Trauma Treatment
When you decide to work with me, I begin by mapping out and helping you understand your family of origin experience. The purpose of reviewing what happened is NOT to stay in the past; it is to understand how those patterns or wounds show up in your present life and relationships. Everyone has some form of trauma and grows up in a “less-than-nurturing family” and needs to get their “story straight” about how they adapted in their family of origin. Once there is clarity about how you adapted, I help educate you on what is functional and use experiential processes that deepen the work and healing.
I emphasize the importance of using breath and finding resources to develop a centering, grounding, and mindful practice that supports your healing. I use specific body-based interventions that allow you to pause and slow down. These interventions help release stored-up energy that has been stuck in the body and build more capacity in the nervous system.
By using a blended model approach based on the Core Issues work by Pia Mellody, I assess the states of immaturity or lack of development you received in these six areas: Self-Esteem (how you were valued), Boundaries (how you were protected physically and emotionally), Reality (how you were validated in your sense of self), Self-Care (how your needs were met or not), Moderation (how limits were set and enforced in your family), and Attachment (how you relationally attached with caregivers and others). Ultimately, I teach the Six Core Skills: loving the self, protecting the self (through internal boundaries), creating and knowing the self, taking care of the self, containing and moderating the self, and handling your needs and wants with others interdependently. These skills create the foundational practice that supports your healing, growth, and renewal.
Another essential part of treatment is beginning to understand how “parts of self” were created to survive your family system. These parts of self are wounded and adaptive states that show up in your adult life. So, therapy begins by cultivating a more functional self to intervene with these states and re-parent them. Strengthening and growing a functional adult self is essential for successful relationships and a satisfying life today. I incorporate the concept of bringing a more “functioning” self on board at all stages of treatment.
When clients attend, the three-day workshop uses body-based interventions, mindfulness, dialoguing with parts of self, and empty chair work. Through this experiential process of treatment, you cultivate your functional adult self, allowing you to “live out” from your wiser self and significantly improve your relationships. This workshop is called “Healing Your Childhood Trauma.” I conduct these workshops along with my colleague Laura Blundo.
This treatment program is based on my book “Gifts from a Challenging Childhood, Healing the Legacy of Childhood Trauma.” It comprises psychoeducation, body-based regulation, mindfulness, and experiential processes. The goal is to understand your trauma history and how it impacts you today in your relationships, and most importantly, how to create an everyday practice for becoming your healthiest Functional Self.
The 3-day intensive workshop fee is $1,800. A $500 deposit is required to hold your space in the workshop. I hold the workshop at my office in Arlington, MA. Please contact me by email. I return all emails within 72 hours. The next Men's workshop is January 28-30, 2027.
If you want to register and are NOT my client (or referred by one of my colleagues), please email me to see if this workshop is appropriate for you. Please fill in the information below about how you heard about me. Thank you!