Kathy Steele, International trauma and dissociation expert, Author and Presenter is back with 25 hours of webinars covering all things Complex Trauma and Dissociation! You have the option of purchasing individual series, or purchasing the entire 7 series (25 webinars in total, worth $616 AUD) for only $492.80! 

Recordings of these sessions will be available for 30 days (60 days if you purchase all 7 series). 

Topics include:

Series 1 – Assessment of Complex Trauma and Dissociation

This series explores clinical assessment strategies for the major DSM 5 dissociative disorders: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD).

Learn how to differentiate symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders. We will learn how to ask clients about dissociative parts, current and past amnesia, with a major focus on distinguishing amnesia from the lack of memory that results from spacing out. In addition, we will explore several dissociative symptoms that are similar to psychotic symptoms and must be differentiated from psychosis. Several major clinical interview and self-report measures will be included.

Series 2 – Treatment Trajectories and Prognosis in Complex Trauma and Dissociation

What informs us of how long and challenging a treatment course might last with clients who have Complex PTSD or Dissociative Disorders?

Recorded in March 2021, this webinar series explores factors that affect prognosis and the length and course of therapy in complex trauma and dissociative disorders. 

For 2 x 1hr webinar recordings we explore what to look for in assessment and early treatment, and how to plan therapy according to prognostic factors.

Series 3 – Working with Self Injury and Suicidality in Complex Trauma and Dissociation

Intentional self-injury is a common problem in working with clients with complex trauma and dissociation.

Commencing in April 2021, this webinar series will explore how to understand self-injury compassionately, and what to do to help the client reduce and stop these behaviours that are used to regulate and reduce shame.

For one hour a week over three weeks, we will look at specific interventions will be addressed, including approaches for specific dissociative parts that are active in self-harm dynamics.

This webinar series will also discuss acute and chronic suicidality, from suicidal thoughts to plans, and how to address these in therapy from a trauma and dissociation informed perspective.

Management of the therapist’s countertransference will also be discussed, from avoidance to urgency.

Series 4 – Treatment of Traumatic Memory in Dissociative Disorders
(Advanced)

Once clients with dissociative disorders are stabilized, they need to process traumatic memories. There are many approaches to working with traumatic memory, from prolonged exposure to EMDR to psychodynamic to narrative approaches. Regardless of which approach is used, the work must often be carefully sequenced in a slow, gradual way to help the client maintain in a window of tolerance.

Recorded in May 2021, this webinar series consists of 3 x 1 hour webinars. Explore how to organise the work with dissociative parts of the client, what to look for to ensure adequate pacing, how to decide whether the client as a whole or only certain parts of the clients should participate, how to titrate experience and time to pace the work, how to pendulate to the present moment from memory, how to bracket memory work with positive experiences, among other interventions.

Series 5 – Ethics and Boundaries in Complex Trauma & Dissociation

Recorded June 2021, this webinar series will explore Ethics and Boundaries in Complex Trauma and Dissociation for one hour per week over four weeks.  

We will discuss the complicated ethical dilemmas in treating clients in different developmental stages with complex trauma and dissociation. Common ethical challenges will be discussed, including reporting and confidentiality issues; ongoing abuse and revictimization; ethical issues related to self-harm, suicidality and danger to others; boundary issues; management of the therapeutic relationship and intense countertransference; ethical management of impasses.

We will explore the intersection of our personal and professional ethics, its impact on our ethical decision-making, and how we can develop a mindful, compassionate and boundaried approach to ethics that is well integrated with our clinical approach.

Series 6 – Transference, Countertransference and Erotic Transference in Complex Trauma and Dissociation

How we feel towards our clients and how we experience being with them in the moment are crucial in understanding the therapeutic relationship and the dynamics of the client. While awareness of countertransference is encouraged, it is not often discussed in depth in relation to traumatized individuals.

Commencing in September 2021, this webinar series will run for one hour per week over four weeks. We will explore challenging dynamics that pull us to act urgently or to reject the client in some way, and how to recognize and manage these in ourselves, how to recognize enactments from our own histories and how they intersect with the client’s own enactments. In addition, the complex feelings of the client toward the therapist will be discussed, with suggestions for managing overly positive or negative transference. Finally, we will explore erotic transference – what it is, how to recognize it, and how to manage it.

Series 7 – Working with Resistance in Complex Trauma & Dissociation

Recorded in October 2021, this webinar series explores working with resistance in clients across 4 recorded webinars.

In these sessions, chronic resistance are discussed as a co-creation of therapist and client. We can compassionately understand resistance as inevitable and an essential focus of psychotherapy, and as a phobic avoidance of what is perceived to be intolerable by the client.

Learn how to anticipate resistance through specific assessment strategies early in therapy, how to recognize it in the session and in the therapeutic relationship, and how to work with resistance in dissociative parts of the client. We explore how to address resistance in a compassionate and gradual way without evoking further defense in the client.

About the Presenter

Kathy Steele, MN, CS has been in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia for over three decades, specialising in the treatment of complex trauma, dissociation, attachment difficulties, and the challenges of complicated therapies. She is an adjunct faculty at Emory University, and a Fellow and past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Ms Steele teaches internationally and consults with individuals, groups, and trauma programs. She has received a number of awards for her clinical and published works, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from ISSTD.