We have all had clients who, regardless of our efforts, don't seem to progress. Some clients are not easily resourced; others seem to just stay stuck, regardless of our efforts. Every person who experiences trauma, obviously already has a personality structure and a developmental history that forms the personal context for any traumatic event. Understanding that personal context and knowing how to work with it has been the missing piece for many therapists. Gaining tools for understanding and working with somatically based developmental character structures can help therapists be more effective with these challenging clients.

In this workshop you will learn about the five significant character types, their interplay with shock trauma, and how to work with the core difficulties of each. Each character type forms as the result of developmental difficulties and is reflected in the body by a particular pattern of tension or character armoring, as well as by predictable patterns of coping and behavior. The name of each character structure reflects the missing or compromised developmental resource. In developmental order, each of the five character types are:
1) Contact
2) Attunement
3) Trust
4) Autonomy
5) Love/Sexuality.

The five developmental character structures will be clarified and worked with in this workshop and distinctions will be made regarding particular developmental needs and challenges. With each character type, we will explore how to work with their distinct transference and counter transference issues.
We will explore the reverberating loop that develops between underlying character structure and shock trauma. Therapists will be provided a new understanding and a new set of tools to help their clients work through the complexity of this loop.

English with German translation