The next cycle of our core 6-week, online trainings begins on April 9, 2017. These self-paced trainings are ideal for working professionals. You can log on any time, but you must complete the week's assignment within that week. Allow 2.5 to 3 hours per week. The cost of each training is $200. Optional certification after successful completion is $99. For outlines and objectives for each training session, go to course outline and objectives

Our advanced level Expert Trauma Professional (ETP) is under revision.

 

Many thanks for your continued support of IATP and our mission of educating mental health professionals in order to help those with the greatest need--trauma survivors.  

The following is a case study from Trauma, PTSD, Grief & Loss: The 10 Core Competencies for Evidence-based Treatment. It describes how extreme trauma in children can be a more powerful cause of PTSD than actual combat.

 

The Relationship Between Adult PTSD

and Early Trauma

 

In 2011, I worked with Thom, a veteran who served 7 tours of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was diagnosed with PTSD and came to see me at the urging of his wife who threatened to leave him if he did not participate in psychotherapy. He agreed to see me but was also prepared to hate me and to hate therapy. As he came into my office and we shook hands he began laughing and said that I looked like his grandfather, the only family member he liked and I thought looking like a grandfather was an interesting psychotherapy technique. He began by talking about his combat experiences and how powerful they were.

 

But, as I listened, I also thought there was little real evidence to suggest symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations or arousal, the main symptom clusters for PTSD. And, although we both got a little teary at some of the events he shared, I was perplexed as to how the original diagnosis was made until he began to talk about his early childhood - especially the relationship with his stepfather.

 

Thom's biological father disappeared permanently when he was 3 and his mother destroyed pictures and all evidence of his father. She changed his last name to hers. When he was 7 his mother remarried and the new stepfather was a brute to this child. For example, he would frequently slap Thom on his head for no reason.

 

Once, when Thom was sitting and watching TV, the stepfather hit him so hard that Thom actually was lifted from the chair and flew across the room. Whenever Thom had a bad report card (which was most report cards), he was severely punished. This consisted of the stepfather having Thom sit on a chair facing the stepfather who would repeatedly hit him on his head with a spoon until Thom's head began to bleed. While the stepfather was hitting him with the spoon Thom watched the stepfather become sexually aroused. We often describe men like the stepfather as being sexual sadists. These men often marry certain women to get to their children. This sexual abuse continued until Thom was 11 and the stepfather left the family.

 

There is a great deal of material written about the relationship between child sexual abuse and later PTSD and we spent most of the remaining therapy sessions working on this early abuse. In particular, we used EMDR therapy which was originally developed to help clients reduce the dysregulation produced by traumatic memories. By accessing, bringing up and desensitizing these memories, the dysregulation is relieved. Thom had 14 EMDR sessions before we could terminate treatment.

-Mike Dubi