A415 Thriving Through Crisis: Turning Post-Traumatic Stress into Post-Traumatic Success

Learn a radically different approach to trauma work. Together, we'll examine spontaneous examples of positive growth and benefit following trauma and crises. Then we'll discuss deliberate, effective strategies and methods for shifting trauma into more positive channels, such as helping clients focus on the "3 C's" of post-traumatic well-being--connection, compassion, and contribution. Participants will acquire clinical tools and techniques as well as personal benefits from learning this material.

Meet The Instructor

Bill O'Hanlon, M.S., teaches workshops internationally and coaches people to become compelling, successful presenters in his Presenter's Boot Camp. He's given more than 2,000 presentations since 1978 and has written or cowritten 28 books, including Thriving Through Crisis and Even from a Broken Web.

Course Contents

Session 1: From post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic success • Challenging prevalent myths about PTSD • The possibility of positive benefits from trauma and crises • The research evidence for positive benefits • The 3 C's for transforming crisis and trauma: Connection, Compassion, Contribution • The 7 pathways to connection for transforming trauma • Research support for the 7 pathways

Session 2: Compassion as a way of transforming trauma • Defining compassion • Self-compassion • Compassion for others • What forgiveness is and isn't • Research support for the benefits of forgiveness • Forgiveness letters • Rituals of letting go and moving on • The complexity of compassion: The inclusion of hate and forgiving; of forgiving and not forgiving; of forgetting and remembering; of letting go and holding on • Using trauma as a gift for developing compassion and skills to deal with others who are suffering

Session 3: Contribution as a way of transforming trauma • Mitzvah therapy • Follow your wound: Using trauma to help find a direction in life and work • Transforming anger and grief into meaningful contributions

Session 4: Truth-telling, gratitude, and optimism as ways of transforming trauma • Acknowledgment and telling your story as healing • Finding validation in truth-telling and kindred sufferers • Bibliotherapy through crisis memoirs • The Writing Ritual as a method for transforming trauma • Gratitude as an antidote to bitterness • The Gratitude Ritual • Research evidence for the benefits of the Gratitude Ritual • Optimistic vs. pessimistic explanatory styles • Cultivating and practicing optimistic explanations and explanatory styles

Learning Objectives

1. Relate the research supporting the positive benefits of gratitude, forgiveness, and connection

2. Apply at least three methods of transforming trauma

3. Distinguish between pessimistic and optimistic explanatory styles

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