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Therapeutic Impossibility: When Trauma Survivors Systematically Dismantle Therapy

Frank Anderson, MD
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Description

Clients with histories of trauma may present with intense protective responses that interfere with therapeutic engagement, including dissociation, emotional numbing, anger, avoidance, perfectionism, sudden withdrawal, or rupture in the therapeutic relationship. These responses are often adaptive survival strategies shaped by early environments in which vulnerability was unsafe. When unrecognized or misinterpreted as resistance or noncompliance, such protective behaviors can lead to treatment impasses, repeated therapeutic ruptures, or premature termination. This two-part continuing education course, led by Dr. Frank Anderson, provides clinicians with a structured, neuroscience-informed framework for identifying and responding to extreme protective responses in trauma treatment. The course examines how the nervous system encodes threat in relational contexts, including how prior attachment and “helping relationship” trauma can cause care, empathy, or emotional closeness to be experienced as coercive or unsafe. Participants will learn practical, evidence-based strategies for differentiating extreme protective responses from surface-level resistance, recognizing early indicators of therapeutic destabilization, and engaging protective systems in a manner that maintains safety, therapeutic boundaries, and clinical effectiveness. Emphasis is placed on preventing retraumatization, repairing therapeutic ruptures, and sustaining treatment momentum with clients who present as highly defended or ambivalent about connection. This course is designed for mental health professionals seeking to enhance their competence in working with complex trauma presentations and challenging therapeutic dynamics.

Educational Goal

The educational goal of this course is to enhance clinicians’ ability to identify and respond effectively to extreme protective responses in trauma-exposed clients using a neuroscience-informed framework. Participants will learn strategies to differentiate protection from resistance, maintain therapeutic engagement, and prevent rupture or retraumatization in complex clinical presentations.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Identify the protective strategies that most often interfere with therapeutic progress, including dissociation, emotional numbing, anger, avoidance, perfectionism, and self-criticism.

  • Recognise the subtle cues that signal when ordinary resistance is shifting into extreme protection—moments when therapy itself is about to be dismantled.

  • Understand how and why these responses form in the nervous system, especially when early experiences made vulnerability unsafe.

  • Evaluate how “helping relationship trauma” can prime the nervous system to interpret care as coercion and empathy as betrayal.

  • Differentiate protective behaviours from more surface-level resistance so you can address what’s really happening in the client’s inner world.

  • Implement protectors with curiosity and compassion instead of confrontation, interpretation, or premature attempts at emotional processing.

  • Distinguish protectors when they appear reactive, hostile, or rejecting—without personalising the response or abandoning the therapeutic frame.

  • Build trust over time so that deeper emotional material can emerge without retraumatisation or shutdown.

  • Develop internal resources to withstand the intensity of therapeutic attacks without losing connection or confidence.

Target Audience

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

Presenters

Frank Anderson, MD
Frank Anderson, MD, is a world-renowned trauma expert, Harvard-trained psychiatrist and global speaker. He is the co-author of the IFS Skills Training Manual (2017), acclaimed best-selling author of Transcending Trauma (2021) and newly released memoir, To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma and Transformation (2024). Dr Anderson has a long affiliation with Bessel van der Kolk and is on the board at the Trauma Research Foundation. A former Lead Trainer with the IFS Institute, Dr. Anderson is also a member of the Clinical Advisory Board with Unyte Health. He is passionate about teaching brain-based psychotherapy and integrating current neuroscience knowledge with cutting edge models of therapy. Dr. Anderson believes that traumatic events can have a lasting effect on the health and well-being of individuals and that addressing these events will help lead people down a path of love, connection and unity. He is the director and cofounder of the Trauma Institute (traumainstitute.com) and Trauma-Informed Media (trauma-informedmedia.com), organizations that provide educational resources and promote trauma awareness. As a result of his early childhood experiences and personal journey transformation, he is dedicated to bringing more trauma healing to the world. He resides in Los Angeles with his husband and two sons. Follow him at FrankAndersonMD.com and on Instagram at frank_andersonmd.

Financially Sponsored By

  • nscience