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Restoring the Shattered Self
The Process of Healing for Complex Trauma
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Part 1
Dr. Heather Gingrich is the author of the book Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor’s Guide to Complex Trauma. She serves in the graduate faculty of Denver Seminary. The goal of this two-part presentation is to offer tools to professional counselors they can use when working with complex trauma survivors, as well as to give lay helpers and survivors a sense of what the healing process can entail. The trauma histories of complex trauma survivors (e.g., adult survivors of child abuse, intimate partner violence, torture, multiple traumas, kidnapping, sex trafficking victims) are not the same as the trauma histories of those who develop PTSD which makes the healing process different. How early experiences of complex trauma negatively impact attachment style and the ability of the individual to form an integrated sense of self will be examined after which the three-phase treatment model that has become the standard of care for complex PTSD (C-PTSD) will be introduced.
Part 2
The following counseling issues will be discussed: establishing safety, maintaining appropriate therapeutic boundaries, symptom management, working through traumatic memories, dealing with spiritual issues, and eliciting social and prayer support from the local church. Special attention will be given to the constructive use of such clients’ dissociative abilities for symptom containment early on in treatment (Phase I) as well as when working through trauma memories (Phase II).
Topics: Helping The Hurting
Speaker
Dr. Heather Gingrich
Professor of Counseling at Denver Seminary
Heather Davediuk Gingrich, Ph.D., is a counselor, scholar, teacher, and former missionary. She is professor of counseling at Denver Seminary and maintains a small private practice working with complex trauma survivors. She is the author of Restoring the Shattered Self,coauthor of Skills for Effective Counseling, and co-editor and contributor to Treating Trauma in Christian Counseling. She began counseling over twenty-five years ago in Canada, and continued in the Philippines where she counseled, taught, and completed her doctoral studies on complex trauma. She continues her international involvements with the Institute for International Care and Counsel at Belhaven University, as well as adjunct teaching at the Asia Graduate School of Theology in the Philippines and seminaries in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, and Singapore. She also conducts mental health assessments for missionary candidates. Gingrich is a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, the Trauma Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Her scholarly work focuses on understanding and working with those who have histories of child abuse and other forms of relational trauma, particularly as they relate to issues of Christian faith and spirituality. She and her husband Fred have two adult sons and are raising their grandson.
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