A Fresh Take on Creative Trauma Informed Work with Older Children, Teens & Adults
Therapists often find themselves sitting in the heaviness of trauma; managing memories, reducing symptoms, and helping clients survive. It is hard work.
After stabilization comes a quieter stage of trauma work that can feel confusing for both client and therapist. The client is no longer in crisis. They can talk or create art with regulation and awareness. They are coping. But something is missing, a sense of inner aliveness, meaning, or direction.
This training focuses on that stage.
You will learn how to use drawing prompts, storytelling, and image-heavy card work to help clients rebuild identity, trust their inner voice again, and begin to recognize the parts of themselves that never broke.
☀️ You catch small moments of strength or clarity, but they pass quickly and are easy to miss.
☀️ The client offers small hints of meaning or direction, and you want to know how to follow them skillfully.
☀️ You sense the client is ready for growth, but is unsure how to step into it AND you want to help them find the way.
This training teaches you how to recognize and respond to those early invitations toward healing, right when they happen, so growth begins inside the session, not someday later.
Creative trauma work with older children, teens & adults can be both inspiring and draining. This training helps you find balance again.
You will learn how to listen at a growth level, to notice the words clients use when healing begins to take shape, to recognize the subtle moments when strength shows up, and to attune to the parts of personality that carry resilience.
This deeper way of listening takes the mystery out of trauma work. It gives you tangible cues to watch for so you can see progress unfolding in real time. You will leave knowing how to build on what is already helping your clients, even when they do not yet see it themselves.
☀️ Foster emotional regulation
☀️ Rebuild inner strength and identity
☀️ Support the emergence of healing narratives
Our creative tools, including drawing, visualization, and image-based card decks, will help you access these layers of resilience in concrete ways, making growth visible and felt for both client and therapist.
This is Mostly an Experiential Class.
After listening to a short lecture, you will participate in healing activities yourself, learning through experience before bringing the techniques to your clients.
As you guide clients toward reconnection, you may find yourself reconnected too ...more grounded, more confident, and more inspired in your work.
Friday, December 12, 2025 | 9:30AM–12:45 PM EST ($99)
Virtual: 3 Non-Contact CE (NBCC & APT) (apt requires a passing grade of 80% on exam)
In Person: Loudoun Co: 3 Contact CE (NBCC & APT)
Note: Saving opportunities of up to $30 available at the check out when you bundle 2 or 3 trauma informed experiential classes together!
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, participants will be able to:
🍎 Explain how traditional trauma treatment often focuses on symptom reduction and describe the importance of incorporating strength and identity-based approaches during trauma work.
🍎. Demonstrate the use of symbolic card prompts to support client exploration of values, identity, and internal resources.
🍎. Utilize visualization techniques to facilitate right-brain engagement and post-traumatic growth.
🍎 Apply developmentally appropriate, strengths-based interventions with adults, teens, and tweens in trauma-focused sessions.
🍎 Describe how play therapy principles support empowerment, emotional integration, and imaginative engagement across developmental stages.
🍎. Assess how using creative and symbolic tools in trauma treatment can support the therapist’s emotional well-being, clinical effectiveness, and long-term engagement with challenging cases.
☀️ Play therapists and creative arts therapists
☀️ Trauma informed therapists (non-play therapists!) of tweens, teens, or adults
☀️ Counselors, social workers, psychologists
☀️ Anyone wanting fresh, right-brained tools for trauma healing and self-care
Agenda (Eastern Time)
9:30 Brain Hemisphere and Function Overview
10:30 Experiential Practice & Collaboration
12:45 See You Next Time!