Compassion Fatigue & Vicarious Trauma
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. • 6 C.E. Hours

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Therapists are often deeply affected by their clients. Sometimes this effect is desired and useful ; sometimes it is not. Countertransference, both psychological and somatic, is one of our most valuable resources when conscious. However, it can also, when unconcious, be one of the greatest threats to our professional competence and to our well being. At the very least, our risk for "compassion fatigue" and "vicarious trauma" increases. When it goes unchecked, emotional contagion can also lead us to regard our clients in ways that are destructive to the therapeutic relationship. This introductory course will illuminate the emotional, psychological and somatic connection between therapist and client and propose strategies for maximizing the positive and minimizing the negative. Relevant neuroscientific theory, both established and cutting edge, will be included. Exercises will help participants to evaluate their individual talent and risk factors. Each attendee is encouraged to prepare one of their own cases for individual consideration/consultation.

TOPICS

-Introduction & Overview: Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma, Burnout, includes several short films
-Somatic Marker Theory
-Facial Feedback Hypothesis
-Postural Feedback-Hypothesis-Mirror Neuron theory
-Strategies For Controlling Increasing & Decreasing Empathy

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the conclusion of this program you should be better able to:

1. Recognize your risks for compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma
2. Discuss the neurophysiology of empathy
3. Conceptualize the role of somatic markers, facial and postural feedback and mirror neurons in empathy
4. Identify the advantageous and disadvantageous effects of empathy
5. Maximize the beneficial impacts of empathy
6. Minimize the debilitating effects of empathy

SPEAKER PROFILE

  Babette Rothschild, M.S.W. is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (#LCS 6799). She has been a practitioner since 1976 and a teacher and trainer since 1992. She is the author of three books, all published by WW Norton: The Body Remembers--The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment (a bestseller); The Body Remembers CASEBOOK--Unifying Methods and Models in the Treatment of Trauma and PTSD; and Help for the Helper--The Psychophysiology of Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma. After living and working for nine years in Copenhagen, Denmark, she returned to her native Los Angeles where she maintains a private practice while continuing to lecture, train, and supervise professional psychotherapists worldwide.