Becoming Trauma-Sensitive:
Making Mindfulness and Meditation Safe
for Trauma Survivors
A live online training with David Treleaven, PhD
4 sessions of 2.5 hrs each
Thu 15 and Fri 16 October 2020
Thu 22 and Fri 23 October 2020
from 4-6.30 pm Dublin time
Designed for mindfulness teachers, healthcare professionals, therapists, and wellness professionals such as yoga teachers or coaches, this training – led by author and trauma specialist, David Treleaven, PhD – will equip you with the tools you need to offer mindfulness in a safe, effective, trauma-sensitive way.
As mindfulness is delivered in primary schools to psychotherapy offices, mindfulness meditation is an increasingly mainstream practice. At the same time, trauma remains a fact of life: the majority of us will experience a traumatic event in our lifetime, and some will develop post-traumatic stress.
While the increasing availability of mindfulness programmes may appear to be a good thing — in the sense that trauma is an extreme form of stress, and mindfulness is a proven stress-reduction tool — the reality creates a complex challenge that benefits from additional trauma-specific knowledge and sensitivity on the part of of the mindfulness teacher.
Emergency research suggests that mindfulness interventions can help or hinder trauma survivors, raising a crucial question for mindfulness educators everywhere: How can you be prepared to minimise the potential dangers of mindfulness for survivors while leveraging its powerful benefits at the same time?
Programme Content
Through lecture, case study, and experiential practice, you will leave the workshop:
- Understanding why meditation can create dysregulation for people who’ve experienced trauma and specific ways you can prevent this;
- Prepared to recognize symptoms of traumatic stress while offering mindfulness interventions;
- Informed about current empirical research regarding mindfulness and trauma, including evidence-based interventions you can apply immediately to your work;
- Equipped with tools and modifications to help you work skillfully with dysregulated arousal, traumatic flashbacks, and trauma-related dissociation.
- Understanding the relationship between individual and systemic forms of trauma, including responsibilities to educate oneself about power, oppression, and social context.
Whether you are a beginning or veteran practitioner, anyone engaged in offering contemplative practices will benefit from this workshop, including therapists, coaches, and meditation, classroom, yoga, or religious teachers.
Practical Information
Dates & Times: 4 sessions of 2.5 hours each – Thu 15, Fri 16, Thu 22 and Fri 23 October 2020 – 4-6.30 pm Dublin time on each day
Format: Live Online on Zoom
Tuition fee: €240
To Register
David Treleaven
David Treleaven, PhD, is a writer, educator, and trauma professional whose work focuses on the intersection of trauma and mindfulness. He is author of the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (W. W. Norton, 2018), which was acclaimed by Rick Hanson as “a rare combination of solid scholarship, clinically useful methods, and passionate advocacy for those who have suffered from trauma.”
He’s lectured on trauma-sensitive mindfulness at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the Omega Institute in New York.
Trained in counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia, he received his doctorate in psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is currently a visiting scholar at Brown University.
“When we commit to working with trauma, we come to bear witness to suffering. Whether it’s a one time conversation with a student on a longer term relationship with a client, we enter into relationship with other people’s traumatic pain.” – David Treleaven