MFT 584 - Trauma-Informed Treatment

Prerequisites, MFT 541, MFT 556, marriage and family therapy major. This course will prepare students to deliver empirically supported trauma-informed treatments. Students will learn to differentiate between single-incident and complex trauma. Students will also learn to assess and diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Neurophysiologic and somatic factors associated with trauma will be highlighted. Students will be taught the key elements of evidence-based treatments including prolonged exposure (PE), emotion-focused therapy for complex trauma (EFT-CT), trauma-focused cognitive-behavior therapy (TF-CBT), cognitive processing therapy (CPT) eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), and integrative mind/body trauma recovery for complex PTSD (C-PTSD). The course will emphasize the importance of developing a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship, which is the largest predictor of success in trauma-informed treatment. Students will engage in weekly in-class deliberate practice of empathy-related therapy skills to increase therapist self-awareness, empathic understanding, empathic affirmation, and empathic validation. Letter grade. (Offered every year.) 3 credits