Complex Trauma: Origins, Impacts & Recovery
November 4 – 7, 2027
Riviera Maya, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Course Description:
Complex trauma often hides in plain sight, shaping symptoms, relationships, and treatment outcomes in ways that can be easy to miss. Many clients arrive in therapy seeking help for anxiety, depression, substance use, relationship problems, emotional dysregulation, or other concerns, only for deeper trauma histories to emerge over time. When this happens, clinicians are often left wondering how trauma fits into the case, what should be prioritized, and how to move treatment forward. This workshop is designed to help therapists build confidence in recognizing, assessing, and treating complex trauma across a wide range of clinical presentations.
Complex trauma can affect nearly every area of a person’s life. Clients may struggle with emotional regulation, chronic shame, relationship difficulties, dissociation, self-harm, substance use, and a deeply altered sense of self. Trauma frequently co-occurs with conditions such as anxiety, depression, personality disorders, eating disorders, ADHD, and OCD, creating complex treatment decisions for clinicians. Throughout this training, you’ll learn practical frameworks for case conceptualization and treatment planning when trauma is only one piece of a much larger clinical picture.
Move beyond theory and develop skills you can use immediately. Through case examples, experiential exercises, clinical discussion, and small-group activities, you’ll learn evidence-informed strategies for working with clients who carry the lasting effects of developmental and relational trauma. Special attention will be given to helping clients build safety, strengthen emotional regulation, and reduce the impact of longstanding trauma patterns that may be interfering with treatment progress.
Working with survivors of complex trauma can be challenging, but it can also be some of the most meaningful work we do as therapists. Whether trauma is a central part of your work or something that emerges unexpectedly during treatment, this workshop will help you approach complex cases with greater clarity, confidence, and compassion. You’ll leave with practical tools, a stronger framework for assessment and treatment planning, and renewed confidence in helping clients move toward recovery and healing.
Presenter Bios:
Jen Powell, LPC, NCC, CCH, CPCS. Jen Powell is Director of Community Engagement at Anxiety Specialists of Atlanta and has more than 16 years of experience treating trauma and stressor-related disorders, dissociative disorders, eating disorders, OCD, ADHD, chronic health conditions, and other anxiety and mood disorders. She has provided workshops and psychoeducational programs for community, collegiate, and corporate audiences and has worked across university, community, and private practice settings.
Timeline:
Day 1
9am-10:30 – What is Complex Trauma?
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45-12:15 – Areas of Development Impacted by Trauma
Day 2
9am-10:30 – Diagnostic and Conceptual Models of Complex Trauma
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45-12:15 –Assessing for Complex Trauma
Day 3
9am-10:30 – Interventions for Complex Trauma and Practice
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45-12:15 – Treating Complex Trauma and Co-occurring Conditions
Day 4
9am-10:30 – Stress, Trauma, and the Role of Resilience
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45-12:15 – Vicarious Trauma and Therapist Self-Care
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of the training, participants will:
- Summarize issues experienced by many complex trauma clients, their families, and significant others.
- Summarize the impact of traumatic events on brain development, developmental milestones, and personality development.
- List assessment measures to diagnose complex trauma.
- List phase-based interventions in treating complex trauma.
- Identify factors in managing therapist self-care and signs of vicarious trauma in therapists when treating complex trauma.
- Summarize the differences between stress and trauma, and the role of resilience in trauma recovery.
- Summarize evidence-based treatment modalities for complex trauma.
- Describe diagnostic and conceptual models to approach complex trauma.
To register for this live workshop please visit: Complex Trauma with Jen Powell
This course content is based on a publication that has been peer-reviewed, the scientific standard for evaluating academic work. All studies and scientifically derived evidence have limitations that should be considered. If you have any questions about the accuracy or limitations of the content, please contact us at
support@ce-classes.com and we will get back to you.
