This workshop will be delivered via Zoom online.
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The high death toll, personal experiences of severe illness, hospitalisation and loss, the length of the crisis and the constant reminders in the media, social media and society are creating a particular form of trauma related to Covid, compounded by the isolation and dislocation of personal relationships, caused by the lockdown. All of which is having an unprecedented impact on the mental health of society, as well as physical health. Pre-existing inequalities have been excacerbated.
2020 saw the highest number of excess deaths in one year since the Second World War. Thousands of people are bereaved, at a time when lockdown regulations restrict numbers of people at funerals and prevents people comforting each other and sharing their experience of grief.
Psychotherapists play an important role in supporting those affected by the virus but face a unique challenge, seeking to contain and process the trauma, anxiety and grief of their clients, even as they struggle with their own experiences of Covid-19, perhaps having lost people close to them or having been ill themselves and facing the physical and emotional process of recovery.
Workshop Aims
By attending this workshop you can expect:
- To understand the experience of Covid-related trauma and the impact of living in conditions of on-going threat, including anxiety.
- To have developed a framework for working psychotherapeutically with patients experiencing Covid-related trauma and anxiety in conditions of on-going threat.
- To understand the experience of grief at a time of pandemic and social-restriction and the principles of grief-work with patients at this time.
- To have explored the impact of the therapist’s own experience of the virus on the therapeutic relationship and to have developed strategies for self-care and to ensure such experience enhances rather than impedes the therapy.
Outline
The workshop will cover:
- How has the pandemic affected us?
- The neurology and physiology of trauma: what happens in the brain and body when we are traumatised.
- Psychotherapy with people living in situations of continuing threat: when the trauma isn’t over.
- Grief in the Time of Coronavirus.
- Self-Care and Recovery: Staying physically and mentally healthy before, during and after the virus. Maintaining the therapeutic frame at a time of shared experience.
Andrew Keefe is a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, EMDR Therapist and Personal Trainer. He works in private practice in East London and the City, specializing in work with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, abusive relationships, sexual violence and Birth Trauma. He uses fitness, especially outdoor fitness, therapeutically to help people improve their mental health and wellbeing and to process emotion held in the body. Before private practice, he worked for sixteen years in clinical roles at the British Refugee Council and then Freedom from Torture, working with traumatized refugees and survivors of torture. He is a former Director of Clinic at WPF. Since the start of the pandemic, he has been working with clients, including health professionals, living with Covid-related trauma, grief and anxiety.
Target Audience:
Qualified and training psychotherapists, counsellors, clinical psychologists and other health professionals, working with people affected by the virus.
Please note that by booking a ticket for this event, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions for CPD events, so please read through them carefully before making your purchase.
If you experience any problems during the application process then please e-mail events@wpf.org.uk.