2-Day: Trauma Conference: The Body Keeps Score-Trauma Healing with Bessel van der Kolk, MD – Bessel Van der Kolk

Watch renowned trauma expert and NY Times bestselling author, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, for this transformational intensive recording on the latest research and drug-free treatment techniques for your trauma clients.

Dr. van der Kolk will give you a new understanding of the neuroscience of traumatic stress and the research demonstrating the efficacy and possible limitations of mind-body treatment approaches. He will detail the benefits of neurofeedback, EMDR, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and sensory integration methods such as dance and movement.

Through intriguing videos, case studies, and masterful explanation, you will learn how to give your clients:

• A way to find words that describe what is going on
• Ways to regulate their emotions
• The ability to trust other human beings after the shameful and horrific details of their lives
• The research on the latest tools to process traumatic memories
• Transformation! – to be fully alive in the present, not stuck in the past

This is a “don’t miss” recording that is based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research but also that of other leading specialists.

1. Analyze & communicate how traumatized people process information.
2. Determine how sensorimotor processing can alleviate traumatic re-experiencing.
3. Articulate the range of adaptations to trauma early in the life cycle.
4. Substantiate how trauma affects the developing mind and brain.
5. Communicate the recent advances in neurobiology of trauma.
6. Differentiate between disrupted attachment and traumatic stress.
7. Break down how adverse childhood experiences affect brain development, emotion regulation & cognition.
8. Choose techniques of physical mastery, affect regulation and memory processing.
9. Explore the development of Developmental Trauma Disorder.
10. Critique the current DSM-5® position on DTD.
11. Model how to integrate various treatment approaches in your practice.
12. Through an understanding of the research, explore treatment strategy alternatives to drugs and talk therapy.

Neuroscience & Brain Development

• Neuroscience and brain development
• How children learn to regulate their arousal systems
• How the brain regulates itself
• Developmental psychopathology: The derailment of developmental processes & brain development due to trauma, abuse and neglect
• How the brain responds to treatment

Early Life Trauma

• Interpersonal neurobiology
• Adaptations to trauma early in the life cycle
• Loss of affect regulation
• Chronic destructive relationships towards self and others
• Dissociation and amnesia
• Somatization
• Self-blame, guilt and shame
• Chronic distrust and identification with the aggressor

Attachment, Trauma, and Psychopathology

• The breakdown of information processing in trauma
• Mirror neuron systems and brain development
• How to overcome the destabilization and disintegration
• The compulsion to repeat – origins and solutions
• Difference between disorganized attachment and traumatic stress

Neuroscience, Trauma, Memory and the Body

• The neurobiology of traumatic stress
• Learned helplessness and learned agency
• Restoring active mastery and the ability to attend to current experiences
• Somatic re-experiencing of trauma-related sensations and affects that serve as engines for continuing maladaptive behaviors
• How mind and brain mature in the context of caregiving systems

The Diagnosis of Treatment of Trauma-Related Disorders

• Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD)
• Affect and impulse dysregulation
• Disturbances of attention, cognition and consciousness
• Distortions in self-perception and systems of meaning
• Interpersonal difficulties
• Somatization and biological dysregulation
• The development of DTD in the DSM-5® as a diagnosis and its implications for assessment, diagnosis and treatment

The Latest Research on Trauma-specific Treatment Interventions

• The role of body-oriented and neurologically-based therapies to resolve the traumatic past
• Alternatives to drugs and talk therapy
• EMDR
• Self-regulation, including yoga
• Mindfulness
• Play and theatre
• Dance, movement and sensory integration
• Neurofeedback