PCW #6: Indigenous approaches to complex trauma and clinical practice (71352)

Presented by:

Karlee Fellner

Sponsored by:

Counselling Psychology

Continuing Education Credits:

3 CE Credits

Language:

English

Cost:

Duration:

3 Hours (AM) (13:00 - 16:30)

Target Audience:

Clinicians, graduate students, educators

Skill/Difficulty Level:

Introductory

Workshop Description:

This workshop offers concrete strategies in response to the CPA and PFC's Task Force Report on addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in psychology (2018). Participants will learn about integrating Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing into psychotherapy and trauma work, with a focus on case conceptualization and interventions. Drawing on ground breaking theory and practice in decolonizing and Indigenizing therapy and trauma, this workshop offers approaches that address intergenerational and vicarious influences on people's experiences, with an emphasis on complex trauma. These approaches deconstruct conventional Eurocentric conceptualizations of trauma-as pathology, instead honouring experiences as intergenerational and collective conversations that guide people, families, and communities toward wellness, balance, and social and environmental justice. Such approaches honour survivance, including the ancestral, collective, and personal knowledges and wisdom that emerge through difficult and traumatic experiences. Attendees will learn how to bring an "all my relations," land-based, strength-based, culturally responsive, holistic, and historically sensitive approach to their therapeutic work through land-based interventions grounded in Indigenous knowings. This workshop actively engages participants in experiential learning to support application to practice.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understanding of complex, direct, historical, intergenerational, colonial, ancestral, and vicarious trauma, and how these apply to clinical practice with Indigenous people;
2. Understanding of the concepts of survivance and trauma wisdom in the context of case conceptualization, treatment planning, and interventions;
3. Basic understanding of Indigenous approaches to psychotherapy and how they may be integrated into therapeutic practice through observing proper protocols and working with community Elders and knowledge holders;
4. Basic understanding of how to engage with Indigenous communities in a good way through observing proper protocols.