Healing Without Amnesia: Rethinking What It Means to Heal in Therapy

by | Oct 22, 2025 | Uncategorized

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Healing Without Amnesia: Rethinking What It Means to Heal in Therapy

Price $90
CE's 3 CE’s
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Introduction

Date Course Created: October 2025

“Time heals all wounds” is a familiar colloquialism that often leads one to believe that healing is an unconscious process, requiring little to no effort on one’s part. Healing, and posttraumatic healing especially, is referenced all the time – but what does healing actually look like in practice?

Healing doesn’t just happen- it is an active process that requires intentional mental, emotional and physical energy. Another common falsehood about healing is attaining mental and emotional erasure of psychological suffering or distress. Many don’t believe healing is “complete” unless they no longer mentally, or physiologically remember or experience related suffering. This course will challenge the societal notion that you’re only healed when the memory and related suffering has disappeared. In reality, our minds are physiologically wired to keep a blueprint of everything that resulted in a wound, as a means of future protection.

The healing journey empowers both clients and clinicians to discuss the different degrees of woundedness, and the different degrees of healing – with the understanding that healing doesn’t require mental and emotional amnesia. This seminar will explore three distinct categories of “hurts” or “wounds” that can be incurred over a lifespan. Practitioners will learn how to assist themselves and clients in level-setting expectations for an attainable healing journey. We will draw from research in the fields of psychology, sociology, physiology, somatics, and cultural experiences.

This is a 3-CE noninteractive, self-paced online video course delivered in home study format via an industry-standard online learning platform.

Agenda

00:00 – 00:33 → Introduction, Limitations of the ACEs Study, Invisible Wounds, Developmental Expectations

00:33 – 01:13 → Recommended Readings, Processing Historical Trauma, Balancing Physical and Psychological Safety

01:13 – 01:56 → Toll of COVID-19, Racial Hierarchies, Double Marginalization, Impact of Racial Realities on Youth

01:56 – 02:23 → Historical Context of Disrespect, Cultural Moral Injury, Therapeutic Approaches and Modalities

02:23 – 03:08 → Clinician’s Corner: Navigating Challenges, Practitioner Self-Care Strategies, Peer Support

Objectives

This training will provide participants clinical knowledge and tools to:

  • Checked circle iconAfter completing this training, participants will be able to describe and differentiate between intergenerational trauma, foundational fractures and cultural moral injury.
  • Checked circle iconAfter completing this training, participants will be able to recognize that along the healing continuum both adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms do develop and are often a part of the healing process.
  • Checked circle iconAfter completing this training, participants will be able to identify and acknowledge that some wounds will require lifelong wound management.
  • Checked circle iconAfter completing this training, participants will be able to discern how some clinical modalities – along with a lack of acknowledging different lived experiences in some populations – can not only increase harm, but may shatter the therapeutic alliance.

Target Audience:

The target audience for this course includes psychologists, social workers, counselors, MFT’s, psychiatrists and other clinical mental health professionals.

Instructional Level: Intermediate

Instructor(s): Bernadette Spooner Thompson, Ed.S., LPC-S, LCPC, CSC

Material Author(s): Bernadette Spooner Thompson, Ed.S., LPC-S, LCPC, CSC

Bernadette Spooner Thompson, founder and principal of Context of Culture, LLC is committed to providing culturally sensitive, person-centered counseling. Along with facilitating safe and uncomfortable conversations at the intersection of societal hierarchies and cultural identity through seminars and continuing education courses. Her specializations are issues that impact children, women, and racial identity. Bernadette possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, and an Education Specialist Degree in Professional Counseling. She is licensed as a professional counselor and supervisor in Missouri, a certified K-12 school counselor in Missouri, a licensed professional clinical counselor in Kansas, and a level one certified clinical trauma professional. Having spent nearly a decade within the K-12 academic environment in various capacities, Bernadette provided individual counseling support for students and families, while creating culturally-affirming social emotional development curricula for whole class lessons. Along with creating a proactive and reactive comprehensive counseling program responsive to the needs of the student body. She facilitated professional development centered on trauma-informed practices to better equip staff and faculty. Bernadette is keenly aware of the many challenges marginalized individuals face today and the corresponding impact socially, emotionally, and psychologically centered at the intersection of race, class, gender.

Course Content

CE Ex-Cram-Aganza:: 35% off all home study courses and Bundles

 

Use Code: CRAM35

Valid Thru Sunday 9/20/26 at 11:59pm CDT US

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