Treating Anxiety in Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) Clients Utilizing a Somatic Approach

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All 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 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.

Handouts

Speaker

Chinwé Williams, PhD Related seminars and products

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Chinwé Williams, PhD, and Licensed and Board-Certified EMDR therapist has been supporting BIPOC clients with trauma recovery for over a decade. She serves the BIPOC community as a published researcher, author, consultant, educator, and a featured expert blog and media contributor. She specializes in somatically focused approaches to teach clients how to regulate the nervous system and safely use the body for healing racial trauma. A former faculty member at Georgia State University, the University of Central Florida, and Rollins College, her expertise lies in areas of trauma recovery, stress/anxiety management, adolescent and women’s wellness, race-related traumatic stress, and equity centered trauma informed education. She is on the advisory board for Brightline – a behavioral health company that provides telemedicine to kids, teens, and families where she consults on how best to support BIPOC youth and families through programs, content and care team training. She is the owner of Meaningful Solutions Counseling & Consulting, a thriving private practice in Roswell, GA and the co-author of the bestselling book Seen: Healing Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teens Through the Power of Connection.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Chinwé Williams is the co-owner of Southeastern Counselor Training Institute and has an employment relationship with Meaningful Solutions Counseling & Consulting. She receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Williams receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations. Non-financial: Dr. Chinwé Williams has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Objectives

1. Apply simple, effective clinical interventions to assist BIPOC clients to regulate their nervous system after experiencing anxiety provoking physiological cues, triggers, and emotional reactivity.
2. Utilize 3 somatic resources that can help BIPOC clients to decrease symptoms of chronic anxiety, as well as manage emotional and physical symptoms of anxiety and panic in the moment.
3. Apply simple treatment interventions that will empower BIPOC clients to build creative embodied resources to respond to stressors related to personal challenges (or social injustices) in flexible and adaptive ways while uncovering their own internal growth and resilience.

Outline

• Anxiety as a Physical State
  • Mind-body connection
  • Strategies for treating the mind-body system (vs. treating body and mind separately)
  • Common physical warning signs and anxiety symptoms in BIPOC clients
  • Assessment questions and clinical intake strategies for broaching race-based topics with clients
• Bringing in the Body with BIPOC clients: Somatic Skills for Healing
  • Resources to widen their window of tolerance
  • Increasing awareness of internal cues indicating threat
  • Stress-response strategies for addressing threats
  • Responses to personal or systemic adversity
  • Strategies to increase flexibility and resilience
• EMDR-inspired Resources for Reducing Anxiety (You don't have to be EMDR Trained!)
  • Resourcing early in session
  • Supporting a regulated nervous system in therapy
  • Integrating EMDR-inspired techniques with YOUR therapeutic approach
  • Root memory recall to identify anxiety events
  • Positivity resources and use of the imagination for anxiety resilience

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Physicians
• Psychologists
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Social Workers
• Other Mental Health Professionals