Welcoming & working with our triggers

As Therapists of color group

Are you a therapist looking for a peer group that helps you work with your triggers and come into better relationship with yourself and clients?

Together we will create a brave, intimate community of therapists & practitioners of color who collectively build 5 core skills to show up as supported, honest, flexible, and skilled with clients.

ABOUT THE GROUP

This group is all about coming into relationship with yourself when you are triggered so that you can return to connection.

Part collaborative dialogue and part experiential work, we are creating a peer-led space to work on ourselves as clinicians in order to show up as supported, honest, flexible, and skilled with our clients.

This group is all about coming into relationship with yourself. We will learn to work with our triggers that inevitably show up when we’re in the therapist chair and greet ourselves with curiosity and compassion.

What do we mean by triggers? As therapists, we are triggered way more often than we think we are. It could be even the slightest of movement in the body or face, a sensation, a story, urgency, fear, frustration, feeling lost, bored, checking out, imposter feelings... We all have a subjective experience of triggers. We’ll discover our unique triggers and learn to come into relationship with them. 

Why are our triggers so important to our work as therapists? Our triggers offer so much wisdom about what’s going on internally and relationally with clients. They can be our guides to discerning what needs to happen next, the path to unlocking our creativity, and the clues to what supports we need in place for ourselves as we’re in the therapist chair so that we are not getting in our own way.

As therapists, we know curiosity and compassion are at the core of our work, but do we know how to access curiosity and compassion when we are triggered? Do we have enough practice with true curiosity and compassion when we’re in hard, sticky spaces with ourselves and clients?

We will explore the practices of 1) noticing triggers 2) being curious 3) coming into relationship with 4) extending compassion to what is. We will look at neurobiology-informed research that shows how these skills prevent burnout & yield best therapy outcomes and being a power-with, anti-oppressive therapist.

What do we mean when we say skills? First, we do not mean acquiring skills in the way we have been taught by western colonial models of therapy. We welcome challenging all ideas that are steeped in power over domination, white supremacy, and colonialism.

We mean building our innate capacity to be in touch with patience, curiosity, respect, being with, acceptance, love, and honest sharing of our messy human existence.

In our efforts to be power-with facilitators, we’re hoping to not be experts, but gatherers of collective wisdom of the group.

We will work on these skills while being in community and being witness to one another.

We will be in a parallel process of skills building:

• We will build skills of noticing what’s happening for us when we are in session and when we might benefit from increased curiosity and compassion towards self and clients. We will get good at knowing when we’re triggered, so that we can greet ourselves in a way that 1) deepens connection 2) we can access more parts of ourselves and 3) free up space for creativity and being with. 

• As peers in this group, we will be undoing aloneness with each other and practice all the time how to be with each other as good messy humans - something that is so ancient and true. We will co-create a space of safety and belonging that can hold all of our experiences and our growth.

This group is right for you if…

• You find yourself in the same sticky moments with clients and you’re not sure how to get out of it

• You want to access your creativity and intuition in session but you are not sure how 

• You want to better understand your triggers and how they show up in session 

• You find yourself with not enough pause between what you feel and what you do in the therapy room and sometimes make reactive moves 

• You care about being a power-with, anti-oppressive therapist but you sometimes find yourself frustrated, wanting to change your clients, or too attached to outcomes

• You have pursued multiple trainings but still find yourself feeling de-skilled when you’re triggered

• You are feeling alone in your work and looking to feel less alone as a therapist of color

• You want your sessions to go consistently deeper but they don’t 

You are not alone in your experiences as a therapist of color. We are here to join you in your experience and say, me too.

more about the group:

This group will endeavor to answer the questions...

• What do I do if I’m triggered when I’m with my client?

• Why do I feel deskilled sometimes?

• What skills are missing for me?

• What can I do to create change for my client? (Hint: it’s not what you’ve been taught)

You will leave with skills that you can apply right away to...

• Witness what is happening for you and track the different ways your brain & body communicates to you (i.e., thoughts, sensations, images, muscle/joint movement, feelings)

• Have a plan to greet yourself and use skills while being triggered 

• Know how to get back into relationship with yourself and client after being triggered

What you will get from the group...

A workbook that includes 

• resources and research findings on factors that yield best best therapy outcomes

• an outline of core skills we’ll learn and practice

• worksheets and practice guides

A community space where you can belong as your full authentic self alongside other therapists of color who are liberation-oriented

TIMINGS & FEES

We will meet for 6 months from March to August 2024. Exact dates TBD.

Meeting times: Every other week via Zoom (timings TBD).

The meetings will not be recorded, live attendance is required.

Fee: The fee is $100 per group meeting. You get one “skip” session without incurring a fee. Payment is due in full before the group begins.

This will be an intimate and challenging group of up to 7 clinicians max. If the group is full, you’ll be added to a waitlist for the next cohort.

We will let you know via email if you’ve got a spot in this year’s group!

We look forward to creating an intimate and vibrant community experience, so once you’ve committed to the group, you are responsible for showing up to the group sessions and for the fee.