Cape Cod Institute
















I've been taking a little break from blogging for the last couple of weeks as I've been having some holiday time with no fellowship appointments. It has been restful and brilliant with lots of sightseeing in Memphis, New Orleans and New York. In this blog entry I'll be talking about my experience attending a Bessel van der Kolk conference at the Cape Cod Institute which I attended just before my holiday started.

The Cape Cod Institute has been running annual continuing education conferences every summer for 40 years, all aimed at mental health professionals. I was so excited to attend the conference with Dr van der Kolk, particularly as his ideas and writing largely formed the basis of the focus of my fellowship.

Dr van der Kolk presented a range of approaches for working effectively with trauma. He encourages clinicians to have trained in a number of different approaches and interventions, as trauma recovery is neither linear nor simple and it may take time to identify the most useful approach for each individual. In particular, he emphasises that talking therapy alone is rarely sufficient. As trauma is stored in the body, somatic engagement will be required in order to heal. When someone is in a state of traumatisation a purely cognitive is unlikely to be successful. Dr van der Kolk talked with great expertise and passion about the ways in which theatre, dance, singing and yoga can be utilised. He also presented very useful and interesting material regarding adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early attachment experiences. It was also of great interest to hear Dr van der Kolk's views on the limitations of only offering 'evidence based' approaches- as an experienced researcher he knows that often it is very difficult to get new research funded, meaning that there are many highly effective and innovative approaches to treating trauma that will not necessarily have an evidence base behind them.

Attending the Institute was a fantastic experience, and I am extremely grateful to the Churchill Memorial Trust for funding my attendance at the conference. I look forward to reflecting further on the learning in my fellowship report.






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