Kathy Steele, MN, CS, APRN
This online workshop will offer a practical, integrative approach to understanding and working with a wide range of inner criticism, punishment, and harshness in our clients, but also in ourselves as therapists. Everyone experiences an inner critic, based on negative messages from authority figures and from ourselves in reaction to feeling inadequate in some way. In complex trauma this natural phenomenon can become more intense, overwhelming, and sometimes more dissociated. We will explore how these inner aspects develop, and understand their several functions of protection, avoidance, and attempts to cope with everyday life. Participants will have an opportunity to explore their own inner critic and befriend it as a step toward helping clients learn to deal with their own. Our ability to reflect on our own tendencies toward self-criticism and punishment will support our capacity to work with these experiences in our clients. The roles of chronic shame and reenactments of trauma will be emphasized in maintaining inner critical parts. Participants will learn specific approaches to work with ego states and dissociative parts that have these punitive functions, employing compassion and curiosity. We will explore a continuum of inner critics, ranging from natural introjects, ego states, to more separate dissociative parts, and from mild inner critics to more sadistic and destructive ones.
Participants will:
- Be able to identify their own inner critic and ways to calm self-criticism, particularly in their role as the therapist
- Learn how the therapist’s inner critic can impact the therapy
- Learn the key functions of inner critics
- Identify the differences between hostile introjects, ego states and dissociative parts, and how treatment might differ among them
- Identify the importance of compassionate self-reflection in working with inner critics
- Learn specific approaches to calm the inner critic
- Work with the rigid logic of inner critics
Kathy Steele, MN, CS, APRN has been in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia for over three decades, specializing in the treatment of complex trauma, dissociation, attachment difficulties, and the challenges of complicated therapies. She is an adjunct faculty at Emory University, and a Fellow and past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Ms. Steele teaches internationally and consults with individuals, groups, and trauma programs. She has received a number of awards for her clinical and published works, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from ISSTD. She has published both journal articles and book chapters, and has co-authored three books, including The Haunted Self (2006), Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation (2011), and most recently Treating Trauma-related Dissociation: A Practical, Integrative Approach (2016).
6 CEU’s available to LCPCs, LCSWs, LMFTs and Clinical Psychologists.
Contact Kim Wagner for more information – 773-590-0061 or theccih.office@gmail.com
Cancellation Policy: Participants who cancel their registration at least one week (five business days) before the start of the workshop can receive a credit or refund minus a $25.00 processing fee. No credits or refunds will be given for cancellations less than one week before the start of the workshop. We reserve the right to cancel the workshop, in which case participants will receive a full refund.