Sorting it out: Reconstructing narratives for trauma and attachment wounds recovery

Description: Traumatic experiences and attachment wounds can disrupt the personal narrative, leaving a person stuck in unhealthy patterns of behaviour. Clients often enter therapy with fragmented, overwhelming narratives shaped by traumatic experiences that disrupt their ability to make sense of past events and undermine their sense of self. Effective therapeutic approaches focus on helping clients transform these disorganized, overwhelming memories into coherent, balanced narratives with new meaning. 

This workshop presents a therapeutic approach guided by the principles of decluttering and organizing, whereby the client “sorts out” their personal story, allowing them to create new meaning and tangible change in their everyday lives. In this process, clients make their thoughts, feelings, memories explicit, and with the support of the therapist determines what to keep, what to reevaluate or change, what to set aside and accept, and how to in the desired direction. The interventions integrates draw from research on discursive proximity, and integrates tenets of narrative therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, attachment-based interventions.  

The therapist’s role is to provide a safe, consistent relationship that models compassion and curiosity, while collaboratively deconstructing the old narrative, highlighting key patterns, and pivotal "forks in the road" that represent choices or turning points for the client. This process unfolds in small, nonlinear steps and relies on the formation of intentional skills such as reflective functioning and narrative practice.

Learning objectives:

• Understand how traumatic experiences and attachment wounds disrupt personal narratives and impact patterns of behavior.
• Learn to use discursive marker’s in client’s narrative to evaluate coherence and identify targets for intervention. 
• Develop case conceptualization based on client’s narrative, using tenets from CBT and attachment theories. 
• Implement evidence-based strategies from a “sorting and decluttering" therapeutic framework to transform disorganized, trauma-driven memories into a coherent, balanced personal narrative. 

Register today to gain actionable strategies for helping clients “sort out” their stories and build pathways toward recovery and resilience.

Ontario Psychological Association employees, members, associates and affiliates can use discount code OPA15 to receive 15% off all upcoming programs (cannot be used in conjunction with other promotions/discounts).