Trauma Awareness in Coaching

INSTRUCTORS: Mark Drax and Suzanne Dion

DATES: Tuesdays April 8 thru May 27, 2025

TIMES: 8:30 – 10:30AM PST

All sessions are virtual, last 2.0 hours and are recorded for later review.

Class size limited to 25 students.

Applied for 16 ICF CCE Units (Breakdown of Core vs Resource Development TBD)

PROGRAM COST: $375

Language Used in the Course: English

$375.00REGISTER

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

As coaches and human-development practitioners, we come across the varying impacts of unresolved trauma in our coaching sessions. Importantly, we may witness symptoms of unresolved trauma in a client. And of equal importance, we may experience our own unprocessed trauma being activated during a client session.

While the impacts of unresolved, unprocessed trauma are ubiquitous, we may not register what we experience in ourselves or witness in another as having anything to do with unresolved trauma. We’ve all seen (whether in self or others) over-reacting or over-controlling behavior, “flying off the handle” or “taking off” without warning. We may have either witnessed or experienced shutting down and becoming speechless, motionless, or numb. We’ve likely noticed states of disorientation and confusion or over-intellectualization and distancing. We’ve most likely worked with a client paralyzed by irrational fear and hypervigilance or another who suffers from despondency, lethargy, and anhedonia (the inability to experience joy or pleasure). Or we may have experienced one or more addictive disorders to varying degrees of severity and dependency—in ourselves, in our loved ones, or in our clients. All of the above have their origins in some sort of unprocessed, unresolved trauma however great or subtle, from either acute or repeated traumatic incidence.

Trauma Awareness in Coaching aims to help us better identify the impacts of unresolved trauma as it shows up in our clients as well as in ourselves. What are the signs? What are we looking for? How do we address it? And how do we manage it?

Key topics to be explored in this eight-week program:

What is a traumatic event, what is a trauma response, and what is unresolved trauma?
What types of trauma are there?
What are the various symptoms of unresolved trauma?
How to recognize both the physical (somatic) as well as cognitive-emotional symptoms of unresolved trauma in ourselves and in others?
Learn what to do when unresolved trauma has been triggered.
What to do when unresolved trauma has been triggered in our client?
What are the skills we need as coaches to minimize inadvertently triggering reactivity in our clients?
How to hold space with presence, compassion, and skillful-means when working with clients who become triggered and then reactive (symptomatic) in session?
How to determine/assess that a coaching client needs to be referred to other mental health practitioners and professionals?

This course is designed for people experienced in the growth professions, including executive coaches, life coaches, organizational consultants, therapists, and spiritual directors.

Applied for 16 ICF CCE Units.

Testimonials from Participants

This was a fantastic experience for me - it opened my eyes, expanded my perspectives, gave me knew ideas and put me more at ease when the word trauma or other highly energetic and emotional topics come up with my clients and myself. It exceeded my expectations. I really didn't know what to expect - I just knew that I wanted to learn more about how to support my clients. Fantastic structure and modeling by both instructors. I was taking mental notes - the appreciation and validation from every question, supporting everyone and acknowledging their questions, points of view and concerns. Excellent and powerful modeling. I feel calmer around energetic and intense topics - and this course illuminated my next steps in my own coaching development - around somatic coaching. You all did a wonderful job - thank you.

Thank you for doing such a great job. The course was apt for many different types of practitioners and hit on many aspects of this topic that help however and whoever you coach.

As usual, Deep Coaching Institute offered a top-notch, high quality course with this one. Thank you so much!

Overall, the course series was wonderful. Truly well organized, well facilitated and engaging. The instructors were caring, thoughtful in the way they heard and enlisted comments/input. Very well balanced. No one took too much time or energy from the group. Artful skills as instructors/facilitators/coaches.

I found the teaching staff to be skillful, kind, and caring. They are clearly knowledgeable on trauma, and Mark, in particular, was so open in sharing his own experiences and how he has used his learning to help others. He has a palpable tenderness. All the staff modeled non-judgmental behaviors and language and created psychological safety. Terri Altschul

I loved this course. Both Mark and Jared did a nice job of sharing their personal experiences for relevance and theory. It's hard to name my favourite because I loved it all. My awareness of trauma has increased and it has not only helped me personally but also my coaching practice. The fifth session of ``clients experiencing trauma`` and the 10 actions was extremely helpful. I would like to see more of the science of trauma and some somatic exercises. It was well paced and the summary at the end was helpful.

Trauma Awareness in Coaching offers you what they promise: to raise your awareness regarding possible trauma in your clients. It gives you the confidence to know what to do when the situation arises that trauma is hindering the coaching. It makes you aware as a coach of your ethical boundaries when working with clients. I really loved the trainers Max and Jared. They were professional, blending theory with best practices, accessible and inclusive.

The instructors were very approachable and did a good job presenting the material in an easy to understand way. I feel more confident if trauma comes up both in my personal life and in my coaching sessions.

I very much enjoyed the class and also the content. I was only expecting an introduction to Trauma Awareness and I feel I got exactly that. I love the videos and break out group chats (wish those were a bit longer so that everyone felt like they got to share and be heard).

I want to express my sincere gratitude for sharing your experiences, insights, and tools with us. Your expertise and guidance have made it possible for me to better understand and address trauma, even as a non-psychologist.

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