of “false memories”, and to ensure the maximum resolution and integration of traumatic experience. This workshop is open to students who have completed intermediate level by the time of the workshop.