Trauma, Dissociation, Parts - 3 Day Retreat - Joanne Twombly - VIC

Join us for the 3 Day Trauma, Dissociation and Parts Retreat Workshop in beautiful Warburton, VIC! This immersive event is the perfect opportunity to deepen your understanding and enhance your practice using subpersonalities, dissociation, non-verbal communication, and learning about introjects - altogether a coherent and powerful therapeutic approach.

Taking place at the scenic Pallotti College, this in-person workshop will kick off on Sunday 8th 2024 by 6:00 PM for a shared meal and evening introduction-overview, and we'll formally start our workshop at 9:00 AM on Monday 9th. Over the course of three days, you'll dive deep into working with Dissociation through the lens of IFS, EMDR and Parts work through a variety of engaging and interactive activities. Led by US-based Joanne Twombly, this workshop will provide you with the frameworks, approaches and knowledge to effectively and safely work with our most vulnerable populations.

Through experiential exercises, group discussions, and didactic presentations, you'll gain valuable insights and practical skills that you can immediately implement in your work with clients.

Whether you're a seasoned therapist looking to expand your repertoire or a newcomer interested in exploring a transformative therapeutic approach, this workshop is suitable for all levels of experience. Connect with like-minded professionals, share your experiences, and learn from each other in a supportive and collaborative environment. And, you'll bushwalk or stroll the long driveway for a terrific view of the Warburton river and valley.

Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to deepen your understanding of Trauma and Dissociation from the perspective of Parts. Register now and secure your spot at this inspiring and enriching event. We look forward to welcoming you to Warburton, VIC!

Note that the day attendance version of this workshop will be run in Sydney 3-5th Sept at Crows Nest - more information and tickets here

Joanne H. Twombly, MSW, LICSW

(Pronouns: she/her/hers) is a psychotherapist in private practice in Arlington, MA, USA. She has over thirty years of experience working with C-PTSD and dissociative disorders and provides trainings and consultation. In addition to her book, “Trauma and Dissociation Informed Internal Family Systems,” she has written on EMDR and Dissociative Disorders, on EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and on working with perpetrator introjects. Her commitment to helping her clients heal and to providing quality training has resulted in her becoming an EMDR Consultant and a Trauma and Recovery Humanitarian Assistance Program Facilitator, Internal Family Systems Certified, and an American Society for Clinical Hypnosis Consultant. She is a past president of the New England Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. In recognition of her achievements and her service on committees and the Board of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), she was honored with ISSTD’s Distinguished Achievement Award and is an ISSTD Fellow.

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Podcast - IFS Talks (82 min)

This 3-Day workshop will teach you to integrate IFS with the wealth of knowledge from the Complex-PTSD and dissociation world. If your client is getting worse, struggling during the week, and needs increasingly more support from you, the information in this workshop can help by integrating dimensions into the already excellent framework of standard IFS.

The first 2 days will provide an overview of the diagnosis and treatment of C-PTSD and dissociative disordered (DD) clients, you will learn to give your clients a chance to have more safety, control, and choices by developing coping skills and learning how to titrate trauma processing in IFS’s witnessing stage.

The third day will address various styles of non-verbal communication specific to trauma clients including countertransference/transference patterns and the concepts of projective identification and enactment-reenactment.

Participants will learn and practice an 'enhanced IFS Firedrill' process which, along with its usefulness to clients, will assist therapists in sorting out their responses to non-verbal communication and countertransference. Learn and develop a useful road map for decoding, working with, and eventually resolving clinical material from clients for whom the non-verbal is a necessary and meaningful mode of communication.

These skills will help clients avoid backlash from parts becoming overwhelmed, assist clients in maintaining their highest level of functioning thus making it possible for more comprehensive healing. While not every client will need the strategies and knowledge base in this workshop, it’s practical to be able recognize when your clients do need them and, while not essential for others, how this knowledge base can be extremely beneficial enhancing therapeutic rapport (Self-to-Part relating, in IFS terms) in general.

You will learn:

• An overview of dissociative disorders.
• How to diagnosis and treat dissociative disorders.
• Where Trauma Informed IFS is necessary and useful.
• How to use hypnotic language to maximize the impact of therapy for all populations.
• How to teach and use coping skills, including Safe Space Imagery and Containers.
• How to use a protective format for Witnessing and Unburdening.
• To recognize dissociative symptoms in other diagnosis e.g. ADHD, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and schizophrenia.
• Identify different kinds of perpetrator parts.
• Describe enactments and common countertransference struggles.
• Develop resources and treatment strategies using IFS.
• Learn to unlock countertransference reactions through an 'enhanced Firedrill' process.

IFS is an elegant ego state model and power therapy which has appealed to a wide range of clinicians – some 10,000+ over the world have been trained. Curiously and currently, IFS teaches that all clinicians need is IFS as IFS will treat everyone and, although this is true for many, we may find some clients with complex trauma disorders require additional cues of safety, including attending to non-verbal signals, counter-transference (Therapist's activated parts), relational enactments (aka therapeutic entanglements), and timeliness.

The 3 days will be interwoven with live sessions, practice time, and discussion. This is an introduction to working with DD clients and complex client presentations, however is not an introduction to EMDR or to IFS - core concepts and language in common will be covered only briefly. Some preparatory online materials (articles and a recorded interview) will be supplied for enrolled participants to watch.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

This residential workshop will include a summary of the trauma and dissociation processes, as well as live demonstrations and exercises to foster an experiential exploration of how to create the powerful exercises that make Parts work so effective. This will be augmented throughout the workshop by didactic presentations, Q&A, case discussions, and processing of participants’ experiences safely.

What People Are Saying about Joanne's recent book

Joanne Twombly’s book is the missing piece of the puzzle in treating dissociative disorders. Her book is an invaluable guide for clinicians applying specific therapeutic modalities to work with patients who have complex trauma histories and/or dissociative disorders. Although attachment and parts work modalities such as IFS, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, AEDP, have much to offer treatment of complex trauma and dissociative disorders, none is truly sufficient to navigate the complexities of a deeply fractured inner landscape. Joanne Twombly draws on decades of experience working with dissociative disorders to offer hard won wisdom and practical interventions to provide an essential tool for all trauma clinicians.

Kari Gleiser, Ph.D.
Senior Faculty Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) Institute

This is a lovely, highly accessible and informative book for therapists who use the Internal Family Systems model of treatment. Those of us who have worked for many decades in the field of complex trauma and dissociation have become accustomed to the idea of needing psychotherapy approaches “plus” specialized understanding and knowledge about treating dissociation. Joanne Twombly has masterfully combined IFS and the basic tenets of treating clients with dissociative disorders, emphasizing that ego state “parts” and dissociative “parts” require somewhat different, if complementary, approaches. She offers pragmatic modifications of IFS to fit for more dissociative clients. IFS therapists will find a wealth of practical information illustrated by a variety of case examples. A must read!

Kathy Steele, MN, CS

Winner of 2017 Pierre Janet writing Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation

This book is the missing link to integrating IFS with the treatment of complex trauma and dissociative disorders. It is needed on every IFS therapists’ bookshelf!

IFS Certified Therapist and Client

This long-awaited book is for clinicians both as teacher and learner who are trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Voice Dialogue (VD), and other models of ego state psychotherapy and wish to enhance their competency to treat patients/clients with complex trauma and dissociative disorders. Joanne Twombly, by x brilliantly demonstrating the use of basic IFS skills in concert with those skills from the world of complex trauma and dissociation, has provided new pathways for therapists to reduce their own stress while safely facilitating deep healing in clients/patients who mentally dissociate and develop high levels of anxiety and self-destructive behaviors even during treatment. Digesting these clearly written pages guides all therapists to integrate the evidence-based concepts and methods of subpersonality with those of EMDR, non-verbal and hypnotic communication, psychopharmacology, and psychodynamic countertransference. Twombly has provided a valuable resource for those who have the wish and courage to work with emotionally and physically traumatized children and adults.

John Livingstone, MD

Life Member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital

EMDR is the signature work of Francine Shapiro, further developed by the practitioner community. For more information, see EMDRIA.org, with a variety of resources and further training options. IFS is the signature work of Richard Schwartz. For more information on IFS, see https://ifs-institute.com.

COST

GENERAL TICKET - TOTAL COST $ 1,950 plus Eventbrite fee

Includes GST, workshop, meals and single room accommodation as detailed.

Deposit of $250 payable at registration here, with the remainder to be invoiced. Ticketing fee additional and non-refundable. Payment plans available on request. Credit card attracts 3% fee.

This workshop is residential (single accomodation provided) with linen (sheets/towels) supplied. Please bring your own personal items and toiletries. GF, Vegan, Vegetarian options covered, other dietary requirements can be self-catered (fridges and common room kitchen available 24 hours).

WHEN

From Sunday 8th September 2024 (arrival in early evening) to Wednesday 11th Sept 2024 - on-site, residential.

On Sunday 8th Sept,6pm settling from 530pm arrival and meal starting 630pm, with 8-9pm introduction and overview. Monday & Tuesday will run from 930am to 530pm, with the final day on Wednesday 11th Sept running from from 930am to 4pm, to allow travel back to city or airport.

Please allow 90 minutes travel time to city or airport. If you are flying in, we may be able to coordinate a lift from the airport or city and return, so please request this in your registration.

WHERE

Pallotti College

80 McNamaras Road, Millgrove Vic 3799

https://www.pallotticollege.com.au/

From city/airport allow 90min travel by car, participants may wish to offer to share cars-rides tbc as there is only limited intermittent public transport, esp on Sundays. It's a long walk to the main road, we can pick you up if you call first.

This workshop is residential (accomodation provided, single rooms with shared single-sex bathrooms) with linen (sheets/towels) supplied. GF, Vegan, Vegetarian options are covered, and other dietary requirements can be self-catered (fridges and common room kitchen available 24 hours). Please bring your own personal items and toiletries.

Who is this for?

Participation is for therapists and counsellors, mental health clinicians, or students in accredited mental health graduate training programs. Practitioners working experientially and wholistically will find this approach broadens and makes more acute their existing work through using the frame of Coherence Therapy's sense-making 'symptom coherence', and the assumption of positive intent through sense-making.

Some pre-reading/pre-viewing of online material is recommended - we will send a short list to enrolled participants.

An equivalent hours of specialised training that may be counted towards Continuing Professional Development according to requirements set down by your accrediting body. Registered health professionals have a responsibility to ensure that they continue to maintain, enhance and extend their knowledge and skills throughout their working lives.

FAQS

What should I bring to the workshop?

BRING:

curiosity, willingness to try things out ("Yes, and..."), a sense of humour, and a heart-oriented openness to the 'functionality and coherence of the symptom' and an openess the multiply-authored 'multiplicity of self'. Preparedness to do your own work - "if you are feeling it, it's probably yours".

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

See the link at the bottom of the brief bio to the right .

Is my registration/ticket transferrable?

Tickets are transferable to suitably experienced colleagues. Please advise if you do exchange tickets so we can update details.

What is the refund policy?

Due to the limited size of each course, a refund can only be issued if cancellation notification in writing is received 30 days prior to the workshop - less a $150.00 administration fee per person for the full course.

Existing registrants will be sent the refund, and should return any materials sent. We cannot reimburse any expenses you may have incurred. If you cannot attend, a suitably qualified substitute may attend in your place, assuming you forward all materials or information to them. Courses are pre-paid. We do not take money at the door.

We reserve the right to cancel due to insufficient registrations or other reasons beyond our control at our discretion. Workshop fees will be reimbursed in full should cancellation be necessary.