Working with Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Addiction & More

Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAPA is a recognized expert in the strengths-based, de-pathologized treatment of trauma and has been in private practice for over 39 years. She presents workshops and keynote addresses nationally and internationally and is a clinical consultant to practitioners and mental health agencies in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Israel. She has been an Adjunct Faculty member at several Universities, and is the Founder of “The Ferentz Institute,” now in its seventeenth year of providing continuing education to mental health professionals and graduating several thousand clinicians from her two Certificate Programs in Advanced Trauma Treatment. In 2009 she was voted the “Social Worker of the Year” by the Maryland Society for Clinical Social Work. Lisa is the author of “Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Traumatized Clients: A Clinician’s Guide,” now in its second edition, “Letting Go of Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Workbook of Hope and Healing,” and “Finding Your Ruby Slippers: Transformative Life Lessons From the Therapist’s Couch.” Lisa also hosted a weekly radio talk show, writes blogs and articles for websites on trauma, attachment, self-destructive behaviors, and self-care, teaches on many webinars, and is a contributor to Psychologytoday.com. You can follow Lisa’s work on her website, theferentzinstitute.com, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Working with Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Addiction & More
with Lisa Ferentz, MSW, LCSW-C, DAPA

Many adolescent and adult clients with histories of trauma, abuse, neglect, and other pain narratives have an increased vulnerability towards using self-mutilation, addictions, and eating-disordered behaviors to cope and self-soothe, numb, and dissociate from unresolved pain. In this training, clinicians will learn about the dynamics of early childhood trauma, the four attachment styles, and the impact that dysfunctional attachment has on clients’ abilities to effectively manage their emotional states. We will explore the challenges that children face when they are forced to attach to emotionally unavailable or abusive caretakers and the toll it takes on their cognitions, emotions, and psychological wellbeing.

Participants will learn about the optimal window of arousal and the hyper-arousal or hypo-arousal that manifests when they are unable to stay grounded and present “in the window of tolerance.” We will define trauma and process the impact that personal meaning-making has on either exacerbating or mitigating potentially traumatic experiences. We will also address the long-term sequelae of insecure attachment as it impacts clients’ subsequent relationships.

Understanding the challenges of adolescence and how the uniqueness of the adolescent brain navigates those developmental stressors will help to explain why teenagers are particularly vulnerable to acts of self-destructive behavior. We will then explore the advantages to a strengths-based, de-pathologized approach to working with self-harm. Part of this approach will include an exploration of both trauma re-enactment syndrome as well as the dynamic of de-coding the meta-communication of destructive behaviors. Participants will gain an in-depth understanding of the fundamental reasons why clients turn to self-destructive acts as well as the tipping points that make clients even more vulnerable to repeatedly using these behaviors.

We will examine a paradigm shift in treatment using the “whack a mole” metaphor, and then participants will learn about a specific “cycle of self-harm” that emphasizes the impact of triggering events, negative cognitions and negative affect, dissociation, and anxiety on self-harming behaviors. We will also process both the positive and negative outcomes of self-harm that land clients in a state of emotional vulnerability and add to the chronicity of the cycle. This cycle will also provide “intervention sites” that set the stage for working with and treating harmful behaviors. At each point in the cycle, therapists will learn how to introduce concrete and creative strategies that will give clients alternative ways to navigate their experiences of triggering, dysregulation, and dissociation.

A variety of right-brain and left-brain-based treatment strategies will be offered to help reduce and eventually extinguish these behaviors. An emphasis will be placed on interventions that are designed to increase insight, self-compassion, self-soothing, internal safety, grounding, connection, and containment. Clients will also be given safer, healthier ways to articulate and heal their pain narratives. Psychoeducation about the paradox of using dissociation, the impact of shame, and the cyclical nature of self-harm will also be processed. Journal prompts, cognitive re-framing, breath work, somatic resourcing, movement, visualization, art prompts, anchoring, and flashback halting protocols will also be discussed in detail.

As we explore the idea of “working with” self-destructive behaviors, we will also discuss how to avoid the power struggles and inadvertent increase in self-harm that often accompanies ineffective “safety contracts.” An alternative contract, called CARESS, will be explored. Participants will learn how to present the model to clients, creating a template that can be used in therapy sessions. We will also identify how and why CARESS is different and more effective than standard safety contracts. Since artwork is often incorporated into CARESS, we will explore the most effective ways to process clients’ artwork by identifying general guidelines and the best open-ended questions to use.

Working with Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Addiction & More
with Lisa Ferentz, MSW, LCSW-C, DAPA

Course Agenda
6 CEs

Module 1 Content:

• Defining Secure Attachment (9 mins)
• Four Attachment Patterns: Exploring Insecure Attachment Patterns (24 mins)
• The Challenge of Attaching to Abusive Caretakers (16 mins)
• Understanding the Window of Tolerance (14 Mins)
• Defining Trauma and the Meaning-Making that Mitigates or Exacerbates It (20 mins)
• The Impact of Loss: Processing Clients’ Artwork (20 mins)

• Understanding the Challenges of the Adolescent Journey (36 mins)
• The Advantages of a Strengths-Based Perspective (11 mins)
• Defining Self-Destructive Behaviors (13 mins)
• Meta-Communication and Trauma Re-enactment Syndrome (36 mins)
• A Paradigm Shift: Key Concepts When Treating Self-Harm (14 mins)

Module 3 Content:

• Case Study: Karen (19 mins)
• Priming the Well for Self-Harm: Triggering, Negative Cognition, Negative Affect, Unbearable Tension, Dissociation (21 mins)
• Self-Harm and its Inevitable Outcomes (18 mins)

Module 4 Content:

• Addressing Triggers, Journaling with REACTS (34 mins)
• Working with Negative Cognitions (22 mins)
• Interventions for Negative Affect I: Affect Regulation Toolkit (23 mins)
• Interventions for Negative Affect II: Containment (20 mins)
• Interventions for Negative Affect III: Somatic Resourcing (20 mins)
• Working with Tension and Anxiety (15 mins)

Module 5 Content:

• Working with Dissociation (24 mins)
• CARESS as an Alternative to Standard Safety Contracts (20 mins)
• Why CARESS is Effective (9 mins)
• Interventions for the Aftermath of Self-Destructive Behavior: Positive & Negative (17 mins)

Working with Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Addiction & More
with Lisa Ferentz, MSW, LCSW-C, DAPA

Learning Objectives

• Identify at least five potential relationship losses experienced by survivors of trauma.
• Distinguish between co-regulation and auto-regulation.
• Describe the manifestations of affect dysregulation and the impact of hypo-arousal and hyper-arousal.
• Explain the challenge of attaching to unavailable or abusive caretakers and the resulting need to take “ownership” of the abuse.
• Describe the four attachment styles and their impact on a child’s cognitive and emotional development.
• Identify at least three ways in which the adolescent brain differs from an adult brain.
• Identify at least five benefits to working with a strengths-based, de-pathologized perspective, including the impact this mindset has on the therapeutic relationship.
• Define the concepts of trauma-re-enactment and the meta-communication of self-harm.
• Identify at least six reasons why clients engage in self-destructive behaviors.
• Describe at least three stressors that challenge the adolescent brain.
• Define at least three negative cognitions that frequently emerge in the cycle of self-harm.
• Identify at least three manifestations of dissociation and explain how dissociation leads to an analgesic effect.
• Identify at least three positive outcomes in the cycle of self-harm.
• Explain how emotional vulnerability contributes to the cyclical nature of self-destructive behaviors.
• Explain why unbearable tension and anxiety escalate the cycle of self-harm.
• Explain and Implement the journal prompt REACTS to help identify triggers.
• Discuss and implement two strategies to address triggers and increase healthier boundaries.
• Identify at least three common distorted, negative cognitions that are universal for trauma survivors who engage in self-harm.
• Describe and implement at least two strategies for containment to reduce emotional flooding.
• Implement at least three strategies to install somatic resourcing.
• Describe and utilize CARESS, an alternative to standard safety contracts, and identify at least two reasons why it can be more effective than standard safety contracts.
• Implement at least four strategies to help dissociative clients re-ground.
• Identify at least three general guidelines when using art therapeutically.
• Identify at least four open-ended questions to use when processing clients’ artwork.
• Explain the paradox of using dissociation as a coping strategy.

For intermediate mental health professionals including Social Workers, LPCs, and LMFTs.

Continuing Education Credits

To receive Distance Learning/Home Study continuing education credit, applicants must complete all course materials, purchase the CEs, submit an evaluation form, and pass a post-test with a score of 80% or greater. It is the responsibility of the attendee to determine if the CE credit offered by Academy of Therapy Wisdom meets the regulations of their state licensing/certification board.

Counseling:

NY State Mental Health Counselors: Academy of Therapy Wisdom is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0285.

Social Work: This program has been approved for 6 Distance Learning Social Work Continuing Education hours for relicensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. NASW-MA Chapter CE Approving Program, Authorization Number D92427-3.

Marriage/Family Therapy: See below for CAMFT information.

This course is $347. You can purchase it here.

Cancellation

We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on all of our live & on-demand courses. If you find that the training is not right for you, please email us at support@therapywisdom.com within 14 days of your purchase. You can request a full refund or exchange, whichever you would prefer.