Description
Shame has an insidious impact on our traumatized clients’ ability to find relief and perspective even with good treatment. Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy interfere with taking in positive experiences, leaving only hopelessness. This 60-minute recording was webcast live from the office of Dr. Janina Fisher and introduces shame from a neurobiological perspective—as a survival strategy driving somatic responses of automatic obedience and total submission.
Learn to help clients relate to their symptoms with curiosity rather than automatic acceptance, discriminate the cognitive, emotional, and physiological components of shame, and to integrate somatic as well as traditional psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural techniques to transform shame-related stuckness.
CPD
CPD
- PESI Australia, in collaboration with PESI in the USA, offers quality online continuing professional development events from the leaders in the field at a standard recognized by professional associations including psychology, social work, occupational therapy, alcohol and drug professionals, counselling and psychotherapy. On completion of the training, a Professional Development Certificate is issued after the individual has answered and submitted a quiz and course evaluation. This online program is worth 1.0 hours CPD for points calculation by your association.
Faculty
Janina Fisher, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and former instructor at The Trauma Center, a research and treatment center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known as an expert on the treatment of trauma, Dr. Fisher has also been treating individuals, couples, and families since 1980.
She is past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of the neurobiological research and newer trauma treatment paradigms into traditional therapeutic modalities.
She is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation (2017) and the forthcoming book, Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma (in press).
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Janina Fisher has an employment relationship with the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. She is a consultant for Khiron House Clinics and the Massachusetts Department of MH Restraint and Seclusion Initiative. Dr. Fisher receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. Dr. Fisher has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Janina Fisher is on the advisory board for the Trauma Research Foundation. She is a patron of the Bowlby Center.
Objectives
- Discriminate the clinical implications of physiological and cognitive contributors to shame.
- Determine cognitive-behavioral, ego state, and psychoeducational interventions to address shame in clients.
Outline
The Neurobiology of Shame
- The role of shame in traumatic experience
- Shame as an animal defence survival response
- Effects of shame on autonomic arousal
Shame’s Evolutionary Purpose
- Shame and the attachment system
- Rupture and repair in attachment formation
Making Meaning of Shame
- Feelings of disgust, degradation, and humiliation are interpreted as “who I am”
- Cognition and the body
- Internal working models predict the future and determine our actions
Working from the “Bottom Up”
- The role of procedural learning and memory
- Physiological effects of mindful dual awareness
- Using mindfulness-based techniques to inhibit self-judgment
A New Relationship to the Shame: Acceptance and Compassion
- Re-contextualizing shame as a younger self or part
- Bringing our adult capacity to our childhood vulnerability
- Healing shame through compassionate acceptance
The Social Engagement System and the Healing of Shame
- Social engagement and the ventral vagal system (Porges)
- The incompatibility of shame and social engagement
- The therapist’s own social engagement system as a healing agent
Target Audience
Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Case Managers, Addiction Counselors, Marriage & Family Therapists, Nurses, and other Mental Health Professionals
