Courses spring/summer 2022
13th June – The Self-compassion Struggle NEW COURSECompassion is a bit of a buzz word at the moment – and for good reason – because there is a wealth of evidence base to suggest that it is really effective in bringing about positive change. But how do you or your clients respond to the notion of self-compassion? Do you embrace it – or struggle with it? Our experience has been that many clients, especially trauma survivors really struggle with self-compassion as a concept – albeit they usually have lots for other people!
27th June - Working with Trauma: what about us? Compassion fatigue, burnout & Vicarious Trauma - what are the signs? How do we manage? What can we do about it?
11th July - Exploring the Father Wound - the impact of the absent father Following our successful course on mother wounds we've designed this course to look at the impact fathers have on us and our clients.
See full list of workshops and dates below. If you have a query or anything isn't clear please contact us via the email link.
How to book a place
Complete the online booking form on the bookings page. You'll receive an automatic email confirmation, which includes instructions on how to pay. Your place is not confirmed until we receive payment.
We send joining instructions about a week before each course.
Cost of courses
All courses on zoom cost £80 from January 2022. Workshops in the room are £90. We are currently offering a discount of £25 if you book 3 of our Trauma series or £40 off if you book on all 4.
Workshop location - we remain on zoom for now (other than our Supervisor's Course)
We've decided due to the success of our delivery of workshops on zoom we will remain on that format for the time-being. Please be assured that they are just as interactive and practical as when we deliver in the room. We've really great feedback and 99.9% saying they'd do a zoom workshop with us again.
We've run a course for supervisors in the room. It's a large airy room & we limit numbers to 12. We'll run another in September. We plan to run these twice a year. The content is different every time and if you're a supervisor it's a brilliant session to connect with others and share openly the challenges and to get some inspiration and ideas.
If you'd like to attend our training but would prefer "in the room" then do email us to let us know as that's what will encourage us to consider doing so!
The Self-Compassionate Struggle – a practical guide to introducing compassion into your therapeutic work
Date: 13th June 2022
By Zoom – 10am to 4pm
Compassion is a bit of a buzz word at the moment – and for good reason – because there is a wealth of evidence base to suggest that it is really effective in bringing about positive change. Research has shown that people who are more self-compassionate experience less depression, anxiety, stress and shame – and more life satisfaction, confidence, and better physical health.
But how do you or your clients respond to the notion of self-compassion? Do you embrace it – or struggle with it? Our experience has been that many of us and our clients, especially trauma survivors, really struggle with self-compassion as a concept – albeit they usually have lots for other people!
In this brand-new workshop, we will explore this very human struggle of rejecting something we don’t feel we deserve. As always this means that the workshop will be experiential as we ask you to look at your own barriers to self-compassion, and to also experience a number of self-compassion exercises that you can use in your client work.
In addition, we will:
To book please complete the online booking form. You can pay by bank transfer or by credit card.
If you have any questions please email us by clicking on the link at the top or side of the page.
Working with Trauma: What about Us?
Vicarious trauma, Compassion Fatigue or Burnout
27th June 2022
10 am - 4 pm on zoom
Course 4 in our new series on working with Trauma. Discounts available if you book 3 or 4 of the series.
What if we’re not just tired?
What if it’s our souls that are exhausted?
The kind of tired that sleep won’t remedy.
You see, when the world is in crisis (and it is),
your soul becomes weary with the weight of collective grief….
Donna Ashworth
From History Will Remember
This is one of a number of poems by Donna Ashworth on themes around the pandemic, from her book “History Will Remember”. These words really capture some of the exhaustion that many therapists, frontline workers, and those who support others are feeling. We hear it every day in the therapy room and with our supervisees. Many are exhausted.
Plus, it’s not just that our jobs are demanding and tiring because we’re supporting others who are finding life and the world difficult, but we’re expected to do this whilst we also deal with the same issues ourselves. Add into that the ever-growing number of people needing support, working from home and working remotely for 18 months or more and you’ve a recipe for exhaustion!
If you work with trauma, and who doesn’t as a therapist, then you’ll recognise “burnout”, “vicarious trauma”, “compassion fatigue” as key concepts…. You might even be wondering if that’s the path you’re on?
How can we protect ourselves, or the people that we employ or who volunteer, from what are very real challenges when working with trauma, and traumatised individuals? We’re constantly told to practice self-care…but do we walk the walk? And what if we are and it’s still not enough?
In this new course we’ll take a practical look at the difficulties and what we can do to help keep ourselves healthy and functioning, so that we enjoy our work more! It will cover:
Exploring the Father Wound - the impact of the absent father
11th July 2022
10 am to 4 pm on Zoom
NEW COURSE Our Mother Wound course has been so popular we thought we would take a look at Fathers too!
Fathers are so often absent in our lives – through divorce/separation, work, or most often simply emotionally absent. We explore the personal impact and ways of working with clients to address their wounds.
This workshop combines some didactic theoretical learning with experiential exercises to help you explore your own relationship with your father, and ways of exploring this with clients.
In particular we will explore:
Setting Up A Successful Counselling Business: A Practical Workshop
18th July 2022
10 am to 4 pm on Zoom
This one day workshop addresses the questions and practicalities for therapists wanting to start out in private practice. This course will take place on Zoom - but will have all the usual elements of discussion & interactive elements including small groups.
The course covers:
Safe & Effective Trauma Therapy Essentials
DATE: 5th September 2022
10 am to 4 pm
£80
Sadly, if you work as a therapist you will inevitably work with traumatised people. Whether that be individuals who experienced childhood abuse and/or neglect, others who’ve experienced domestic or sexual violence in adulthood or maybe members of the armed forces, or others like police or ambulance workers who suffer trauma in the course of their working lives.
It may have been taught on your initial therapy training, but often not in great depth or with an understanding of the frequency within which it appears in the therapy room. If you trained 10 or more years ago then it may not even have been covered at all as this is a fast developing area of research and understanding within the fields of mental health and neuroscience.
To work safely and effectively with trauma you will need to know about, and understand, how to work with:
In this new course we’ll guide you through
This course is aimed at students/newly qualified therapists or any therapist who didn’t adequately cover trauma in their training. It will look at the impact and mechanisms of trauma, and will include up to date theory and neuroscience. As with all our courses it will also take a practical approach of how to work in this field.
This is course 1 in a new series of 4 looking at Trauma. Each of the courses can be taken as a standalone but form part of this series on the essentials of trauma work.
Understanding Your Obligations to Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Pre-Trial Therapy, Disclosure & Safeguarding
DATE: 12th September 2022
10 am to 4 pm
£80
This course is a MUST DO for anyone who works with survivors of abuse or sexual violence. We unpick the tricky balance between safeguarding and confidentiality as well as looking at the Pre-Trial Therapy Protocol and what it means for therapy.
The course covers:
Disclosure:
Safeguarding
Pre-Trial Therapy Protocol
Creating Transformative Relationships in Supervision - a course for Supervisors
26th September 2022
9.30 am to 4 pm
"In the room" in Nottinghamshire
£90
Maximum 12 delegates
We ran our first workshop for supervisors in July 2021 and we loved and so did the delegates.... so we're now running these twice a year and in the room!
It will provide a space for supervisors to think and reflect on their relationships with supervisees and the process of supervision. This will be an experiential course but based on well understood & researched theories of supervision. We'll utilise theories of integrative & person-centred supervision as well as other models such as Appreciative Inquiry and the 7 Eyed Model of Supervision devised by Robin Shohet & Peter Hawkins.
We don't see many courses for supervisors so we wanted to offer something which we'd want to attend! Something that gives you time and space with other supervisors to think & reflect on the work.
It's our intention to deliver this "in the room" in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire. However, we will be guided by the latest government guidance at the time.
We will offer:
Achieving Safety & Stabilisation in Phase 1 Trauma Therapy
Date: 3rd October 2022
Time: 10 am - 4 pm on Zoom
Course 2 in our new Trauma series
Feedback from SB 22.11.21 "I found it really interesting, inspirational and informative. Hope to be able to join you on another course soon".
Safe trauma therapy needs to be paced and the trauma left unexplored until the client has sufficient skills to feel more in control of trauma symptoms. This enables clients to manage primary symptoms such as hyper-arousal, flashbacks and dissociation and learn vital skills to reduce negative coping strategies such as self-harm and self-medication. However, this is often easier said than done as clients can find this incredibly hard.
Research (Herman 1992, Rothschild 2010) has shown that safe and effective trauma therapy is best conducted in 3 stages and that this can be successfully adapted whatever the therapist’s primary modality. This course looks at the first stage of phased trauma treatment where the primary aims are to establish safety and stabilisation.
There is no one method that works for all clients so in our practical workshop the learning (including experiential activities) will include:
This is course 2 in our new series of 4 workshops looking at the essentials of Trauma work. It is a revised version of a course we delivered previously.
The Pre-Trial Therapy Protocol : an in depth exploration
NEW COURSE
10th October 2022
By Zoom – 10am – 4pm
Cost: £80
This course will take an in depth look at the new Pre Trial Therapy Protocol. In particular looking at:
There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and to work with colleagues.
Trauma: Working with complex PTSD & Dissociation
7th November
10 am - 4 pm on zoom
Course 3 in our new series on working with Trauma. Discounts available if you book 3 or 4 of the series.
The impact of childhood abuse or neglect and of living in dysfunctional environments has long lasting effects on our clients. We need to understand the impact of long-term abuse, the role of shame and how dissociation presents in the therapy room to work effectively and safely with this client group. In this new workshop we’ll consider
Previously run courses
The courses listed below are ones we have run previously but we have no set date to run again at present. If you're interested in one of these do let us know as that can inform our decision making around which courses to put on next year. Additionally if you're an organisation looking for bespoke courses you can let us know if you'd like to run one of these for your staff and/or volunteers.
Adult Attachment & Relationship: What does it mean for therapy?
Moving on from Bowlby, we look at the latest in adult attachment theory and how it impacts on client, therapist and the therapy as a whole. We will look at the links between trauma and attachment and the latest neuroscience developments. As with all our workshops we'll take a practical look at how we can utilise current knowledge in our work with clients and what it adds to our understanding of how we work with our clients. Inevitably with this course we'll look at our own attachment styles and ways of being in relationship with others.
Exploring the Mother Wound
Feedback from JJ from 1.11.21 - "Thank you for such a fantastic training. One of the best I think for me not only with you but in my whole entire life of counselling. Thank you."
Mothers seem to occupy a special place in the therapy room. There is seldom a client whose story is not impacted in some way by their relationship with their mother. For so many clients the ‘good enough mother’ was not a concept they experienced - often leading to a profound ‘mother wound’. In this workshop we look at the impact of mothers who are:
We will explore ways of working with clients that can both help to identify the mother wound and take steps towards its healing.
Grieving & Loss
Grief and loss are always common themes in client work, but that has taken on a new and more complicated tone because of the pandemic. Many clients will be feeling intense emotions about the situation and not even recognise these stem from grief of the loss of their assumptive world. For others, the source of their grief will be as obvious as it is diverse – for example loss of loved ones, loss of livelihoods and jobs, loss of human contact, and loss of freedoms.
Being able to identify and name life experiences as losses worthy of grief can be a very important part of healing. Yet all too often we only identify death as being worthy of grief, and other losses get pushed aside as we force ourselves to 'get on with it’ - or ‘over it'.
In this newly updated workshop we will cover:
Understanding Low Self-esteem: a practical & experiential workshop
Low self-esteem is something that often affects our clients and they can often want us to “cure” their low self-esteem – but how easy is that? We use the latest understandings in psychotherapy & neuroscience to consider self-esteem and how to improve it.
In this experiential workshop we will explore many aspects of self-esteem:
A good range of resources are provided to compliment the workshop learning.
Let's Talk About Sex!
Whether we work with individuals or couples we can be sure that we are often working with clients around personal relationships; and a big part of intimate relationships is sex. But how comfortable are we in discussing sex with our clients? How many initial training courses covered this important topic?
Will we welcome a client who talks about these topics?
You don’t need to be a specialist for sex to be relevant to your client work. This course will give you the confidence to engage with clients effectively & sensitively to help them explore what’s going on. Covering:
Utilising Mindfulness with Clients: A practical workshop
Would you like to know more about mindfulness?
Would you like more confidence in how to use mindfulness with your clients?
Would you like to know more about how & why mindfulness can help anxious or traumatised clients?
Would you like to incorporate mindfulness in your practice safely… In this course you will
Numbers: maximum 20 delegates
Pricing & Cancellation policy
Just a word on pricing....
From 1st January 2022 we will charge between £80 for Zoom courses, and £90 for any "in the room".
Fees are non-refundable. However, if you cancel 4 weeks or more prior to a course you can transfer your booking to another of our courses. Whilst we fully appreciate that life often happens last minute, we need time to be able to try and sell your space to another delegate, so we cannot simply transfer you to another course. If you cancel late we do offer you the option to re-book another course within the next 6 months at half price.
Running training courses is quite administratively hard work at the best of times and even more so during the pandemic. We know that for most training organisations if you cancel you simply lose your fee completely, and many also charge a fee for amending bookings. We take the view that our policy is the fairest way of doing things, and whilst we realise not everyone will agree with us we have to have a plan & policy in place, which we hope people will understand and accept.
Booking Information
To book onto any of our courses please complete the online booking form on the bookings page.
You'll be sent confirmation of your booking once you've made payment.
We look forward to seeing you on one of our courses!
