Achieving Mindfulness: Using Meditation and Yoga to Encourage Mindfulness in Clients Experiencing Complex Trauma and Dissociation

Over the past decade, meditation and yoga have become increasingly popular in mental health treatment and in the world at large. While the practices can be helpful, clients will receive the most benefit from work that is trauma informed and delivered with an understanding of how these healing mechanisms impact the mind, brain and body.

In the webinar we will explore the potential benefits of integrating yoga and meditation into trauma treatment, as well as best practices for adapting these modalities in a trauma-sensitive manner. We will discuss the relationship between mediation and dissociation, and will teach how to assist clients in "building up meditation muscles" in order to improve affect regulation and ego strength. Potential benefits include increased affect tolerance, greater internal and external insight, improved attunement, and increased empathy for self and others. These methods of treatment can be used alone or interwoven into any other form of treatment, and we will discuss how to best apply them in different settings. We will also explore the connection between yoga, somatic psychotherapy and theories of nervous system dysregulation as they apply to cases of complex, developmental trauma, and outline the progression of research and theoretical understanding that supports using these modalities.

This webinar is a unique opportunity to examine practical applications of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga and the effect these activities have on individuals who have experienced severe trauma and routinely dissociate.

This course is based on the recorded webinar, Achieving Mindfulness: Using Meditation and Yoga to Encourage Mindfulness in Clients Experiencing Complex Trauma and Dissociation created by Christine Forner, BA, BSW, MSW et al in 2014.