Understanding and/or working therapeutically with survivors of sexualised trauma(s)

Understanding and/or working therapeutically with survivors of sexualised trauma(s), facilitated by Zoe Lodrick 

CPD contents:

• The neurobiology of threat
• Why people do not usually react in ‘logical’ or ‘active’ ways when faced with intimate interpersonal threat
• The impact of the lack of understanding of why the person did not behave ‘logically and actively’, on the individual him or herself (often resulting in guilt, shame, and feelings of responsibility)
• How, and why, people become vulnerable to repeated victimisation
• The ‘replay’ in the therapy room
• How neurobiology can help us to understand what will get ‘re-enacted’ in the therapeutic work
• The psychology of the offender
• The process that precedes offending (Finklehor’s ‘Preconditions Model’)
• The ‘socially skilled’ sex offender
• How, and why, they target certain people
• What the psychology of the offender does to the psychology of the victim
• More neurobiology of threat
• The adolescent brain
• The specific vulnerabilities of children and, especially, teenagers to sex offenders
• Suggestions for utilising the above to inform how we structure our therapeutic work and, especially, how we support disclosure
• Working with guilt and shame
• The psychological underpinnings of guilt
• The importance of recognising that reassurance rarely reassures
• Knowing that if you cannot believe something as fundamentally true (from the survivor’s perspective) as “it was my fault” you won’t be able to hear the other stuff the survivor wants/needs to tell you
• How to hear the guilt and challenge it.