This developmental trauma course addresses the difficult issues your clients are struggling with that directly result from traumas in the early developmental stages
$299 (33% off)
Regular price is $450
16 hours, with 6 Demonstrations
On-demand, online course
NOTE: This course has been renamed, it was previously called “Trauma, Development, and Attachment.”
16 CE Credits are included, provided by Amedco for Psychologists, Marriage and Family Therapists, Social Workers, Counselors, and Addiction Professionals. Click here for more info about available CE Credits.
English only
7 Easy-to-Implement (but Essential) Developmental Trauma Strategies for Adults and Children
I have 7 easy-to-implement (but essential) strategies for resolving developmental traumas that you can implement ASAP.
We are going to break down the three early stages of development, the specific traumas possible in each, and how to resolve your client’s corresponding presenting difficulties effectively. 6 clinical demonstrations are included.
How this Developmental Trauma Course Will Improve Your Outcomes with Adults and Children and Help Your Clients Overcome Difficult Issues
In the three early stages of its development, a child is learning and imprinting foundational experiences that determine its adult capabilities for relating to oneself and to others.
Developmental, shock, and complex traumas that adults experienced as a child in these critical stages of early development can become the basis of attachment and relationship difficulties throughout one’s life. For example,
- In the existence stage (conception to 3 months after birth) the child needs support to experience existential safety and unconditional self-worth — otherwise, the person is likely to suffer from existential terror and shame throughout their life.
- In the need stage (birth to 2 years) the child requires support to sense and express its basic needs — otherwise, the individual can remain despairing or distrustful about their needs getting met all life long.
- In the autonomy stage (8 months to 2 ½ years) the child depends on support from others to develop its ability to stay with its emotions and other impulses — otherwise, the child (and then the adult) will have difficulty holding onto their experiences as well as their sense of self.
Please click here for a complete list of all possible issues from each stage of development
Diagnostic Aid
In this comprehensive developmental trauma course with 6 demonstrations, I will guide you through how to identify and work with each difficulty in each stage precisely and effectively through the practice of embodying emotions from Integral Somatic Psychology™ (ISP™). We will use a diagnostic aid, you can download a sample here: Diagnostic Aid for Developmental Trauma from the Early Stages of Development
You Will Learn How To…
- Identify and work with developmental, shock, and complex traumas in the first three stages of childhood development
- Identify and work with the specific developmental difficulty and the corresponding developmental stage in the client’s presenting symptom
- Improve your work with different attachment styles from understanding how different developmental traumas can affect attachment styles
- Improve your work with your clients by learning defensive character structures caused by developmental traumas in different stages of development
- Work with complex traumas characterized by high levels of intense emotions accompanied by high levels of stress and dysregulation
- Help your clients work through extremely difficult emotional experiences and improve their cognition and behavior
- Improve your ability to regulate your client emotionally through embodied emotional attunement
- Apply the practice of embodying emotions to your work with relationship and attachment issues
Included With Your Course
- 16 CE Credits (Amedco)
- 16 hours of on-demand video
- 6 clinical demonstration sessions
- Comprehensive Checklists to use in your practice
- Access on Computer and Mobile
- Full Lifetime Access
I can’t think of any change that happened so immediately and clearly with someone I just started working with. I am so grateful to you Raja and all the work you have done to learn effective ways of helping people and to distribute that knowledge to others.
Who can Benefit from this Developmental Trauma Course
All mental health professionals engaged in treating relationship and attachment difficulties caused by developmental and shock traumas stand to gain much from this course. This includes graduates and students of Somatic Experiencing® (SE™).
If you are an Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) graduate or trainee, you will gain advanced knowledge and develop specific skills for applying your ISP expertise to the specific areas of trauma, development, and attachment.
How Your Client’s Presenting Issues relate to the Early Stages of Development
In this developmental trauma course, I will describe and demonstrate how to work with adult relationship difficulties differentiated in terms of attachment styles and various developmental tasks in the early stages of development.
We’ll introduce clinical strategies of interpersonal resonance and emotional embodiment from Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP), a modality based partly on emerging paradigms of embodied cognition and emotion in cognitive neuroscience and psychology.
A. Do your clients suffer from the following?
If they do, they might have experienced developmental trauma or shock traumas in the existence stage of development (conception to three months after birth)
- Not belonging
- Not being present
- Unlovable or unwanted
- Unworthy of love or belonging
- Not feeling power or the right to exist
- Existential terror: Of being annihilated
- Fear of fragmentation of body or psyche
- Existential rage: I feel like destroying the world
- Existential shame: I am defective by nature
- Difficulty making contact
- Fear of abandonment: The world will disappear suddenly
B. Do your clients suffer from the following?
If they do, they might have experienced developmental trauma or shock traumas in the need or oral stage of development (from birth to two years)
- Cannot sense one’s needs
- Cannot express one’s needs
- Waits for others to sense and fulfill one’s needs
- Cannot tolerate needs not being met quickly
- Cannot tolerate needs not being met perfectly
- In despair about needs being met
- Distrustful that one’s needs would be met exactly
- Not flexible about how one’s needs should be met
- Not able to give or receive nurturing through body contact
- Not able to exchange love through eye contact
- Not able to sense and communicate connectedness through eye contact
C. Do your clients suffer from the following?
If they do, they might have experienced developmental trauma or shock traumas in the autonomy stage of development (eight months to two and a half years)
- Difficulty in holding onto their experiences, especially when others differ
- Difficulty in sensing a stable sense of self
- Difficulty in sensing oneself autonomous and separate from others with respect to experiences
- Difficulty in differentiating one’s experiences from those of others
- Difficulty in accessing and staying with their emotions and other impulses
- Difficulty in sensing that they are inter-dependent with others in their lives
- Difficulty in sensing that they impact others or others impact them
- Difficulty in sensing the need for and asking for help
- Difficulty in giving or receiving support for experiences, especially emotions
- Overwhelmed by too many impulses or experiences or commitments
- Difficulty in making commitments and staying with them
- Difficulty staying with one story or activity in life and therapy
- Suffer from intolerable boredom or emptiness at rest
About Raja Selvam, PhD
Raja Selvam, PhD, is the author of The Practice of Embodying Emotions and developer of Integral Somatic Psychology™, a new paradigm in body psychotherapy based on state-of-the-art research in neuroscience, affect theory, cognitive psychology, and emotion. He has helped over 1,500 therapists in 20 countries graduate from his ISP Professional Training.
His articles on trauma, embodiment, and spirituality have appeared in several journals.
Raja is also Senior Faculty at Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute and works as a licensed clinical psychologist with a PhD in Psychology.
Continuing Education
Integral Somatic Psychology, LLC
Trauma, Development, and Attachment Video Course
Date of CE Release: November 23, 2022
Date of CE Expiration: November 23, 2023
Location: Online
16 CE Credits are included for Psychologists, Marriage and Family Therapists, Social Workers, Counselors, and Addiction Professionals.
Acknowledgment of Financial Commercial Support: No financial commercial support was received for this educational activity.
Acknowledgment of In-Kind Commercial Support: No in-kind commercial support was received for this educational activity.
Satisfactory Completion
Learners must listen to each self-directed audio recording while following along with the visual slides/read the articles, pass the post-test with a score of 75% or higher and complete an evaluation form to receive a certificate of completion. Your chosen sessions must be attended in their entirety.
You must participate in the entire activity as partial credit is not available. If you are seeking continuing education credit for a specialty not listed below, it is your responsibility to contact your licensing/certification board to determine course eligibility for your licensing/certification requirement.
Joint Accreditation Statement
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Amedco LLC and Integral Somatic Psychology, LLC. Amedco LLC is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
This course is co-sponsored by Amedco and Integral Somatic Psychology, LLC. Amedco is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Amedco maintains responsibility for this program and its content. 16.00 hours.
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Counselors: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MD, ME, MO, NC, ND, NH, NE, NJ, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY
MI: No CE requirements
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NE, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Addictions Professionals: AK, AR, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MD, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NY (outstate held), OK*, OR, SC, UT, WA, WI, WY
*OK accepts APA credit for live, in-person activities. For all ethics and/or online courses, an application is required.
MA/MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.
The following state boards accept courses from APA providers for Social Workers: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, ME, MN, MO, NE, NH, NM, OR, PA, VT, WI, WY
Social Workers
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Amedco is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Amedco maintains responsibility for this course. Social Workers completing this course receive 16.00 GENERAL continuing education credits.
The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Social Workers: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, OH, OK*, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WV*, WY
*WV accepts ASWB ACE unless activity is live in West Virginia then an application is required.
The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Counselors: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MO, ND, NE, NM, NH, NV, OK*, OR, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, W
AL / Counselors: Activities not providing NBCC approval may be approved by the Board for individual licensees upon receipt of acceptable documentation prior to the activity. Please send course details to your licensing board for approval BEFORE the event. No approvals afterward by the board.
The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for MFTs: AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, OK*, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY
*OK accepts ASWB ACE for live, in-person activities. For all ethics and/or online courses, an application is required.
MA / MFTs: Participants can self-submit courses not approved by the MAMFT board for review.
MI: No CE requirement
The following state boards accept courses offering ASWB ACE credit for Addiction Professionals: AK, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, IN, KS, LA, MO, MT, ND, NM, NV, OK, OR, SC, WA, WI, WV, WY
New York Social Workers
Amedco SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0115. 16 credit hours.
New York Marriage & Family Therapists
Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists. #MFT-0032. 16 credit hours.
New York Mental Health Counselors
Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0061. 16 credit hours.
New York Psychologists
Amedco is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0031. 16 hours.
Objectives – After Completing the Developmental Trauma Course You Should Be Able To
- Demonstrate competence in helping clients to identify their attachment styles (secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized) and how they can affect their ability to relate to others.
- Demonstrate competence in identifying developmental traumas in three stages of early childhood development (existence, need or oral, and autonomy), understanding how they can affect our attachment styles and our ability to relate to others, and working with developmental wounding from these three critical stages using the practice of embodying emotions.
Developmental Trauma Course Curriculum
Day 1 – Video 1 (1:08:23): Classical Attachment Theory. Existence Stage of Development (conception to three months after birth).
Day 1 – Video 2 (29:01): Existence Stage of Development (Continuation of lecture).
Day 1 – Video 3 (1:02:10): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
Day 2 – Video 1 (52:42): Existence stage of development: Character Structures.
Day 2 – Video 2 (46:35): Existence stage of development: Character Structures (continuation of lecture).
Day 2 – Video 3 (1:10:23): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
Day 3 – Video 1 (1:11:52): The need stage of development (birth to two years).
Day 3 – Video 2 (1:03:47): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
Day 3 – Video 3 (24:54): Question and answers about the clinical demonstration.
Day 4 – Video 1 (12:47:56): The science and the practice of embodying emotions from Integral Somatic Psychology.
Day 4 – Video 2 (45:02): The need stage of development: Character structures.
Day 4 – Video 3 (1:03:06): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
Day 5 – Video 1 (1:26:22): The autonomy stage of development (8 months to 2 1/2 years).
Day 5 – Video 2 (1:06:03): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
Day 6 – Video 1 (1:29:09): The autonomy stage of development: Character structures.
Day 6 – Video 2 (1:17:37): Clinical demonstration with a participant. Discussion.
References
Peer Refereed Journal Articles
Aviezer, H. Trope, Y., & Todorov, A. (2012). Body cues, not facial expressions, discriminate between intensive positive and negative emotions. Science, 338(6111), 1225-1229.
Cassidy, J., Jones, J. D., & Shaver, P. R. (2013). Contributions of attachment theory and research: A framework for future research, translation, and policy. Developmental Psychopathology, 25(4 0 2) 1415-1434. doi: 10.1017/S0954579413000692
Cortizo, R. (2021). Prenatal broken bonds: Trauma, dissociation and the calming womb model. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(1), 1-10. DOI: 10.1080/15299732.2021.1834300
Critchley, H. D., & Nagai, Y. (2012). How emotions are shaped by bodily states. Emotion Review, 4(2), 163–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911430132
Daglar, G., & Nur, N. (2018). Level of mother-baby bonding and influencing factors during pregnancy and postpartum period. Psychiatria Danubina, 30(4), 433–440. https://doi.org/10.24869/psyd.2018.433
Damasio, A. & Carvalho, G. (2103). The evolution of feelings: Evolutionary and neurobiological origins. Nature Reviews in Neuroscience, 14 (2), 143-152.
Gross, J., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). Emotion generation and emotion regulation: One or two depends on your point of view. Emotion Review, 3(1), 8-16.
Laird, J., & Lacasse, K. (2014). Bodily influences on emotional feelings: Accumulating evidence and extensions of William James’ theory of emotions. Emotion Review, 6, 24-37.
Nelson, C. A. III, Zeanah, C. H., Fox, N. A. (2019). How early experience shapes human development: The case of psychosocial deprivation. Neural Plasticity. doi: 10.1155/2019/1676285
Price, T. F., Peterson, C. K., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2012). The emotive neuroscience of embodiment. Motivation and Emotion, 36, 27-37.
Tammilehto, J., Punämaki, R., Flykt, M., Vänskä, M., Heikkilä, L. M., Lipsanen, J., Poikkeus, P., Tiitinen, A., & Lindblom, J. (2021). Developmental stage-specific effects of parenting on adolescents’ emotion regulation: A longitudinal study from infancy to late adolescence. Frontiers in Psychology, Section on Developmental Psychology, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.582770
Books
Barrett, L. F. (2018). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Boston: Mariner Books.
Berk, L. E. (2017). Development through the life span. Pearson: London, UK.
Colombetti, G. (2014). The feeling body: Affective science meets the enactive mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Craig, A. D. (2015). How do you feel? An interoceptive moment with your neurobiological self. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Evertz, K., Janus, L. , & Linder, R. (Eds.). (2021). Handbook of pre and perinatal psychology: Integrating research and practice. New York, NY: Springer Publishing.
Hufendiek, R. (2016). Embodied emotions: A naturalistic approach to a normative phenomenon. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Janus, L. J., Turner, J. RG, Turner, T. GN, Gouni, O., Verny, T. R., Janov, A., Odent, M., Rakovic, D., Levin, E., & Brekhman, G. (2018). Prenatal psychology 100 Years: A journey in decoding how our prenatal experience shapes who we become! The International Journal of Prenatal and Life Sciences: Athens, Greece.
Johnson, S. M. (2019). Attachment therapy in practice: Emotionally Focused
Therapy (EFT) with individuals, couples, and families. New York and London: The Guilford Press.
Ruppert, F. (2014). Pregnancy, birth, and the first years of life. Green Ballon Publishing: Steyning, UK.
Integral Somatic Psychology is neither a regulatory nor licensing organization and therefore not sanctioned to certify, license, or otherwise bestow the legal authorization to practice as a mental health professional.
