Though mainstream approaches continue to emphasize biological factors, a large number of studies now provide strong evidence that psychosis can be an understandable reaction to trauma, abuse, and other adverse experiences, with dissociation typically at the center of that reaction.
But even once you understand that trauma and dissociation may have led to “psychotic” experiences, you may still have little idea about what to do to help those caught up in this dynamic!
This online course begins by presenting a science based yet very humanistic conceptualization of the continuum of difficulties which can occur in response to adverse life events, and then outlines how you can use of CBT and other approaches to help people change their relationship with these experiences. Using the methods covered in this course, you will become able to collaborate with people in building coherent and compassionate self narratives even in regard to extremely confusing events, helping to set the stage for real recovery.
You will learn some general principles of successful therapy for people facing these difficulties, and then gain an overview of specific approaches including mindfulness, building narratives, integrating various trauma therapies, understanding and working with dissociative reactions, role plays and dialogue with voices, working with metaphorical expressions, and awareness of spiritual issues.
This course will support you toward becoming truly trauma informed, and also trauma focused when appropriate, so you can support people in working toward true healing and not just “living with an illness”!
Prior knowledge of CBT for psychosis is helpful but not required for this course. (One option for learning more about CBT for psychosis is the companion online course CBT for Psychosis: An Individualized, Recovery Oriented Approach.)
You can view the videos and other materials whenever you want, and go back to them as often as you like. There is no time limit for completing the course. The course can be completed in 6 hours.
If you need CE credit, use this link to register on the CE-GO platform. The price there will be $89.
Or if you do not need CE credit, the course can also be found on the Udemy platform. (The regular price there is $159.99, but you can usually find special deals for well under $89 by checking (and then checking back if necessary) at this link.)
Learning Objectives:
- Identify three possible interrelationships between trauma, dissociation, and psychosis, including ways that psychosis itself, and reactions to psychosis by others, can be traumatizing.
- Describe a possible causal route from trauma to psychotic experiences, and describe the role of dissociation within that process.
- Plan to integrate CBT for psychosis with various trauma therapies to effectively treat clients who have experienced both trauma and psychosis.
- Demonstrate a collaborative approach to helping clients develop coherent and compassionate stories of trauma and recovery which provide an alternative to both fragmented “psychotic” stories, and to helplessness-inducing “mental illness” stories..
- Discuss the common factors shared by PTSD and psychosis and the role interpretations of intrusions plays in differentiating the two.
- Critique treatment strategies which focus on suppression of symptoms and compare the possible outcomes with those resulting from integrative approaches.