Course Description:
Often when therapists are working with a traumatized client, both client and therapist want to get to work on addressing the trauma in session but quickly find that addressing the trauma directly is so dysregulating that the therapy cannot progress. A client may become frustrated that they cannot work on the trauma without becoming overwhelmed and the therapist can also feel at a loss with how to help. In this training, therapists will learn interventions that build client capacity so that they become ready and able to face their previously unbearable painful traumatic experience. Capacities such as affect tolerance, anxiety regulation, understanding causality, self-observing capacity can be built using a graded approach that allows the client to become ready to explore trauma without distress so unbearable that it interrupts the therapy process.
Date:
Friday, January 23, 2026 from 9am-12pm over Zoom
Led by:
Leslie Auld, LMSW, ACSW. Leslie is a certified practitioner of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy and ISTDP trainer dedicated to bringing healthy emotional and relational functioning in psychotherapy, at home and at work to people through uniquely powerful training courses specifically tailored to the needs of the group or individual.
This course through Mindful ISTDP is approved by the NASW-Michigan Social Work Continuing Education Collaborative.