Trauma Recovery Certification Course Overview
The physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual effects of trauma are experienced regardless of the age, culture, religion, or the gender of the person who has experienced or witnessed trauma.
The advanced trauma-informed theory and practices taught in the Trauma Recovery Certification course, give you the knowledge and skills to empower traumatized individuals as you offer them help and support for their healing. During this training you learn to assist them in reclaiming their wholeness and in rebuilding healthy families.
Goals
1) The primary goal of the Trauma Recovery Certification course is that you gain the knowledge and skills necessary to work in a more holistic way with individuals, groups, families, and communities who have experienced trauma.
2) Since, basic to this training is the belief that a therapeutic helper can bring another only as far along the healing process, as he or she has already come, a second goal is the facilitation of personal healing for each one who takes this training.
Objectives of the Trauma Recovery Certification Course
The teaching and learning experiences allow you to:
1) Gain knowledge of various theories and approaches used to describe the effects of trauma and treatment approaches.
2) Increase ability to recognize the biophysical, behavioral, emotional, mental, spiritual, social, and cultural responses to a traumatic life event.
3) Gain knowledge and skill in using counseling strategies to alleviate distress symptoms and to empower those who are traumatized.
4) Acquire knowledge and skill in using healing strategies, including therapeutic art, dream processing, guided visualization, and nature work, to alleviate effects of trauma.
5) Advance personal and professional growth and practice self-care strategies to avoid becoming vicariously traumatized.
6) Develop a plan for a trauma recovery practice that allows the implementation of holistic methods of helping and healing.
Time Frame
The Trauma Recovery Certification course provides 160 hours of theory and practice.
Conditions for Certification
1. Attendance at all sessions.
2. Full participation in all activities and discussions.
3. Achieving a passing grade (80%) on the Take Home Exam.
Required Resources
- Simington, J. (2021). Trauma Recovery Certification Handbook (7th Edition). Edmonton, AB. Taking Flight International.
- Simington, J. (2011). Reintegrating Parts of the Self (audio recording) Edmonton, AB: Taking Flight Books.
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Simington, J. (2016). Journey to the Inner Bench (audio recording). Edmonton, AB: Taking Flight Books.
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Simington, J. (2019). Evaluating Trauma Education Designed Within a Spiritual Framework, Journal of Humanistic Psychology. https://doi/org/10.1177/0022167819846728, 1-16.
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Simington, J. & Wagner, J.I. (2021). Soul Retrieval Following Trauma: A Cultural Perspective, Religious Studies and Theology.39(1), 5–20.
- Simington, J, (2013). Trauma and Dissociation: Neurological and Spiritual Perspectives, Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Volume 3 • Issue 3 • 1000116. http://www.omicsonline.org
Skills Obtained in the Trauma Recovery Course
1) Apply an empowering model to help and heal those who are traumatized.
2) Work with traumatized clients in each of the three stages of trauma recovery.
3) Assess the effects of, and alleviate the symptoms of trauma on the brain and nervous system.
4) Assess and alleviate the impact of trauma on the physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual aspects of human functioning.
5) Apply assessment measures for testing and evaluation of healing methods, and for purposes of obtaining funding.
6) Apply emotional safety strategies for individuals, and for people in group settings.
7) Remove emotional attachments.
8) Manage dissociative responses and neurogenic shock.
9) Remove flashbacks and nightmares.
10) Apply energy-transfer healing techniques to help alleviate trauma symptoms.
11) Apply therapeutic art to alleviate symptoms and promote trauma healing.
12) Assist a traumatized individual in recognizing the symbolic messages offered in therapeutic art, and during the dream state.
13) Safely guide the individual client and those in groups to do deep inner healing work.
14) Safely guide an individual to reclaim aspects of the self that may have remained at the trauma scene as if frozen in time.
15) Decrease feelings of fear and anxiety, and increase feelings of security and belonging.
16) Cleanse any unhelpful energy from the energy space/aura surrounding the traumatized individual, and create a shield of protection to help increase feelings of safety.
17) Help and heal childhood trauma.
18) Apply strategies to increase bonding and attachment.
19) Do deep inner work to heal relationship issues, past, and present.
20) Assist during times when there is, or has been, a misuse of power.
21) Strengthen boundaries, and reclaim personal power.
22) Assist during times of domestic violence, and heal the effects of domestic violence.
23) Help traumatized individuals reclaim hope and joy, and to celebrate their healing.
Testimonials
I am very grateful to Dr. Jane Simington for helping me go deeper into understanding trauma and PTSD, which is present not only in people we work with, but also within ourselves, a trauma that we cover up as life goes on its course. In her trainings, I learned to go further beyond peoples' facade, into a healing space. But also, I was able to wake up myself to my own pain and trigger points, to my ability to heal, and to remember that everything is possible…and all the possibilities become active in me.
Nancy Tzavida,
Social Care-Taker SOS Villages for Orphaned Children, Athens, Greece.
Therapeutic Art: Drawing a Cleansed Aura Recovery Trauma
Contributions of Therapeutic Art to Trauma Recovery
Trauma and Dissociation: Neurological and Spiritual Perspectives
© Jane Simington, PhD
Abstract
Abstract The traumatic events of the past decades have touched each of us in either primary or secondary ways. The effects of trauma are experienced physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually. Many who have been touched by natural disasters or human atrocities view their spiritual distress as the most intense of these responses. While many of the therapeutic models used today all but fail to address this important aspect of humanness, a growing number of psychotherapists are exploring alternate methods of healing in an effort to address the spiritual distress experienced by their traumatized clients. As they being their study of spirituality and spiritual interventions as different from religion and religious models, some of these therapists are revisiting ancient methods of soul healing, including the time- honored teachings and practices of Shamanism. In this discussion article, the relationship between triggers, flashbacks and dissociation are explored from both a neurological perspective and a spiritual (rooted in Shamanic knowledge) perspective. These two worldviews are compared and contrasted. Questions are presented which invite psychotherapists to ponder the need for an increased understanding of spiritual distress and spiritual interventions in order to provide to their trauma clients a more balanced and holistic approach.
Read the article "Trauma and Dissociation: Neurological and Spiritual Perspectives."