Intensive Reparenting and Inner Child Clinical Workshop

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Nicole Johnson, LPC, CCTP Related seminars and products

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Nicole Johnson, LPC, CCTP, is a licensed professional counselor and certified clinical trauma professional dedicated to helping clients heal attachment and childhood wounds. She is the author of Reparenting Your Inner Child: Healing Unresolved Childhood Trauma and Reclaiming Wholeness Through Self-Compassion (New Harbinger Publications, 2025). Known as “The Ginger Shrink” on social media, she presents at conferences around the country where she frequently speaks on childhood trauma, abuse, and her unique approach to healing. As founder of Oak & Ivy Therapy Services, she also leads workshops, mentors clinicians, and speaks on trauma, attachment, and integrative healing. You can find out more about Johnson at www.thegingershrink.squarespace.com.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Nicole Johnson is the owner and founder of Oak and Ivy Therapy Services and receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Nicole Johnson has no relevant non-financial relationships.

 

Additional Info

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For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepepesi.com

Objectives

1. Examine how early developmental trauma and abuse contribute to the formation of wounded inner children. 
2. Identify trauma response types as adaptive survival strategies and how they present in clinical settings   
3. Differentiate between event-based trauma and relational trauma using current neurobiological and attachment-informed frameworks.   
4. Evaluate the impact of impaired sense of self on client identity formation, symptom presentation, and treatment planning.   
5. Utilize timeline-based exploration and present-day symptom mapping, to help clients identify early attachment wounds.   
6. Integrate age-appropriate developmental theory, such as Erikson’s stages, to assess the origin and impact of core childhood wounds.  
7. Utilize strategies to reduce shame, resistance, and avoidance by reframing client behaviors as trauma adaptations rather than pathology.   
8. Examine the clinical relevance of internalized parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, neglectful, authoritative) and their influence on client self-talk and relational patterns.   
9. Choose reparenting interventions in the treatment of attachment wounds.  
10. Develop a client-centered ReParenting Plan, including treatment goals, behavioral targets, and accountability strategies that align with the client’s capacity and needs.  
11. Modify reparenting language and tools for use with multiple modalities, including Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  
12. Evaluate clinical indicators for when to slow or pause reparenting work, including signs of dissociation, regression, or emotional flooding.    
13. Identify countertransference themes and opportunities for therapist self-reflection related to reparenting work. 

Outline

Foundations of Reparenting and Inner Child Work

• Where it started, how it evolved, where it is now
• Reparenting model
• History and evolution of Inner Child Theory
• How Inner Child work complements IFS, CBT, and psychodynamic modalities
• Clients who would benefit from this work
• Countertransference and the clinicians’ reparenting journey
• Research, risks and limitations

Trauma, Abuse & Survival Responses

• Trauma: Redefining what happened
• Current limitations and research
• What the studies show
• Reframing abuse in clinical work
• The importance of validation in healing and treatment response
• Types of abuse often missed
• Impacts and how they can present
• Ethical and cultural sensitivity

Reframing Trauma Responses as Adaptive

• Trauma responses and how and why they happen
• How prolonged trauma responses impact clients and can interfere with progress
• How chronic trauma responses can get mislabeled

Assessment Tools for Developmental Wounds and the Fragmented Self

• Developmental stages & trauma
• Erikson’s stages of development
• How trauma at different stages creates lasting psychological wounds
• Case vignettes
• Use timelines and memory work as assessment tools

Sense of Self Disruption: How Trauma Alters Identity

• Understand “Sense of Self” clinically: components, origins, breakdown
• How impaired SOS shows up in adult symptoms and personality presentations
• The fusion of survival responses with identity (e.g., “I’m just a people pleaser”)
• Help clients use self-recognition of impaired SOS to cultivate authenticity

Identify and work with Wounded Inner Children

• Timeline-based exploration
• Present-day symptom mapping
• When to use each approach and how to scaffold the process safely
• How to assess client readiness and avoid re-traumatization

Deepen the Relationship: Parts Work Language, Prompts and More

• How to safely introduce parts language without overwhelming the client
• Create mini-WIC bios
• Prompts, abstract prompts, creativity, and self-exploration as options
• Help clients humanize, rather than pathologize, their younger selves

Parenting Styles and the Internalized Parent

• Authoritarian, permissive, neglectful, and authoritative parenting styles overview
• Impact on childhood and long-term outcomes
• How these styles manifest in clients’’ inner dialogue and relational strategies
• Use psychoeducation to empower client insight

The Reparenting Intervention Toolbox for Clinicians

• Identify where the client is perpetuating the cycle internally
• Present-moment reparenting: what it looks like in real life
• Small, achievable shifts that build new associations
• Modeling safe adult presence in session
• Scripts, prompts, and interventions for internal dialogue
• Use of imagery, art, and somatic connection
• How to introduce reparenting rituals without reinforcing dependency
• Navigate emotional reactivity during reparenting WICs
• Create and Support a Reparenting Plan
• Treatment planning: goals, objectives, and progress markers
• Build sustainable consistence outside of sessions
• Help clients schedule reparenting in a manageable way
• The therapist’s role in accountability and encouragement

Working with Regression, Resistance, and Rupture

• Recognize and work with client regression
• Support clients through symptom spikes and setbacks
• Clinical strategies for managing shame and emotional flooding
• When to refer, slow down, or shift focus

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counsellors
• Therapists
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals