Exploring the Benefits of Being Trauma-Informed as a Manual Therapist

[00:00:10]exploring the benefits of being trauma informed as a manual therapist. We have three of our wonderful upleledger instructors here presenting this evening and I will introduce to you to them uh momentarily here. My name is Justin Vogle. I am the director of IAHP and digital programming at the UPLER Institute. Um, if this is the first time joining us in the InTouch series, then hopefully I'll give you some good information about the series. One thing I always like to start off with is to let everyone know that we do record all of our InTouch presentations. Those are uh recorded our InTouch presentations.

[00:00:47]It's an ongoing series with the Upleddger and Burall Institutes. And we record these presentations and we post them to our Facebook page and our YouTube channels. So, it's a great follow if you're not already following our Facebook page or our YouTube channel. That is the place that you can find the recordings immediately once they've been edited, once they're available for you. Um, all participants, everyone who's registered for the Zoom, which would be any of you within the Zoom room at this point. You will also have access to the um recording through your email. We will email you with a followup. So, you do not have to email me. You don't have to reach out to the institute. We will reach out to you automatically with the recording. You'll receive that in your email. Natalie Bledstein appreciates working with individuals of varying ages at her private practice in Wisconsin. An occupational therapist for over 30 years, Natalie strongly believes that a holistic whole person approach is not only most beneficial for a client, but essential. Aware that there's always more to learn, Natalie has earned additional certification in AIRS's sensory integration and related topics, upleledger cranial sacral therapy, and Peter Lavine's sematic motion experiencing, excuse me. In addition to supporting her clients, Natalie also serves as a continued education instructor for the Upleddger Institute.

[00:02:13]Natalie teaches cranial sacral therapy 1, somato emotional release one, and somato emotional release 2. Through her teaching and mentorship, she helps fellow body workers expand their skills and achieve personal and professional goals.

[00:02:32]Katherine Whan will be our second presenter. Katherine is a craniosacral therapist and wellness professional professional certified upleledger cranial sacral therapy instructor and the buds unbudsman for upleledger technique certification. She has more than two decades of experience working in medical settings focused on chronic pain with an emphasis on fibromyalgia and integrates cranial sacral therapy with a background in movement science to create a highly indiv individualized approach to injury and disease.

[00:03:08]Katherine combines gentle, passive, soft tissue manipulations with active therapies during her sessions, emphasizing education and personalized home exercises to support faster recovery and lasting results. Her curiosity and desire to learn enables her to tailor each session to both the client's long-term and immediate needs.

[00:03:33]And we will hear from Eric Moya. Eric Moyer will be presenting after Katherine. Eric began his career as a massage therapist in 1997 and quickly moved into studying the osteopathic family of therapies including cranial sacral therapy, lymphatic drainage, and visceral manipulation. With an interest in the body, mind spirit connection.

[00:03:56]Eric began formal mental health training with a master's in mental health in 2007. Eric is also a senior instructor for the UPLE Institute over the past 27 years. During that time, Eric has contributed original coursework in the curriculum in addition to teaching core curriculum courses. Within the past 20 years, Eric has completed additional training in mindfulness, meditation, working with trauma, and has developed his own curriculum integrating body, mind, and spirit in clinical practice.

[00:04:31]Currently, Eric is working on a PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis on psychoanalytic, psychonamic approaches to therapy and qualitative research methods.

[00:04:47]All right, so I will hand it over to Natalie and we will begin. Thank you everyone for joining us and Natalie, the floor is all yours.

[00:04:56]Thank you so much, Justin, for that intro and all of that information you shared. I do appreciate that and welcome to everyone tonight. I'm first going to just cover a little bit about what we're going to talk about this evening. So, we're going to start with some basic definitions of trauma. We're going to find out there's many of those. And then the effects of trauma on people's lives and in our communities and ways trauma is already being addressed by trauma professionals, counselors, and talk therapists. And then Katherine's going to dive into how being a trauma-informed therapist is different than being a trauma therapist. She's going to talk about some principles of traumainformed care and its benefits and then some mistakes we might make as we're if we don't understand this work well or this information well and things we might that might occur as we're learning it as well. Then Eric is going to talk about how can we offer repair if or when it's needed and then some options for self-care because we do need to take care of ourselves as therapists. And he's going to cover some information that we will go a deeper dive into this material in a six-part series starting in September this fall.

[00:06:17]So on our next slide, we're going to talk about what is the definition of trauma. And as I said before, we're going to have find there's many different definitions of trauma.

[00:06:29]Interestingly, the word trauma is derived from the Greek word for wound, which makes sense if you think of the Greeks and ancient history and how they're, you know, gladiators and at war with each other. So, it referred to physical injuries often as a result of war. And then over time and probably in more ways than I'll talk about here, that definition was expanded. In the United States during the Civil War, we became very aware that there was much more than just physical wounds, but also psychological effects. And in the 1880s and 1890s, European neurologists and psychologists, think Sigman Freud and others, developed concepts linking trauma and psychological effects. They use terms like hysterical symptoms and traumatic neurosis.

[00:07:22]In World War I, there was a large expansion of these concepts worldwide and the term shell shock began to be used. And then in the 1970s and 80s, so fairly recently, the American Psychiatric Association defined PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And so then in 1992, the World Health Organization formally codified PTSD into the International Classification of Diseases with a greater awareness of a broader populations who might encounter trauma. So now, not just war veterans by any means. And they included um a wider variety of experiences that could cause trauma.

[00:08:09]And in 1993, the European Society of Traumatic Stress Studies was established. There's also a global collaboration on traumatic stress that has u many ongoing research studies in this area.

[00:08:25]The if we look at some definitions of trauma, the substance abuse and mental health services administration defines individual trauma as an event or circumstance resulting in physical or emotional harm and/or life-threatening harm. So the diagnostic and statistical manual fifth edition broadens that a little bit and it says exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence by directly experiencing it, witnessing it, learning it happen to a close loved one or experiencing repeated extreme indirect exposure. So think first responders, EMTs over and over witnessing trauma and being exposed to it. Then we have something like vicarious trauma occurring. So this is a much broader definition than we started with.

[00:09:26]Currently, the American Psychological Association says trauma is any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a longlasting negative effect on a person's attitudes, behavior, or other aspects of functioning.

[00:09:52]So now we could just say trauma is an overwhelming ex emotional response to a distressful disturbing event, whatever it might be. Additionally, there's a newer book out by Amy a Pigeon. She's an MD. It's called Biology of Trauma and she's talking about trauma at a cellular level in our body. What happens in our tissues at when we experience trauma?

[00:10:18]and she says there's a state of overwhelm and we can have this and enter into this state of overwhelm when we experience ongoing life stressors with no break or end in sight. So think of parenting a very challenging uh child with big behaviors or you know some kind of disability of one sort or another or living in a life circumstance that um has ongoing trauma in the home or even in the workplace. So those kind of life stressors can lead to overwhelm and then our body responds to that as a trauma response. And there might also be a sudden overwhelm experience. So those people who are most vulnerable to experiencing trauma are those who have ongoing life stressors and then a sudden overwhelming event like a rear ending or something like that in a car accident.

[00:11:19]On top of that, statistically, according to the World Health Organization, the most common traumatic events that people experience are witnessing death or serious injury, the unexpected death of a loved one, or being in a life-threatening automobile accident. So then what happens? What's the effect of trauma on the world? We know now that it occurs in that would be on our next slide. what it occurs in all populations regardless of age, gender, race or socioeconomic status. And this is where I found some these are older statistics from 2017, but the World Health Organization did surveyed 24 different countries of nearly 70,000 participants, and they asked if they had experienced any of 29 lifetime traumas. And 70% of participants were found to have done so with an average of three times each. So three lifetime traumas for each of these individuals. So we can think of in the general population 70% of people have experienced some kind of traumatic life event. Luckily for us, most of those do not result in post-traumatic stress disorder. Only 4% of individuals develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

[00:12:44]So what tends to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder are interpersonal violence, they have the greatest uh risk. So especially rape or sexual assault or being stalked. Of course, this is not limited to this and war does remain a factor. And so there are things we can go into more on that over time.

[00:13:09]And we know there are long-term health consequences to experiencing trauma. We know that from the 1990s ACES studies where they looked at childhood traumas and found outcomes of reduced workforce participation um and physical illnesses, chronic illnesses that they had more trouble getting over than someone without that childhood trauma. and then a shortened uh sometimes even a shortened life expectancy.

[00:13:39]In people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, nearly 54% of individuals in highincome countries seek treatment compared to only 23% of low and middle inome people in low and middle inome countries. So that means that access to intervention and cultural acceptance of seeking help for trauma affects our communities, our cultures, our countries and then there are ongoing generational effects of trauma based on you know famines, natural disasters etc. So, um, a lot to consider.

[00:14:21]According to the ICD10, some common features of post-traumatic stress disorder include episodes of reliving the trauma. We think of these as flashbacks. They might show up in dreams or nightmares. And people report symptoms like numbness, emotional blunting, feeling detached from others, a little bit of an unresponsiveness to their surroundings. Here's a new word, a new vocabulary word for me. Anhidonia, unable to feel pleasure in circumstances that would normally be pleasurable.

[00:14:57]Something I would typically enjoy is no longer enjoyable.

[00:15:01]People also find themselves avoiding situations that remind them of the traumatic event and there's hyper autonomic hyperarousal with hyper vigilance. So there can be enhanced reactivity or a bigger startle uh reaction and this these last few anxiety and depression those two this enhanced reactivity and anxiety we can really support improvements in that with the body work that we provide. suicidal ideiation, you're going to be looking for additional support for that individual, for your client for that.

[00:15:37]There, this list talks about personal struggles, but we can wonder also about what interpersonal challenges show up.

[00:15:45]So, if I'm struggling with any of those things that I just spoke about, you can imagine there will be an effect on uh my relationship with my spouse or my kids or my co-workers. So there's going to be a broader effect on these challenges. And then I'm going to also probably have health effects. Chronic pain. I might develop an autoimmune disorder. There could be cardiovascular or blood sugar effects. So other health outcomes as well that may be supported and improved with some body work. Now you might also have a client who is already seeing a counselor or a talk therapist or a trauma therapist. So next I'm going to cover a list of treatment modalities that those trauma therapists use. So these are things that if someone comes in and says I'm working with a therapist that and they are doing EMDR with me, you know that that therapist has sought extra training in trauma intervention.

[00:16:46]These are things that body workers are t typically not trained in unless you've sought some extra training yourself and your lensure allows providing it. So the first of these is cognitive behavioral therapy.

[00:17:00]Exposure therapy is a type of behavioral therapy.

[00:17:04]EMDR eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

[00:17:09]Brain spotting also uses eye movements in the work they're doing. Sensory motor psychotherapy is uh calling attention to body sensations related to the story.

[00:17:23]There's probably more to it than that.

[00:17:26]Internal family systems is parts work and sematic experiencing includes a little bit of the parts work but also uh calling attention to body sensations and much more. I personally find that internal family systems and is sematic experiencing the concepts in those blend very well with the work we do in upl craniosacral somato emotional release courses. There's lots more interventions that we're not going to go into right now. It's just not an exhaustive list, but these are the kinds of things that we might refer a client for to receive from an appropriate provider. So, next we're going to take a little self-reflection poll. This is to get your feedback, your input um on what moves you to become trauma informed.

[00:18:20]We're just curious to know that we're not going to address that tonight as much as um during our six-part series this fall.

[00:18:29]And next after that, Katherine's going to talk about some trauma-informed practices and more information on that.

[00:18:39]>> Thank you.

[00:18:39]>> Thank you, Natalie. That was wonderful and super informative of kind of what we are seeing in our clients and seeing around the world. And so, it's good to just have that that information.

[00:18:53]We're getting lots of answers coming in.

[00:18:55]That's great.

[00:19:08]This is wonderful. This will be very good information. We'll come back to we're going to kind of go comb through these answers um and we're going to bring them back up when we do our six-part series to really kind of integrate some of what you're looking for in that talk and um what's really in need in our community. So, um >> Katherine, if if you feel comfortable with moving forward, I will um I will go ahead and keep it up here for another minute or two, but if you'd like to proceed, feel feel free.

[00:19:39]>> Perfect. I will move forward on this.

[00:19:42]Okay. So, what is trauma informed, right? What's trauma-informed care? So, we heard about from Natalie, we heard about what trauma is, the different um research around trauma. We also heard about what trauma specific services are.

[00:19:56]So whether that's uh the EMDR or the exposure therapy or internal family systems, those are examples of services that are specifically made for treating trauma um or you know that people take part in for treating trauma. So what we are doing is something a little bit different. We're becoming trauma informed, right? We want to have this trauma informed. And so that's being able to recognize how past trauma might affect the nervous system of the client and how to support them. So, uh, talking about kind of how to be able to recognize signs and symptoms, noticing when their nervous system might be not in full balance, when there are ways that their body is reacting because of these past traumas gives us a ability to kind of hold that space a little bit differently for our clients.

[00:20:50]The other part of being trauma informed is that it is a framework. So we're looking at a framework for how to prevent retraumatization or minimize retraumatization.

[00:21:01]And we can have an insession framework.

[00:21:04]So we can have that focus be our one-on-one work with our clients, one-on-one with the clients, but we can also have that be business practices.

[00:21:13]Right? I think as I've learned more about being trauma informed, it's really about how do I expand this into my business practices with my colleagues, but also just in my informs and intakes um to be able to be more trauma-informed and more um available for clients and being able to see this. So, we're going to talk about that framework a little bit. So we have six guiding principles of traumainformed care and this is with the sub substance abuse and mental health services um that we have the SAMA and so our first guiding principle is kind of like a foundation that we have.

[00:21:55]So they build on each other. So we have safety. And anytime we have a client that feels safe in our office, whether that's they got all the information on how to get to the office and where the bathroom was or there's just a lot of information and they feel that they have that ability to feel safe in your hands.

[00:22:14]Then what happens is they're less reactive, right? And they have more chance for their nervous system to relax and to kind of receive the work. So creating a form of safety and then we have after safety we have trustworthiness and transparency. So this is back to that idea that I just mentioned with your intake forms, right?

[00:22:39]Are your intake forms transparent? Do they know about cancellation policies?

[00:22:44]Are you consistent in your actions and your wording with clients? So this is you know also just being a good human being but we want to be really transparent and we want our clients to know exactly you know what our agenda or is if we have an agenda how we work so that they can make a really clear decision.

[00:23:06]Uh one thing that we think the three of us think is really important is peer support. So sometimes in the bodywork fields we don't always have a lot of peer support where we have um mentors that we can go to but we would like to kind of encourage people to find more peer support whether that's through the mentorship program through other people that you work with because that goes to that piece that Natalie mentioned about the vicarious trauma. If we have the ve the peer support, we can help to support ourselves in being able to listen to people's stories and to being able to um keeping ourselves processing what's happening in sessions as the therapist but not processing it in the session, processing it outside with our own peer support. So we want to have that peer support.

[00:24:00]Then we have empowerment, voice and choice. So, one thing I think that uplger cranial sacral therapy does a really wonderful job at is empowering our clients to be the experts in their bodies to be able to really kind of find that self-realization and to be able to move forward in the best healing for themselves. And so, when we're working with clients in this traumainformed care framework, we want to continue to empower the clients. We want to move kind of from a release model of treatment to an integration model of treatment where we're starting to support clients in ways of finding how they can continue um kind of not just working on the things that are the problem, but finding the ways that their system can overcome obstacles and really be able to empower them to make the next choice in their life or to kind of continue on. um including using their voice, including using choice. So that empowerment voice and choice is very important.

[00:25:06]Then we have collaboration and mutuality. So collaborating with your client, making this a mutual approach in their healing. I was just talking to somebody today and they said, you know, it really bothers them when a client comes in and says, just fix me, right?

[00:25:22]And so we want to have that mutual approach. We want to collaborate with them. um working on towards healing for everybody.

[00:25:31]And then the last is the cultural, historical and gender issues. So starting to see where you might have some biases, some old stereotypes.

[00:25:42]really understanding the cultures that you work with, understanding if people how they feel about how their culture works with trauma or doesn't talk about trauma, understanding historical trauma um and gender issues. So, this is really kind of expanding your knowledge as a practitioner to be able to be more well informed in what your clients are coming into your session with.

[00:26:10]So what are some of the benefits of being trauma informed?

[00:26:14]So being trauma informed helps you to normalize a variety of trauma presentations.

[00:26:20]Oftent times when clients come in with trauma they there's some stigmatisms around or um stigmatisms around it.

[00:26:28]that's not the right word, but that where they're thinking that, you know, this is really bad or sometimes you have people who come in who are, you know, I have a lot of military that I work with who say, "Oh, my trauma is not as bad as somebody else's." So, when we start having this trauma-informed framework, it's just normalizing that it's everywhere, like Natalie said, in all of our different socioeconomic classes and all different cultures. So just being able to normalize it, it'll increase the practitioner confidence in supporting our clients. The more we know, the more competent we usually feel. And really important to minimize retraumatization.

[00:27:08]That's our real goal in doing these courses is to help therapists minimize that retraumatization as it comes up. Um it helps to increase our capacity to hold a safe container for our clients.

[00:27:21]So, we want to be able to hold a safe container and some of that is by doing our own work, but also really having a wide view of what people may encounter.

[00:27:31]Being able to just really be that kind of steady rock when they come into the office.

[00:27:38]It's also going to decrease our projections and our counter transference. So, it's going to help to kind of show us where we might be making um judgments on clients or being projected onto or projecting onto our clients. Um and then this is moving from that release model to an integration model. So, starting to be supportive and helping to integrate with our clients, integrate with their nervous system, not just looking for a release to happen during a session.

[00:28:13]So, what are some mistakes we might make? Right? We all make mistakes in our office. That's how we learn. Um, hopefully from this talk and our six-part series when we share some of the mistakes that the three of us have made. Hopefully, you don't have to make those same mistakes in your practice.

[00:28:33]But I can remember being a new cranial sacral therapist and you know having just taken sematomotion release one or even maybe before and having clients who are maybe having big emotions on the table and not really knowing what to do or how to help them. Um so here are a couple of mistakes that we might make.

[00:28:55]So for our clients we might overwhelm their system. Trauma often happens too much, too fast. And so a client might have that pattern and they might go really far into a story or a traumatic event in a session. And it's our job to slow that down for them. It's our job to help to regulate their nervous system or notice if their nervous system is being regulated as that's happening. So we want to be able to not overwhelm their system. We also don't want to give advice or lead. Right? This is when we talk about dialoguing. It's really easy to kind of want to, you know, tell them what to do. Oh, I've been there. You should do this or you should do that.

[00:29:36]But we don't want to um give that advice or lead. And we want to watch when we fall into trying to fix or save somebody, right? It's a really easy pattern to fall into where you think, "Oh, I can help you and I can fix this."

[00:29:51]And that's really not our goal as body workers. It's not our goal. It's not our job to fix anybody. I can't I can't tell you how many times I've heard uh teachers say, you know, we don't fix, that's not what we do. So, just that remember.

[00:30:05]And then that lack of knowledge.

[00:30:07]Sometimes not having enough information or knowledge um about any of those six guiding principles can really do damage to clients. So, we want to, you know, just have our information, have as much knowledge as we can to be able to be better supports for our clients. So that's a mistakes we might make for our clients. For ourselves, we might not own our own reactions. Right? This is where that pro projections and counter transference can come in where we start to think that our own reactions are our client's reactions.

[00:30:41]So learning to own our own reactions, we might become attached to the outcome, right? How many times in a session, you know, we want somebody to get better and we we think we know the way for them to get better and so we might have that attachment to outcome.

[00:30:58]We might ignore signs of compassion fatigue. So, we might start to ignore when we're kind of heading towards that burnout, when we are finding that we don't really have, you know, it in us for our clients anymore. if we ignore those signs that we have more likelihood for the vicarious trauma that compassion fatigue and ultimately burnout which makes nobody happy.

[00:31:23]And then lastly, same thing for us is lack of knowledge. So ignoring those signs because you didn't know them. Um not having enough information of kind of how to set up your framework for your business practice or your sessions. So those are some of the mistakes that we might make. Um, so now we have another poll that's coming up here. And for this poll, we'd like you to describe any practices that you have already to maintain your therapeutic presence with clients.

[00:31:57]And as we share this poll, um, I'm going to pass the microphone to Eric.

[00:32:04]As Katherine was talking, really appreciate you filling out these polls because um you know, the three of us have been working a lot to create the six-part series. We're really excited about it. Uh between the three of us, we have a lot of experience, but we also want to get a lot of information from you about how what you want and and what you're looking for. So that way when you know within the next couple of months tailor any of our talks in the six-part series to really meet the needs that's most important to all of you. All right, let's go ahead and get started. If we go to the next slide, uh you know, want to again really want to thank uh Katherine and and Natalie. Uh the three of us working together has been an absolute gift and I really appreciate the depth of experience they both have. It's been a very synergistic process and so I'm thoroughly excited as well.

[00:32:57]And one of the things, you know, coming off of that foundation that they just you one of the pieces I'd like to emphasize is that lack of knowledge piece around trauma-informed care. And trauma-informed definition and care is one of those interesting things because often times the people that don't think they need it are the ones that need it the most. So really appreciate you being here. And this is definitely one of those scenarios where what you don't know can hurt someone. And so that's the whole of being trauma informed is just really knowing the breadth of it so that way we can help avoid retraumatization and understand the dynamics of it even if you never plan on becoming a a trauma therapist yourself.

[00:33:38]So, with that being said, and I'm sure a lot of us have had the experience, sometimes somebody might go into get overwhelmed. Their system might get overwhelmed, whether it's a fight or flight process or process or some kind of dissociative process. It can happen just in the course of normal work that all of a sudden we find ourselves in a place where we're not quite sure how to get back from or or how to kind of turn it around. And so if we can give one kind of important takeaway, you know, out of this hour-long conversation to kind of help yourself out of a situation that might be a little too big for you.

[00:34:18]And so let's say things have sped up a little too fast. You know, one of the main things to do is to um re-engage with your clients to connect with them.

[00:34:29]What we really don't want to have happen is them all by themselves having their experience and you freaking out with no communication between the two of you.

[00:34:39]Basically, all good solutions are going to come from being in contact and community with each other. Bad decisions tend to come from being in isolation.

[00:34:47]So, if things have sped up and you feel like you need to kind of help um reorient the moment, reorient the session, it's actually not that hard.

[00:34:57]And here's what you do. You use their name, you make eye contact, and you start talking to them. And the reason for that is when you use someone's name, you're basically asking them to pay attention to you. You're you're kind of bringing you're kind of inviting them out of their experience. You're inviting their intention onto you. And once you use someone name, use someone's name, you want to be able to make eye contact with them. Did we just get another poll up there? Okay. Oh, that's just from before. Thanks.

[00:35:28]um to make eye contact. Now, part of eye contact is to connect with the person again. So, when you look in someone's eyes, you want to really see someone home. You don't want that spacey, far away, nobody home type of eye contact. I see a human being behind those eyes who's there with you in that room. And that's one of the purposes for that.

[00:35:48]Also, making eye contact is really asking them to re-engage with you to be connected with you again as well. Third part is to start talking to them. You know, turn it into a conversation process. And this is the moment where you can open up your heart and say all the wonderful things you want to say like, "Wow, this is a really big process that's happening right now. Uh it's it's uh amazing and it's wonderful. And I don't actually, you know, I don't have the type of training to really support you through this process, but we can help with this and we can kind of help you find the person that you need to have, you know, the person that would be able to have that kind of training. Um you don't need to interpret it, you don't need to explain it. It's just more like you're trying to be back in contact with them in the room so that way you can work on problems together. you know, what do you need? How's this going right now? How are you doing? You know, and if somebody's really having a hard time coming back, the worst thing you might have to do is you might have to get insistent. Have to really ask them to pay attention to you. And that would involve using your non- therapist like, "Hey, John, I really need you to pay attention to me right now." And really using their name, really use making eye contact, and really asking them to pay attention to you. And if someone is really in a far away space, be very helpful to change position. Have someone sit up, have them reorient to the room, identify things in the room, look around. It may take a little bit of time, but it is very possible to help bring someone back into the present moment with you. And then once you're both in the room together, that's when, like I said, you can open up your heart and you can collaboratively discuss next steps, uh, including a potential consultation and or a referral.

[00:37:36]Okay, can we come to the next slide, please?

[00:37:42]So, how to take care of yourself? You know, a big part of working with challenging clients and challenging client situations is all self-care process. Now, obviously, we'll go much deeper into the self-care process uh in this six-part series, but here are some questions for you to just contemplate, and you can even put these in your own um you know, I think we have another poll coming up on this one, uh which is what practices do you have to disengage from a session after it concludes?

[00:38:15]Particularly if you're a busy practitioner and you tend to have clients back to back, you need to be able to to move from one person to another. Even when the stories or what's happening in the session happens to move you, what practices do you have to be able to move and disengage from one session and into the next one.

[00:38:36]And it is natural for to be human. You know, if somebody's telling you an upsetting story, it is natural to get a little upset and to have feelings and to have empathy. And if you're a body worker, you're probably naturally a caring person. And so, you are going to have your own reactions. The goal of being a good therapist is not to not have a reaction. It's how to manage your own reaction in a healthy way that doesn't burn you out, that doesn't bring you down, that doesn't deplete you. And so the invitation of course is also what practices do you have to manage your own reactions when they arise in a therapeutic session. Now one of my big pieces that I'm really one of the pieces that I'm really bringing into this voice in particular for me is um the value of consultation supervision and mentorship. I actually don't think it's possible to be a really mature therapist without the mentorship, consultation, and supervision process.

[00:39:36]Okay. So, in the mental health world, we have a lot of required supervision where we're constantly tracking client cases, getting feedback on them, and also kind of examining our own responses to what's going on. If it were up to me, I honestly think the bodywork professions should require that as well, just because being human and having a reaction to somebody is part of it. Now, in addition to having your own consultation, supervision and mentorship, uh also get your own therapy. You know, I would like to encourage all of us to have our own body work that we get and like to encourage all of us to also have our own mental health practitioner that we work with to really fully become us as well.

[00:40:19]And then another piece is to get further training. If you want to become a trauma therapist, go pursue some of those other trainings that Natalie talked about at the beginning. um you know study cran up ledger craniosacral therapy study the semata emotional release process and also study some trauma focused therapy such as sematic experiencing or sensory motor psychotherapy or other ones.

[00:40:45]Okay. And then of course as part of being an effective practitioner uh you need to develop your own referral f you know so have good counselors that you trust have other good body workers that you trust have different practitioners of different types so that way you can make the appropriate referral when necessary. All right. Can we move forward please? Now I'm going to do a very quick overview of the six-part series because I want to um honor the time boundary here. So, on our six-part series, they are live sessions. They'll begin at 700 PM East Coast time, and we're budgeting an hour and a half for each live session. And in the hour and a half, we're going to approximately a 1-hour presentation and then some question and answer afterwards. So, in this little short inouch that we're doing, you don't have a chance to ask questions live, but you are filling out a poll. If you'd like to have that chance, please come join us in the live sessions. The dates for the live sessions are September 1st, September 8th, September 22nd, September 29th, October 13th, and October 20th. Next slide, please.

[00:41:56]So, I'm uh just want these slides to be part of the recorded presentation so that way you can pause these and read them in more in depth later. I'm not going to read all the bullet points. I'm just stand out um you know, kind of the titles. So the general theme of the first live session that we're going to do is we're going to talk about historical perspectives on trauma in manual therapy and historically in craniosacral therapy. Craniosacral therapy has had an evolution of its approach to trauma over the past 40 years as well. So we'll get a chance to talk about that. Next slide please.

[00:42:34]In session number two, and again, if you're watching this recording, you can pause it right here so you can read the bullet points that I'm not going to cover.

[00:42:42]The theme of session number two, we're going to go even further into definitions. You know, a little bit of what Natalie talked about and a little bit into it as well on defining trauma-informed care, particularly from a manual therapy practice point of view.

[00:42:57]What is trauma-informed care for the people that use their hands as a principal tool and are touching their clients?

[00:43:05]Next slide, please. The theme obsession number three. Well, you know, Natalie talked earlier about the biological impacts of trauma. And if we're going to look at it from a biocschosocial point of view, we can talk about trauma's effects on the biology of a person. We can talk about trauma's effects on the psychology of a person. We also can talk about contextual social influence of trauma as well and how they might apply and be relevant to a manual therapy practice.

[00:43:36]Next slide, please.

[00:43:40]All right.

[00:43:42]Now, the theme of session number four is going to be manual entropy and craniosacral therapy within contemporary trauma informed care. So, as you're starting to get a sense, each of the live sessions kind of build on top of each other. Let me read these bullet points. So, we will talk about common terminology used in trauma and trauma therapy. So, that way you can even if you're not choosing to be a trauma therapist, understanding the terminology is important. Understanding the ideas is important. Being able to contribute in the trauma community in the trauma-informed community is an important piece. So, we'll be talking about that a bit more. We'll also kind of locate manual therapy within larger interdisciplinary understanding of trauma uh trauma therapy models and trauma-informed care models and in definitely coming at it from a collaborative framework.

[00:44:35]I don't think any of us believe Natalie, myself or Katherine that there is only one modality to work with all people.

[00:44:44]And so particularly with severe trauma, it's going to be a team approach. It's not a solo practitioner approach. And so understanding kind of like the supportive role of hands-on therapies in promote that regulation, resilience, and integration alongside other health care practitioners.

[00:45:02]Okay, next slide, please. Now our fifth session here we're going to be talking more specifically about clinical applications of trauma-informed manual and craniosacral therapy and it's in this one it's not going to be just Katherine Nadley and myself but we're actually going to have a panel of experienced trauma therap tra manual trauma therapists and so we'll be hearing from some other clinicians about their experiences of working with trauma and so that have a chance to hear a little bit broader and a little bit more diverse of an approach to trauma than just what Natalie, Katherine, and myself have to offer.

[00:45:42]Next slide, please.

[00:45:45]And then our sixth and final session.

[00:45:47]Well, here we'll talk a little bit more about the ethics and professional responsibility of a trauma-informed practice. So, we will talk about the common challenges that are in trauma related sessions.

[00:46:00]We'll talk about practices that prioritize safety, autonomy, informed consent, and scope of practice. We'll talk indications, things that you might see in a practice that would suggest a need for interdisciplinary collaboration or referral. And we'll also talk about resources towards ongoing supervision and consultation and burnout. Okay, next slide, please. Do we have another one?

[00:46:24]Oh, yeah. Here we go. So, here's the big question. We'll do another poll. We'd really love it if all of you participate on this one. Do you have any wishes for what you would like to see in the six-part series? Like I said, we'll be combing through these responses and using them to kind of inform our presentation and tweak it in addition to what we've already put together.

[00:46:55]Now, I do see in the comments that we've had a few people asking about specific modalities. Just as someone who's uh study psychology right now, there are so many approaches to trauma and so many theories approaching the trauma, it will be an absolute impossibility for us to address every conceivable modality out there. What we will do is we will be taking more of a common factors approach. What are common factors that underly successful trauma therapies?

[00:47:26]What are common factors that underly all successful trauma therapies?

[00:47:31]For a real that should be much more informative than trying to compare and contrast individual modalities.

[00:47:39]A trauma conversation will be taking place. The dates are September 1st, 8th, 22nd, 29th, and then October 13th and 20th. Those are Tuesdays. We begin at 700 p.m. Eastern. Now, there's some important points that I wanted to make about the series that's coming up. First of all, if you are not able to be there live with us for any of the dates or all of the dates, whatever it may be, all registrants are going to have access to the online video with all the content for 5 years. So, that's a very important point. Also on our end, our team, they'll do a very good job of getting the session edits made and the turnaround to all registrants so that they receive. So let's just say you attended the first on September 1st, you weren't able to make September 8th, but you were going to be attending the 22nd.

[00:48:30]We're going to do our best to turn around um the within 48 to 72 hours and have that content to you. so that if it is the 22nd to the 29th that you'd have the weekend to review the content before the next session so that you'd be prepared. Also, this QR code here on the lefth hand side, if you use QR codes and you're interested in learning more about the series, if you pull out your camera, you can use that and it'll pull up the page if you'd like to register or you have additional questions. Here's my email address here. I'm very happy to answer any questions. I saw some questions in the chat. Please email me.

[00:49:06]I will get you the information you need.

[00:49:08]Another very important point is the early registration discount is coming up very quickly. Right now, the six-part series for all six sessions, one and a half hour sessions is $245, but after the 2nd of August, that price goes up to $345.

[00:49:24]Um, some of you have asked if there's CUS available, and the answer to that is yes. Feel free to email me if there's specific boards. um it's NCBTMB um that we are approved with for CUS for that purpose. So that's all important information. Um not going to spend too much more time much time here, but you're able if you'd like to take a screenshot of this slide, you're more than welcome to do that. So I'll give you about 10 seconds. If you'd like to take a screenshot of that so that you have my email, feel free. Also, the registration you got from Zoom came from my email. So any questions there, please let me know. Um, very happy to help.

[00:50:05]Upcoming in touch segments. We're going on summer break. This is actually a little later in the year than we typically do, but I think it was a really important uh program tonight for us. Um, there's a lot accomplished. It was a wonderful, wonderful job by Natalie, Katherine, and Eric. So, thank you. And thank you everyone for the uh for the interest in the series, the interest in the program tonight. Again, I always like to remind you before we conclude that our Facebook page will have the inouch posted to it. Our YouTube channel will also have it. And then all registrants, if you've registered on the Zoom, you will receive an email with the content from the program tonight automatically. You do not need to reach out to us. We will uh reach you. So, with that, I will just say thank you to everyone. I want to give very special thank you to Natalie, Katherine, and Eric. And I'm really excited about the upcoming series. So, we hope that you'll join us starting in September.