Training for Clinicians/Counselors/Therapists/Helping Professions (CEU Credits Available!)
ABOVE ALL ELSE:
Identifying and Working with Spiritual Trauma in Our Clients and in Ourselves
Join us April 11th from 9:00am – 4:00pm in-person in Arlington, MA or virtually via Zoom!
The event “Above All Else: Identifying and Working with Spiritual Trauma in Our Clients and in Ourselves” on April 11th, 2025, led by Dr. Sean St. Jean, is designed for therapists and professionals working with individuals impacted by spiritual trauma. It will cover key topics such as understanding spiritual and emotional wounds, practical recovery techniques, managing burnout in helping professionals, and navigating countertransference in therapy. The training offers a biblical and therapeutic approach to addressing spiritual trauma, with a focus on healing and self-care for both clients and practitioners. Participants will engage in interactive sessions, reflection groups, and gain valuable tools to support those affected by spiritual abuse and trauma!
Why Attend?
This event offers an invaluable opportunity for therapists and helping professionals to deepen their understanding of spiritual trauma and learn effective, faith-based strategies for recovery. Attendees will gain insights into recognizing and addressing spiritual wounds, both in their clients and themselves. By attending, you will:
- Learn practical, biblical methods for helping clients heal from spiritual abuse and trauma.
- Discover tools for preventing and managing burnout and compassion fatigue in helping professionals.
- Gain strategies for navigating challenging therapeutic dynamics, including countertransference and ethical concerns in faith-based settings.
- Participate in meaningful reflection and group discussions to enhance your own self-awareness and healing.
- Equip yourself with a comprehensive framework for supporting individuals dealing with spiritual trauma, while safeguarding your own mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
This training will provide both professional growth and personal enrichment, ensuring you are better equipped to serve those in need of spiritual trauma recovery!
This presentation will be led by
Dr. Sean St. Jean, MSW, RSW
Dr. Sean St. Jean has been a clinical therapist for the past 15 years. He has shared his helpful insights on trauma, occupational stress, and organizational health at conferences around the world. Sean has been a disciple of Jesus since 1996. He is currently a full-time associate professor at King University (Bristol, Tennessee), teaching therapy at a graduate level. He is also a therapist in private practice and has worked with hundreds of church members and ministry staff globally who are struggling with spiritual trauma, workplace stress, relationship issues or ministry burnout. His book, “Spiritual Trauma: A Guide to Healing Your Heart From Church Hurts” was published in 2023 and can be found at www.seanstjean.com. Sean currently serves on the ICOC Ministers Wellness Committee (now an Elder Service Team task force) and has contracted with HOPE Worldwide to provide counselling support to disciples internationally. Sean, his wife Erin, and their three children live in British Columbia, Canada and are members of the Vancouver Church of Christ.
Class Descriptions:
Class 1: “Above All Else: Finding Clarity Through the ABC Model of Spiritual Trauma”
Are the ideas of spiritual and emotional trauma even biblical? If we keep talking about church hurts, won’t we become a group of victims? This session explores the biblical case for the concept of spiritual wounds, presents the ABC model of spiritual abuse, and steps participants through a God-honoring process for healing.
The class includes:
- The constructs of religious trauma, spiritual trauma, and spiritual abuse, including an overview of some of the philosophical debates
- The nature of faith-based emotional and psychological trauma
- Presentation of the ABC Model of Spiritual Abuse and its utility for discerning between qualitatively different harms that can befall clients within faith groups
- The strong relationship between church trauma and childhood trauma
Class 2: “The Hurt is Real: Practical Steps for Recovering a Heart After Spiritual Trauma and Abuse”
This class is intended for therapists who encounter religious and spiritual trauma. Intimate and focused on emotional safety, the workshop teaches powerful (and biblical) trauma-recovery techniques to help Christians find healing for their hearts in a God-honoring way.
The class includes:
- A biblical understanding of “the flesh” and its utility in understanding, depathologizing, and addressing trauma symptoms in the body
- The “older brother” paradigm (from the Prodigal Son narrative) that tight knit and performance-based churches often find themselves in
- The role of identifying “Satan” as a useful tool for depathologizing client reactions and as a faith-affirming lens through which to explain cognitive-behavioral concepts to clients
- Mezzo and macro-level interventions (working with churches, advocacy)
- Use of a Motivational Interviewing approach to heal spiritual trauma
- A therapeutic structure that identifies and guides a client through the phases of therapy
Class #3: “Signal Interference: Identifying and Working Through Countertransference Reactions When Treating Spiritual Trauma”
Christian counselors are routinely faced with the struggle of hearing spiritual trauma narratives that occasionally resemble their own faith experience. This can have the effect of skewing our perspective and compromising our objectivity as mental health clinicians. Elements such as shared spiritual trauma experiences, collectively held doctrines and lenses, and church culture dynamics can each undermine ethical and effective care and can contribute substantially to occupational stress.
This class explores:
- the phenomena of transference, countertransference, and enactment, as they apply to the dual relationship of counselor-client and spiritual relative in Christ.
- Legal and ethical implications and procedures
- Best practices for addressing the transference, countertransference, and enactment in the therapeutic relationship
- Ethical struggles of working with dual relationships, confidentiality, conflicts of interest in the church
Class #4: “Back to the Garden: Wholehearted Living for Burned-Out Helping Professionals”
Is it a sin to enjoy your work? What about your labors with God for his kingdom? Drawing on my doctoral research on occupational trauma and burnout within helping professionals (counsellors, ministers, etc), I discuss the biggest threats to therapists and provide evidence-informed methods that we can use to reclaim our hearts, minds, and bodies for God.
This class includes:
- Review of the constructs of clinician burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and secondary traumatic stress, including their differing symptom profiles
- The relationship between adverse childhood experiences and susceptibility to occupational trauma and workplace triggers (the subject of my doctoral research)
- Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual techniques for reducing workplace stress
- An exploration of misbeliefs held by clinicians that give rise to stress and burnout
Training Itinerary
9:00am-9:15am: Coffee, Introductions
9:15am-9:30am: 1-2-4-All Exercise, Wicked Questions
9:30am-10:30am: CLASS 1″Above All Else: Finding Clarity Through the ABC Model of Spiritual Trauma”
10:30am-10:45am”: Class 1 Q&A
10:45am-11:00am: Morning Break
11:00am-Noon: CLASS 2 “The Hurt is Real: Recovering a Heart After Spiritual Trauma and Abuse”
Noon-1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm-1:45pm: Reflection Groups and Sharing
1:45pm-2:30pm: CLASS 3 “Back to the Garden: Wholehearted Living for Burned-Out Helping Professionals”
2:30pm-2:45pm: Class 3 Q&A
2:45pm-3:00pm: Afternoon Break
3:00pm-3:30pm: CLASS 4 “Signal Interference: Countertransference Reactions When Treating Spiritual Trauma”
3:30pm-4:00pm: Reflection Groups, Sharing, and Wrap up
Details:
When: April 11, 2025 from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Where: Boston Church Arlington, 75 Pleasant Street, Arlington, MA
CEU’s Available: 6
Cost: $50 total (optional: plus $20 if you would like CEU credits)
