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Call Us: 043 33 62041 | 043 33 62042 |     Email Us: enquiries@icps.ie  |      Ballymahon, Co. Longford

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Format: Live-online Lecturer Led Classes (Virtual-Classroom) via Zoom

Duration: 1 Evening Every Week 6pm to 9pm

Online Live Attendance: 30 Hours

Self-Directed Learning: 30 Hours

Total CPD Credits: 60 Credits

Assessment: Written Assignment +/- Viva Voca Assessment

Award: Accredited Professional Diploma

 

Course Accreditation:

- Professional Development Consortium

- Provider of Excellence

- CPD Standards Office

- Irish Counselling & Psychotherapy Association (ICPA)

- Irish Counselling & Psychotherapy Association (Directory)

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Class 1 – Foundations of Trauma & Trauma-Informed Practice

Focus: Core concepts, definitions, and the trauma-informed lens.
Key topics:

  • Definitions: trauma, single-incident vs complex trauma, developmental trauma, PTSD vs CPTSD

  • Prevalence and impact across lifespan, systems, communities

  • Principles of trauma-informed practice: safety, trust, choice, collaboration, empowerment

  • Trauma vs non-trauma-informed services: what changes in practice

  • Role boundaries: counsellor, psychotherapist, educator, and multi-disciplinary teams

 

Class 2 – Neurobiology of Trauma & the Body

Focus: How trauma affects the brain, nervous system, and body.
Key topics:

  • Stress response systems: fight, flight, freeze, fawn

  • Polyvagal theory in plain language: survival states vs social engagement

  • Memory and trauma: implicit vs explicit, fragmentation, flashbacks

  • Somatic manifestations: hyperarousal, hypoarousal, health conditions

  • Implications for pacing, timing, and safety in counselling

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Class 3 – Assessment, Case Formulation & Risk

Focus: Safe assessment through a trauma-informed lens.
Key topics:

  • Creating safety during intake and early sessions

  • Gathering trauma history without re-traumatising

  • Screening tools and structured questions (pros, cons, limits)

  • Risk assessment: self-harm, suicidality, harm to others, safeguarding

  • Case formulation: linking history, triggers, symptoms, strengths, resources

  • Working across services: referrals, signposting, interagency collaboration

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Class 4 – Safety, Stabilisation & Grounding

Focus: Building safety before deep trauma processing.
Key topics:

  • The phase-oriented approach to trauma treatment

  • Establishing internal and external safety (environment, relationships, routines)

  • Psychoeducation about symptoms and normalising responses

  • Grounding skills: sensory, cognitive, movement-based

  • Distress tolerance tools for flashbacks and panic

  • When not to proceed to trauma processing

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Class 5 – Emotion Regulation & Resource Building

Focus: Strengthening clients’ capacity to manage affect.
Key topics:

  • Understanding emotional dysregulation in trauma

  • Window of tolerance: recognising and expanding it

  • Building internal resources: imagery, compassionate self, protective figures

  • External resources: safe people, places, routines, community

  • Working with shame, guilt and self-blame

  • Integrating CBT/DBT-informed skills within a trauma-informed frame

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Class 6 – Trauma Processing Approaches & Techniques

Focus: Overview of evidence-informed trauma processing methods.
Key topics:

  • Readiness for processing: indicators & contraindications

  • Overview of approaches (NOT training in each):

    • Trauma-focused CBT

    • EMDR principles

    • Parts-based work (e.g. IFS-informed ideas)

    • Narrative and exposure-based approaches

  • Working with trauma memories: pacing, titration, dual awareness

  • Managing abreactions and strong emotional releases safely

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Class 7 – Complex Trauma, Dissociation & Attachment

Focus: Working with complex presentations.
Key topics:

  • Complex trauma vs single-incident trauma

  • Dissociation spectrum: mild detachment to structural dissociation

  • Recognising dissociation in session and responding safely

  • Attachment patterns and relational trauma

  • The therapeutic relationship as a corrective emotional experience

  • Managing dependency, idealisation, and rupture/repair

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Class 8 – Trauma, Identity, Culture & Specific Populations

Focus: Intersectional and culturally aware trauma work.
Key topics:

  • Cultural, social and systemic trauma (racism, oppression, migration, poverty)

  • Working with children and adolescents: adaptations & collaboration with caregivers

  • Trauma in couples and families: relational patterns, transgenerational trauma

  • LGBTQ+ clients, refugees/asylum seekers, survivors of domestic/sexual violence (overview, not specialist training)

  • Culturally responsive and anti-oppressive practice

  • Barriers to accessing trauma-informed care and how services can shift

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Class 9 – Professional Boundaries, Ethics & Practitioner Well-Being

Focus: Keeping work safe for both clients and practitioners.
Key topics:

  • Ethical principles in trauma-informed work: consent, autonomy, non-maleficence

  • Managing boundaries with highly distressed or traumatised clients

  • Vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burnout, moral injury

  • Recognising signs in oneself and colleagues

  • Self-care, co-regulation, supervision and organisational support

  • Documentation and record-keeping with a trauma-informed mindset

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Class 10 – Integration, Evaluation & Applied Practice

Focus: Pulling everything together and applying it in real contexts.
Key topics:

  • Integrating trauma-informed principles into your existing modality (CBT, person-centred, psychodynamic, etc.)

  • Working within schools, community services, healthcare, justice, workplaces

  • Developing trauma-informed policies and environments

  • Evaluating change: client-reported outcomes, clinical judgement, service data

  • Planning next steps for continued learning and supervision

 

Professional Diploma in Trauma-Informed Counselling & Intervention (Live Online)- (LIVE ONLINE)
60 CPD POINTS

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