Recorded Workshops for Therapists, Coaches, Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Ministers, and Other Helping Professionals
These training workshops are designed to help therapists, coaches, teachers, nurses, and other helping professionals show clients how to recognize shame, work through it and move on. You will learn how to counter shame and how to become more sensitive to the shaming often implicit in the helping situation and level the playing field. We will explore ways to help clients separate feelings of shame from other emotions. And you’ll learn how to take clients back to early shaming situations and reverse the outcome, helping clients move their energy powerfully outward rather than turn it against themselves.
Each of our workshops has a balance of didactic, experiential and interactive elements. In each, there are live demonstrations to anchor the theory and techniques taught, as well as questions and comments from participants. While we strongly recommend beginning with the Core Workshop, the workshops can be taken in any order.
“Clinically, shame is at the root of depression, trauma, addiction, eating disorders and substance abuse. What keeps these psychological issues in place is toxic shame. In place are the are automatic thoughts, and secret or not so secret inner conversations that the person has with him or herself and their inner child age 2 or 5 or ten or the inner teen. And the shame loop that keeps things in place.”
–Sheila Rubin
“I loved the online course. Zoom made it as close to reality as technologically possible. The class size was perfect, enough people for stimulating questions and conversation and small enough to feel intimate. The charts you provided will be so useful. Sheila and Bret, you and your assistants are providing a greatly needed service. Thank you so much! I’ve learned a lot from you and look forward to attending another workshop. Until then, I’m already benefiting watching the recordings, gleaning even more the second time around.”
–Charlette Mikulka, LCSW, author of Peace in the Heart and Home
“I’ve been thinking lots about today’s workshop and how incredible it is that the 2 of you manage to seamlessly create a sense of connection and community among a group of people from all over the world. I was also struck by how compelling the content was and how as I mentioned earlier I learn more every time I participate in one of your sessions. I feel that this session in particular deepened my understanding of how to pendulate the work w/ shame and broadened my repertoire of possible ways to invoke protectors. Bret, the demo was beautiful and so moving. What a visceral impact it had!”
–Fran S., PhD, LCSW, New York
The Center for Healing Shame is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs in California – CAMFT-approved CE provider #134393. Recorded courses meet the qualifications for hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
At this time, we are able to provide CE credit only to LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs in California. We are not able to offer CE credit to psychologists or nurses in California or to psychologists, therapists, or nurses licensed outside of California in the U.S. and Canada.
By fulfilling course requirements, LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs licensed outside of California in the U.S. and Canada can receive an Hours of Attendance certificate. This certificate indicates that the Center for Healing Shame is an approved continuing education provider in California. LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs may be able to use the Hours of Attendance certificate to receive CE credit through their state board. Many of our past students have been able to do this. Eligibility varies by state and by board.
It is the participant's responsibility to check with their individual state board to verify continuing education requirements for their state.
Please visit our CE information page for details.
Healing Shame Core Workshop:
Understanding, Reducing and Transforming Shame
Shame is perhaps the most painful of all emotions. It is at the root of both the inner critic and perfectionism. It binds with and hides behind other emotions, such as anger and fear, so that it is often hard to detect. Many people go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging or even feeling shame—and this gets in the way of making progress in treatment.
In this workshop, designed for therapists and other helping professionals, you will become aware of shame as both a primary emotion and a freeze state, which has a profound effect on personal development and relationship success, and which has been terribly neglected in most psychotherapy. You will learn that shame cannot be worked with in the same way as the other primary emotions and that special care needs to be taken to work with shame in specific ways.
There is no prerequisite for this course.
Melting the Shame Freeze:
Using Somatic Techniques to Create Safety and Build Attunement
Shame is an embodied belief that "something is wrong with me." Because shame exists in the body as well as in the mind, it is helpful for therapists to work with shame somatically. Clients stuck in shame have trouble seeing anyone but themselves. It can be hard for them to receive support from another person as they are caught in the grip of shame.
In this workshop, we will explore how to utilize somatic techniques to connect more quickly with the client and forge a strong therapeutic alliance.
There is no prerequisite for this course.
Using Interpersonal Skills to Heal Shame –
Undoing Aloneness and Building Attachment
In many studies of the effectiveness of therapy, a strong connection between therapist and client has been noted as the clearest predictor of success. And yet our own fear and shame of doing the wrong thing can get in the way of that connection. In this workshop, you will discover powerful tools to connect with a client quickly and deeply. We will provide demonstrations to help you decide when to hold back and when to bring yourself forward, both emotionally and physically, and we will examine ways to level the playing field that shame distorts—and combine the seemingly contradictory roles of caring friend and trusted expert.
There is no prerequisite for this course.
Top artwork by Sheila Rubin