Power, Privilege & Trauma: Implications for Family Treatment

Click here for Instructor Bio.

Children and families treated in intensive, in-home programs regularly experience marginalization based on social class, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, health status, and/or sexual orientation. This workshop focuses on the often overlooked but highly impactful issues of power and privilege that result in marginalization, which shapes family member relationships to one another, with their communities, and with helping professionals. The content in this course is derived from an edited version of a series of live zoom workshops presented in December 2020. Ms. Christian uses a discussion-based format to teach this content. She introduces key concepts and principles then engages participants in an open discussion of them. The 12 webinars below have incorporated selected portions of these discussions, which not only help to further elucidate the concepts and principles but also help translate them into day-to-day practice.

This first module of this course describes characteristics of power and privilege and explains the importance of using a trauma lens when trying to understand the hidden impacts of chronic marginalization or oppression. Cultural humility is explained and promoted as an attitude that can be developed to help therapists appreciate the complexity of social identity and combat induction into reductionistic, culturally insensitive relationships with patients who are from a culture, SES group, or ethnic group very different from their own.

The second module focuses on trauma and how it shows itself among children and adolescents. Too often these symptoms of trauma are misunderstood as simply behavioral problems. A case study is presented involving a family living in an unsafe neighborhood which is negatively impacted when their teenage son witnesses a homicide at the hands of a neighborhood gang.

The third module begins with a TEDx talk by Dr. Camara Jones who differentiates race from racism. She identifies three levels of racism: personally mediated, institutionalized, and internalized. There is also a webinar that describes three different types of microaggressions. The third webinar in this module provides the historical context for understanding the stigmatization of mental health treatment in communities of color, with a special focus on males of color.

The fourth module in this course explains the reasons it is important to use an expanded form of the ACEs when working with ethnically diverse families across the socioeconomic spectrum. The concept of a generational embodiment of historical trauma is introduced and described, along with stigmatized and disenfranchised loss. A case study is presented involving trauma related to parental drug addiction.

This is a Intermediate Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify the reasons it is important to view marginalization, oppression, and disenfranchised loss through a trauma lens.
2. Explain cultural humility and how it helps therapists stay open to the complexity of social identity in self and others.
3. Identify common symptoms of trauma among children and adolescents that are often misinterpreted as behavioral problems
4. Identify three levels of racism and three types of microaggression.

Course Outline

Module I: Dimensions of Power & Privilege (60 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
  - Power & Privilege – An Introduction
  - Social Identity
  - The Importance of Cultural Humility
Module II: Recognizing Trauma (65 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
  - Recognizing Signs of Trauma
  - The Trauma of Community Violence – A Case Study

Module III: Racism, Microaggression, and Attitudes Toward MH Treatment (30 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
  - Microaggression
  - Historical Roots of Attitudes about MH Treatment Among Men of Color
- Resources
  - Allegories on Race and Racism
  - How to Respond to MicroAggressions & Bias

Module IV: Recognizing Common but Overlooked Adversity (70 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
  - An Expanded View of Adversity
  - Stigmatized and Disenfranchised Loss
  - The Trauma of Parental Addiction
  - Vicarious Resilience
- Resources
  - ACE Slide
  - ACE Survey
  - Examples of Disenfranchised Grief

This course uses an online distance-learning self-paced format. It includes recorded audio, recorded video-based webinars, and selected readings. There are post-tests to ensure comprehension of the material. Participants can communicate with the instructors via the online moodle interface. Real-time communication with the instructor in our online, self-paced distance learning courses is not possible. However, participants can send an email to the instructor via the online moodle interface within the course and expect to receive a response within 48 hours. All course content, including post-tests, should take approximately 4.5 hours to complete.

Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our Self-Paced, Online Continuing Education Policies & FAQs for additional information regarding the CFBT online learning center, accommodations for disabilities, reporting problems with the course, instructions for viewing webinars, etc.

Recognizing & Treating the Authoritarian Family

Published 1/29/21

Authoritarian families are focused on maintaining order, control, and compliance. Coercion, bullying, abuse, and violence are common in these families. This workshop provides an eco-systemic framework for understanding these families, the caregivers who head them, and the types of problems they typically encounter with their children. Common traps therapists make when working with these families are identified, as are strategies for avoiding them. An in-depth discussion of a classic PCGC training video, Family With a Little Fire, is used to highlight methods for introducing more softness into interactions between authoritarian caregivers and their children, as well as fostering greater tolerance for imperfection. This online course is an edited version of an extended live training presented on November 7th 2019 at the Pennsylvania Counseling Services conference center.

Objectives:

As a result of participating in this educational activity, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the structural characteristics of authoritarian families
2. Identify authoritarian parenting patterns and their impacts on children
3. Recognize coercive interactional patterns and how to interrupt them
4. Identify personality and social context variables that leave parents vulnerable to authoritarian parenting
5. Describe common traps when working with authoritarian families and how to avoid them

This is a beginning level course, introducing therapists to complex developmental trauma and its implications for treating families.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Family Structure (40 minutes)
- Webinar: What Makes a Family Structure Dysfunctional?
- Webinar: What Makes a Family Structure Authoritarian?
Unit 2: The Perspectives and Actions Associated with Authoritarian Parenting (60 minutes)
- Webinar: The Authoritarian Mindset
- Webinar: Authoritarian Parenting
Unit 3: Recognizing Coercive Patterns of Control (40 minutes)
- Webinar: Recognizing Coercion
Unit 4: Caregiver Motivations and Child Adaptations (35 minutes)
- Webinar: How Authoritarian Parenting Shapes Child Development
- Webinar: What Motivates an Authoritarian Parenting Style?
Unit 5: Treatment Considerations (60 minutes)
- Webinar: A Case Study

Understanding & Treating Families
with Complex Developmental Trauma

Published 8/15/20

Histories of adversity and trauma are common among families served in intensive, in-home programs. Although therapists may know the child’s trauma history, the caregivers’ current and past experience with adversity and trauma too often remains in the background, yet is equally as important for informing clinical decision-making. The caregivers’ histories of trauma have a major impact on family structure, parenting, and response to treatment. This training introduces participants to current science and conceptualizations of complex developmental trauma, describing what it is and how it impacts brain development and brain functioning in children and caregivers. Clinician-friendly concepts from neuroscience (e.g. Siegal’s “hand model” of the brain and Porges’ concept of neuroception) are introduced to help therapists gain a basic understanding of how trauma and chronic adversity shapes emotional availability and parent-child relationships. Bruce Perry’s neurobiology-informed neurosequential model of therapeutics is described as a useful tool for clinical problem solving.

This strength-based training translates knowledge about the impacts of toxic stress on the brain and body into clinical practice, informing therapists about how best to introduce, structure, and pace interventions. Special attention is given to the important role of therapists in co-regulating stressed, dysregulated caregivers in family therapy sessions.

This course is comprised of edited segments from three live-streamed Zoom versions of a similarly named didactic presented to therapists working in Pennsylvania’s FBMHS programs in April 2020. Since break-out rooms were used to foster interaction with the material, the webinars in this course contain a rich balance between lecture and conversation. These conversations facilitate translation of theory to clinical application.

Objectives:

As a result of attending this training, participants will be able to:

Identify the impacts of chronic adversity and traumatic stress on the brain and body
Describe co-regulation and its critical role in emotion regulation in parenting and in family therapy sessions
Explain the role of neuroception and trauma adaptation in presenting symptoms, as well as in the negative interactions of traumatized children and caregivers
Describe how family therapists can effectively apply the intervention rubric: “regulate, relate, and then reason” with reactive family members.

This is a beginning level course, introducing therapists to complex developmental trauma and its implications for treating families.

Course Outline

Unit 1: How Chronic Adversity, Toxic Stress, and Trauma Impact the Brain and Body (75 minutes)
- Webinar: Adverse Childhood Events (ACES and the Complex Developmental Trauma
- Webinar: Reframing Challenging Behavior as an Adaption to Toxic Stress
- Handouts: The ACE Pyramid, Slide Handouts

Unit 2: Why It’s Important to View Emotional Reactivity in a Relational Context (60 minutes)
- Webinar: The Relationship Between Attunement and Emotional Regulation
- Webinar: Brain Adaptations to Alarm and Safety and the Capacity for Connection
- Handouts: Model of the Brain, Summary of Science of Neglect, Slide Handouts

Unit 3: The Critical Role of Co-Regulation in Family Treatment (75 minutes)
- Webinar: Regulate, Relate, and Reason
- Webinar: Becoming a Mindful, Emotionally Regulated Therapist
- Case Presentation: Helping a Caregiver Remain Calm in the Face of Extreme Persistence
- Handouts: Autonomic Nervous System, Co-Regulation Strategies with Child, Window of Tolerance, Slide Handouts

About the Presenters

Click here for information on Tara Byers, MS, LPC, NCC.

Recognizing and Treating Under-Organization in Families

Published 3/1/20

Under-organized families are marked by inconsistency and chaos. Life in the home can feel random and leaderless. Children living in these families are at risk for abuse and neglect, and a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems within the family and community. This workshop provides an eco-systemic framework for understanding under-organized families and the caregivers who head them. Common traps are identified that helping professionals need to avoid when working with these families. Treatment guidelines are provided for addressing problems of caregiver engagement, maintaining a treatment focus, coordinating with multiple community agencies who may be working at cross purposes, and strengthening the caregivers’ executive functioning.

This is an Intermediate Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Objectives

As a result of participating in this online course, you will be able to:

Recognize fragile couple relationships and patterns of family under-organization
Describe the impact of family under-organization on the development of children’s emotional competencies
Describe five important treatment tasks in helping under-organized families
Identify the most common mistakes professionals make when working with under-organized families and how to avoid them

Course Outline

Unit 1: The Relationship Between Family Structure and Externalizing Problems (30 minutes)
- Webinar: A Comparison of four Maladaptive Family Types
- Webinar: Countering the Troubled Treatment Histories of Children with Externalizing Problems

Unit 2: The Core Features of Under-Organization in Families (100 minutes)
- Webinar: The Structure of Under-Organized Families
- Webinar: The Impact of Unpredictability and Inconsistency

Unit 3: Interventions Focused on Supporting the Ambivalent, Overwhelmed Caregiver (105 minutes)
- Webinar: Addressing Parental Ambivalence
- Webinar: Matching Treatment Expectations to Caregiver Capacity

Unit 4: Interventions Focused on Strengthening Fragile Relationships (70 minutes)
- Webinar: Roots of Under-Organization: Fragile Couples
- Webinar: A Case Study: Building On-Ramps to Parenting

About the Presenters

Click here for information on C. Wayne Jones, PhD.

Understanding and Treating Enmeshment in Families

Updated 7/8/19

Enmeshment is one of four structural patterns most associated with serious emotional disturbance (SED) in children. This course describes the characteristics of enmeshment and how this interactional pattern shapes children’s development of social-emotional competencies and their response to treatment. Treatment guidelines are highlighted, as well as common clinical traps that therapists are likely to encounter when working with enmeshed relational patterns. This course is an edited version of a live workshop presented for intensive, in-home family-based therapists in February 2019.

This is an Intermediate Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

Identify the characteristics of enmeshed parenting and enmeshed family structure
Identify four basic emotional competencies and how enmeshment impacts their development
Recognize four maladaptive coping strategies enmeshed families use to minimize conflict
Recognize signs of induction into enmeshment and identify strategies for avoiding it
Identify strategies for pushing the conversation and increasing distress tolerance in enmeshed families

Course Outline

Unit 1: Recognizing Enmeshment (100 minutes)
- Webinar: An Introduction to Enmeshment and Family Structure
- Webinar: The Characteristics of Enmeshed Relationships
- Webinar: Differentiating Enmeshment from Co-Dependency and Emotional Fusion

Unit 2: ESFT Core Concepts (30 minutes)
- Webinar: ESFT Case Conceptualization
- Webinar: How Enmeshment Impacts Development of Core Emotional Competencies

Unit 3: Four Faces of Enmeshment (90 minutes)
- Webinar: The Overly Sensitive Caregiver
- Webinar: The Anxious, Impulsive Caregiver
- Webinar: Hostile-Chaotic & Rigid Types

Unit 4: Strengthening Family Distress Tolerance (60 minutes)
- Webinar: Pushing the Conversation: Case Study
- Webinar: Pushing the Conversation: Case Study 2

About the Presenters

Click here for information on C. Wayne Jones, PhD.