Workshop sessions:
Healing Ourselves, Healing Our World: Capacitar practices for trauma recovery
Patricia Mathes Cane, PhD
Dr. Cane's workshop will build on the keynote presentation, providing more opportunity to develop skills for the renewal of body, mind and spirit. Specific skill-building areas will include:
- Practicing body-mind-spirit modalities found to be effective for centering, relaxation and dealing with traumatic stress: Tai Chi — six movements and meditation, Pal Dan Gum, acupressure points for stress and self-care, and energy exercises for protection and self- care
- Exploring the impact of secondary trauma or compassion fatigue on body, mind and spirit in caregivers.
- Evaluating the use of energy modalities in clinical settings and for self-care.
- Considering different modalities for developing a spirituality of service and healing, along with a focus on self-care and compassion.
Creating Nature-Inspired Healing Objects: Expressive arts and trauma healing
Amy Morrison, MA, LMHC, ATR
Drawing on the natural environment, ecopsychology, art, healing and spirituality, participants in this workshop will be actively engaged in exploring and creating a safe space for healing. Participants will create a healing form, an object, inspired by natural holding environments such as the nest, tree, cave . . . No prior art experience is needed. Materials provided at the workshop include: found objects, natural materials, various fiber materials, wire and traditional art materials, among others. Workshop participants are encouraged to bring objects from their daily life experiences to incorporate into their creation; this may also include the written word. Participants will engage in discussion about the importance of the facilitating, holding environment as it relates to healing and spirituality. We will also briefly share the objects that are created during the workshop. Relevant literature and research from the arts in healing, trauma and spirituality will be discussed.
Ages & Stages: Grieving children and teens
Dale Marie Clark RN, Jillian Fortin and Deb Thurston, Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area
This workshop will explore effective ways to help grieving children and teens. Presenters will lead workshop participants through a child's journey of grief and provide examples of rituals and activities offered to children and teens in a peer support group model. Many of the ideas provided would also be appropriate in the home or in a therapeutic setting. Participants will receive resource materials.
Integrative and Energy Medicine Approaches to Trauma
Dustin Sulak, DO
Practitioners who help trauma patients often find that their state of being is more important than what they do or say to stimulate healing. In this workshop we will discuss and practice the frequently overlooked core states that are essential for the health care professional, family member or friend who wants to help a person heal from trauma. Watch how a simple shift in your own consciousness can instantly transform the healing interaction. We will also cover basic tools of homeopathy, Chinese medicine, hypnotherapy and energy medicine — simple, safe and powerful approaches to healing trauma you can readily use.
Calming the Traumatized Nervous System: An energy medicine approach to healing
The Rev. Nancy L. Needham, MA, LMT
The effects of experience are registered and stored in the energy field as well as the body. In cases of trauma, these stored experiences can often resurface consciously or unconsciously, causing varying degrees of disruption in the lives of traumatized people. From an energy medicine viewpoint and with a specific focus on the nervous system, we will discuss the nature of subtle energy and the benefits of reducing traumatic residue. We will also incorporate practical hands-on exercises to help participants directly feel and enhance their awareness of the subtle energy field. This will include brain balancing, an energy medicine technique used to calm, soothe and relax the nervous system, which can be a useful tool by itself or in conjunction with other approaches to trauma resolution.
Treatment for Veterans and Others Influenced by War Trauma: Approaches from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Kevin Polk, PhD
Veterans' trauma is in the news and that has, in turn, increased awareness of trauma in the general public. Exposure treatments such as Prolonged Exposure (PE) Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. However, these approaches have very high client drop- out rates that severely reduce the implementation of the therapies. Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a cutting-edge therapy that combines elements of both exposure and CBT, emphasizing mindful acceptance and personal values in a user- friendly package that quickly engages the interest of both clients and clinicians. This workshop will provide an orientation to ACT approaches applied to war trauma, with exercises giving participants experience with particular ACT techniques.
Repairing the Harm: How you can help support and empower battered mothers and their children
Nan Bell
Experiencing the trauma of abuse leaves emotional scars in the lives of many mothers and their children. This workshop will offer interactive exercises and hands-on information to help prevent or minimize the harm and ease the grief and loss experienced by victims of abuse.
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing: When and how it can help mitigate stress in team/organizational response to critical incidents
The Rev. Dr. Rachel Taber-Hamilton
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) is one component of a larger framework of Critical Incident Stress Management, an intervention toolkit of strategies for community disaster response. Developed as a way of debriefing first responders after a critical/traumatic incident, the CISD technique can help clinical teams and work groups process stresses and concerns raised by critical events with team, organizational and/or individual impacts. Through simulation and reflective process, this workshop will address the application and technique of CISD, including consideration of the types (and timing) of situations in which it can help to mitigate and address organizational and team/group stress response to critical incidents.