1. The Wits Trauma Model – A Short Term Approach to Working With Trauma

The Wits Trauma Model was developed by the Psychology Department at the University of the Witwatersrand to treat short term trauma. The model is applied for clients who are seen from 1-4 sessions on an individual basis. The model is integrative and includes aspects of psychodynamic thinking, CBT and existential psychology. The aim of the intervention is to give the client an opportunity to tell their story and develop coping skills and mastery. 

The steps of the model include:
1. Listen to the story (the therapist is a witness to the client’s story)
2. Normalize the symptoms
3. Reframe survivor guilt
4. Build Mastery
5. Make meaning (this is often not touched in the period of acute trauma and is assimilated over time).


This workshop will be presented with an internationally published journal on the Wits trauma model. The steps will be taught in depth and therapists will apply the steps through role play.

The aim of this workshop is to:

• Offer an integrative theoretical background to a short-term integrative model that addresses trauma. We will look at Dori Laub’s work on the importance of the therapist’s role of being a witness. This integrative approach will look at the importance of re-framing and building mastery from a cognitive perspective, and finally, Victor Frankl’s approach on the central issue of finding meaning will be applied.
• Offer a practical guide through the skills training component, providing a step-by-step model that offers containment to the client and provides a safe space for him/her to reflect on and process the emotional and sensory aspects of his/her traumatic experience.
• Provide the opportunity for attendees to practice and apply the skills learned. The trainer will give a demonstration of the skills used in the model via role play, and participants will be given an opportunity to role play and evaluate the model.

A published journal of the model will be given as well as a short user-friendly manual. 

2. Understanding Vicarious Traumatization (Traumatic Countertransference/ Secondary Traumatic Stress) and the Role of Self Care for Therapists when Working with Trauma

This workshop is based on the presenter's M.A. thesis, which looked at “The therapist's Experience of Distress in Trauma Counselling”. This research looked at how therapists were coping with trauma counselling in an environment where they were also victims of trauma. This workshop includes the work of McCann and Perlman who explain vicarious traumatization as well as concepts such as Traumatic Countertransference and Secondary Traumatic Stress.  A research model is presented where therapists are identified as “The Empathic Therapist, the Dissociated Therapist, the Traumatized Therapist, and Trauma Junkie”.

This workshop includes theoretical input and a processing component. Therapists will be invited to share their own traumatic experiences of working therapeutically in the current climate of ongoing trauma, if they choose to. 

3. Working With Trauma Long Term - A Psychodynamic Approach

This workshop is based on the presenter's PhD research which was published in an academic book last year “Catastrophic Grief, Trauma and Resilience in Child Concentration Camp Survivors” (Academic Studies Press 2023, Boston, USA). It offers a psychodynamic and existential theoretical view of trauma. Erikson's 8 stages of development are used to understand how the impact of trauma causes a developmental disruption that has long term consequences across the life cycle.

Early attachment is highlighted as an important factor in developing resilience and different psychological defenses are identified. Existential loneliness is described as the underlying experience of despair in trauma survivors. Hope and meaning are highlighted as critical factors in building resilience. This workshop focuses on the importance of therapeutic skills such as empathy, witnessing and using countertransference experiences to understand the therapeutic process.

In this workshop, participants will:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of how trauma causes developmental disruption across the life cycle from early attachment to old age
• Get introduced to the work of Hillel Klein, Psychoanalyst and survivor, and his perspective on long-term trauma
• Conceptualize how Complex Traumatic Stress is nuanced differently for victims of child abuse, as opposed to victims who are held hostage in captivity
• Understand the various defenses that clients use to cope with trauma so that those defenses are more easily recognized within the therapeutic process
• Understand the importance of therapeutic attunement and empathy in bridging existential loneliness
• Learn how to use the concept of hope and resilience in reinforcing coping skills and building mastery
• Learn how to use one’s own countertransference as a key to understanding the client’s experience

4. Working with Traumatic Bereavement – A Trauma Trilogy of Catastrophic Grief, Anger and Survival Guilt

What can we learn from literature about survivors that can be applied today? 

This workshop is based on the trainer's Ph.D research and subsequent journal article that was published: Trauma Trilogy – Journal of   Loss and Trauma 2021, Farber et al.

We will explore the nature of catastrophic grief and how anger and survival guilt may also appear as part of the grieving process. This workshop will also look at how these intense emotions can be contained in a therapeutic space.  Case material will be used from research interviews with Holocaust survivors as well as case presentation with current clients who have experienced traumatic bereavement.

This workshop will enable participants to:

• Learn theoretical background that looks at what is catastrophic grief, survivor guilt and anger, and how do these experiences feature in traumatic bereavement
• See a presentation of how the trauma trilogy was observed in Holocaust survivors who endured multiple traumatic bereavements
• Understand the influence of history on how clients experience and process traumatic bereavement
• Conceptualize how using the trauma trilogy can link grief, anger and survivor guilt, with the aim of helping the client to integrate the different emotional experiences of traumatic loss
• Sensitize the therapist to traumatic loss - the bridge of empathy lessens the client’s existential isolation