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Digital Recording

Infertility Grief and Trauma: Integrative Strategies for Working with Individuals and Couples to Decrease Mental Health Symptoms and Move Through Grief


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Speaker:
Loree Johnson, PhD, LMFT
Duration:
6 Hours 24 Minutes
Format:
Audio and Video
Copyright:
Apr 21, 2023
Product Code:
POS059219
Media Type:
Digital Recording
Access:
Never expires.


Description

“Do you have kids?”

This common intake question is intended to gather information, forge connection, and build context around your clients’ lives.

But for your clients experiencing infertility, it is a major trigger. And it activates the grief and isolation inherent in involuntary childlessness.

As more individuals start their families at older ages and the presence of reproductive challenges increases, infertility trauma and grief will show up in more therapy practices.

Without specific training in infertility grief and trauma, you won’t be effective at challenging inadequacy beliefs, negative self-worth, shame, worry, irritability, depression, body issues, and relationship conflict these clients experience - nor be equipped to navigate the myriad of heartbreaks they face.

Don’t let therapy be a place where clients coping with current or previous infertility feel further stigmatized.

Watch Dr. Loree Johnson, LMFT, fertility counselling and reproductive trauma expert, for this dynamic one-day training that will give you the skills you need to process infertility grief and trauma with your clients. Using the lens of cultural humility, you’ll learn strategies to:

  • Ask the right questions to get to the heart of your clients’ infertility experience
  • Intervene with individuals and couples using EMDR, somatic and emotion-focused techniques, and more
  • Assess your clients’ intersectional identity to contextualize their reproductive story
  • Utilize the dual process model to support grief at all life stages

Packed with case studies, exercises, and compelling self-reflections for the therapist, this training will have you ready to meet the growing need for support around infertility.

Purchase today!

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - Relevant relationships

Dr. Danny Porcelli is an independent contractor presenter with RockTape USA. His relevant financial relationship with an ineligible company has been mitigated.
 
All other members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the remaining committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.


CPD

This online program is worth 6.5 hours CPD.



Handouts

Speaker

Loree Johnson, PhD, LMFT's Profile

Loree Johnson, PhD, LMFT Related seminars and products


Loree Johnson, PhD, LMFT, graduated from Syracuse University with a master’s and doctorate in marriage and family therapy. Inspired by one of the first mental health programs to weave the basic tenets of social justice into the field of family therapy, she started her career in community mental health and now works in private practice in Hermosa Beach, CA. As a result of her reproductive story, Dr. Johnson sought training in fertility counseling and reproductive trauma. She is certified in EMDR. Dr. Johnson has been an active member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy for more than 20 years and has served in various board positions at the state and national levels. She completed her tenure on the Anti-Racism Task Force for the Mental Health Professionals Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In addition to reproductive psychology, Dr. Johnson is passional about therapists and reducing disparities in the infertility and loss communities that impact access to treatment, care, and outcomes.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Loree Johnson maintains a private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Loree Johnson is a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the EMDR International Association.


Objectives

  1. Evaluate the DSM V-TR™ definition of trauma as related to infertility.
  2. Investigate infertility grief in the context of clients’ intersectional identity.
  3. Utilize techniques to decrease the stigma of infertility.
  4. Employ interventions to reduce emotional distress related to infertility in individual clients.
  5. Assess the impact of infertility on intimate relationships.
  6. Investigate the potential risks and benefits of therapist self-disclosure related to fertility.

Outline

Infertility Trauma and Your Client
  • The most surprising facts about infertility
  • Where is the line between infertility stress and infertility trauma
  • Social infertility
  • Top questions to understand your client’s experience
  • Cultural humility as a critical element
  • Tips for assessing your client’s intersectional identity
  • Exercise – therapist self-assessment
  • Case study – mental health symptoms alongside ongoing fertility treatments
Reproductive Grief: Thrust Against the Margins
  • Infertility and reproductive grief as disenfranchised loss
  • Embracing and avoiding loss - dualprocess grief model
  • Best practices for assessing and monitoring your client’s grief
  • Infertility loss grief interventions
  • Strategies for decreasing grief stigma
  • Grief and cultural humility
  • Case study – termination for medical reasons after IVF
Trauma-Informed Therapy for Infertility
  • EMDR and somatic resourcing techniques
  • Adapting EFT and Gottman Method for infertile couples
  • Strategies to strengthen attachment, reduce emotional distress, and facilitate grieving
  • Common partner communication challenges: resentments, intimacy, financial strain, and more
  • Crisis management techniques to address immediate trauma
  • Foundational strategies to address chronic experience of infertility
  • Exercise – resource development for infertility distress
  • Case study – couple contemplating involuntary childlessness
Clinical Considerations
  • Tailoring interventions to clients’ unique identities
  • Self-disclosure and how culture influences it
  • Management of countertransference and therapist reactivity
  • Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

  • Counsellors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychologists
  • Psychiatrists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Addiction Counsellors
  • Case Managers
  • Psychiatric Nurses
  • Physicians
  • Nurses
  • Other Mental Health Professionals

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