Clinical Challenges in Treating Complex Trauma
Dr Christine Coutois
About This Webinar
Complex trauma therapy is rarely straightforward. Clients who have experienced chronic interpersonal trauma often enter treatment with profound difficulties involving trust, attachment, emotion regulation, dissociation, and expectations of the therapeutic relationship. These relational patterns frequently emerge within therapy itself, creating complex clinical dilemmas that can challenge even experienced practitioners.
Working with survivors of complex trauma requires far more than knowledge of trauma symptoms. Therapists must navigate trauma-based transference, intense countertransference reactions, projective identification, enactments, shifting attachment dynamics, and the subtle treatment traps that can compromise the therapeutic process. These challenges are not signs of therapeutic failure; rather, they are an expected and meaningful part of trauma treatment that, when recognised, provide valuable information about the client's internal world and relational history.
Presented by internationally recognised trauma expert Dr Christine Courtois, this webinar explores the most common clinical challenges encountered in the treatment of complex trauma. Drawing on decades of clinical experience and evidence-informed practice, Dr Courtois examines the "treatment traps" that therapists frequently encounter—including issues of trust, boundaries, dependency, control, avoidance, projection, idealisation, and motivation—and offers practical strategies for recognising and responding to them while maintaining therapeutic effectiveness.
GLOBAL EXPERT SERIES
Enhance Your Clinical Confidence
Recognise Treatment Traps Before They Derail Therapy
THE COURSE CURRICULUM
Gain practical strategies for managing treatment traps and the relational complexities of complex trauma therapy
Self-paced module: 4 lessons · 2 hours video · slides · guidelines · quiz · 90 day access · instant 2 hour CPD certificate
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About Dr Christine Courtois
Christine A. Courtois, PhD, a counseling psychologist, is retired from clinical practice and now serves as a consultant/trainer on trauma psychology and treatment. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Dr. Courtois is a past president of APA Division 56 (Trauma Psychology) and served as Chair of the APA’s Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adults. She has received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Independent Practice from the APA, the Sarah Haley Award for Clinical Excellence from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the Award for Distinguished Service and Contributions to the Profession of Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology, and the APA Division 56 Lifetime Achievement Award. She is coeditor of Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Adults, Second Edition, and Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Children and Adolescents, and coauthor of Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach.