Transforming Suffering: understanding the origins of shame, blame and guilt

A 2 day workshop for practitioners working with people who have experienced traumatic events. 

14 & 15 May 2018, 9.30am - 4.30pm
St Columba Centre
40 Vermont Street
Ponsonby
Auckland
A workshop with a focus on using experience to develop a relational understanding of the origins of shame, blame and guilt.

Whenever something goes wrong in our lives we inevitably search for an explanation. This search often leads us to an investigation of ourselves or others, such as, ‘What did I do wrong?’ or ‘What did you do wrong?’ People with trauma/abuse histories can conclude this search with a seemingly unshakable resolve that ‘I am bad, wrong or fundamentally flawed’.

I have found that these life defining ‘truths’ gather strength whenever it is confirmed in several locations, such as, family and significant societal institutions.

In this workshop I will discuss, demonstrate and invite you to participate in a relational narrative orientation founded on 5 principles. When our therapeutic work centralises these principles, the people we work with are resourced to contextually position identity shaping experiences. In turn, this positioning allows for the construction and discovery of life sustaining narrative threads.

This workshop will assist you to work effectively with people struggling in the following ways:
  • People who continue to ‘go back’ to a relationship where a partner is violent. 
  • People who never feel ‘thin enough’ and consequently their existence is under threat. 
  • People who struggle to use or incorporate evidence of resilience or success. 
  • People who seem hyper-vigilant to the ‘mistakes’ they make or the ‘mistakes’ the practitioner makes within the therapeutic relationship. 
  • People who continue to believe the explanations given to them by the person who has assaulted them.
  • People who have held a longstanding secret.