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GXC 2025 Online Virtual Conference - Mental Health Without Borders

Clinical Applications of Relational Trauma Repair (RTR): Family Trauma, C-PTSD, and Recovery

Tian Dayton, Ph.D. 🇺🇸
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Description

In this focused 60-minute presentation, Dr. Tian Dayton will examine how growing up with addiction in the family impacts development, relationships, and identity, often leaving adult children of addicts (ACAs) vulnerable to complex trauma, codependency, and dysregulated stress responses. Drawing from decades of clinical expertise and her own lived experience, Dr. Dayton will highlight both the why and the how of healing these intergenerational wounds.


Central to her work is Relational Trauma Repair (RTR), a psychodramatically informed, experiential model that integrates sociometry, nervous system regulation, and guided exercises to foster repair. Through the lens of psychodrama, attendees will learn how survival adaptations, such as hypervigilance and self-reliance, once necessary in childhood become ingrained relational blueprints and how structured experiential methods can shift these patterns toward connection, safety, and resilience.


This presentation will give participants a clear understanding of the theoretical foundations of RTR and psychodrama, as well as their practical relevance for clinical work with ACAs, families, and trauma survivors.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Describe the developmental and relational effects of growing up in a family system impacted by addiction, with attention to survival adaptations and their long-term consequences (Dayton, 2010; van der Kolk, 2014).

  • Explain the theoretical underpinnings of psychodrama and how they inform the Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) model (Moreno, as cited in Dayton, 2020).

  • Discuss how RTR methods such as role reversal, doubling, and the social atom offer pathways for clients to enhance self-regulation, repair relational ruptures, and foster resilience (Dayton, 2020; Porges, 2011).

Educational Goal

Participants will expand their professional expertise in applying experiential, psychodramatic methods to the treatment of complex relational trauma. They will gain practical skills to guide clients toward nervous-system regulation, relational repair, and resilient recovery in their future clinical work.

Target Audience

  • Addiction Professional
  • Counselor
  • Marriage & Family Therapist
  • Social Worker

Presenters

Tian Dayton, Ph.D. 🇺🇸
For more than thirty years, Dr. Dayton has been a leading voice in the fields of trauma healing, addiction recovery and experiential, embodied therapy. A clinical psychologist, licensed creative arts therapist, and certified trainer in psychodrama and sociometry, with a master’s in educational psychology she is a Senior Fellow at The Meadows and the author of over fifteen acclaimed books including Growing Up with Addiction, Treating Adult Children of Relational Trauma, The ACoA Trauma Syndrome, Sociometrics, Emotional Sobriety, Forgiving and Moving On, and Trauma and Addiction. Her pioneering work integrates psychodrama, sociometry, and nervous system-informed approaches into a cohesive model Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) used by therapists and treatment centers across the world. As a Fellow of the American Society of Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy, she has received their highest honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Scholar’s Award, President’s Award and Gratitude Award. She also served for eight years as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy. She is on the scientific board of The National Association of Children of Alcoholics, (NACoA). In the addiction’s field, her contributions have been recognized with The Martie Mann Award The Mona Mansell Award and The Ackermann Black Award. Dr. Dayton’s work is widely respected in both academic and clinical settings, as well as in the public sphere. She has been a guest expert on NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other national platforms, and is a frequent speaker at leading conferences on trauma, mental health, and recovery. To learn more about her work, visit www.tiandayton.com.

Financially Sponsored By

  • GXC Events - The Global Exchange Conference