Melissa (Missy) Bradley-Ball – Breaking the Bonds of Sexual Trauma

Outline

FOUNDATIONAL ESSENTIALS OF TRAUMA

• Assessing the client’s trauma composite
• Effectively and safely working with the micro and macro story
• The #1 factor contributing to PTSD and long-term intimacy disruption, and how to deal with it

LEVELS OF FUNCTIONING

• Victim
  • Creating safety, support, therapeutic alliance, & skills
  • Building the resilience bridge
• Survivor
  • Helping clients integrate the trauma into their life narrative
  • Grieving and mourning well
• Thriver
  • The heroic narrative is integrated
  • Trust in self and in the life process is restored

THE COMPLEXITY OF SEXUAL TRAUMA

• Trauma activation rituals, trauma composites, and sexualized trauma composites
• Repetition and why it happens
• How to direct the ritual
• Recognizing and dismantling trauma composites
• Themis: the often hidden PRIMARY trauma
• Somatic, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and sensory details
• Sexual trauma reactivation over the course of a lifespan
• Developmental (possible) “flare up” times
• Medical: reactivation of sexual trauma
• When medical issues mimic sexual trauma

RESILIENCY-BASED CLINICAL STRATEGIES FOR TREATING SEXUAL TRAUMA

• Assessing strengths and deficits of post-traumatic growth
• Considerations and implementations with different approaches
• Group
• Couple
• Individual
• Family
• Setting up resources
  • Somatic grounding-creating safety and resetting natural survival responses
  • Energy psychology approaches
  • Cognitive-behavioral approaches and creation of positive portfolios
  • “Preparing the team”
  • Making sense of the trauma, and finding purpose from it
    • The “heroic journey” resilience narrative
    • Utilizing movies and literature as resources
    • Assisting the client to incorporate resources from their spiritual tradition
    • Memories (micro or macro)-titrating the pain and incorporating the narrative

  Adjunct Therapies

  • Bodywork: Breema, Reiki, massage, acupuncture, and more
  • Appropriate timing for encouraging the use of other resources

  Special Topics for Consideration

  • Working with sexually avoidant clients and their partners
  • Working with “promiscuity”: is it trauma re-enactment?
  • Working with trauma clients with BDSM lifestyles
  • Working with victims of military sexual trauma and human trafficking

    Faculty

    Melissa (Missy) Bradley-Ball, MS, NCC, BCETS, FAAETS,Related seminars and products:3

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    Melissa (Missy) Bradley-Ball, MS, NCC, BCETS, FAAETS, is a nationally recognized clinical educator, corporate consultant, family mediator, and author with over 37 years of experience as a psychotherapist, providing individual, group, and family therapy. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Music Education and Master of Counseling Psychology from the University of Tennessee. Her extensive EMDR training (Level I, II, and specialized protocols) helped her become a trailblazer in the field of sexual trauma through a Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth model and she often trains personnel at medical/mental health agencies, universities, school systems, and other facilities. An in-demand Child Sexual Abuse Investigator, expert court witness, and subject matter expert on sexual assault with the Pentagon, Mrs. Bradley-Ball has conducted seminars for more than 300,000 medical, behavioral health, law enforcement, educators, clergy, and military personnel, as well as members of the public throughout the U.S., Canada, and Central America. She was a primary speaker for the first National Conference on Post-Traumatic Growth in 2011.

    Her frequent keynote addresses at regional and national conferences – as well as television and radio news broadcasts – have won her the Scripps Howard Award for Broadcasting Excellence, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and numerous other accolades. She is currently working on a PBS special about the heroic journey of children healing from divorce.

    Speaker Disclosures:

    Financial: Melissa Bradley-Ball is the owner of The Omnibus Center. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

    Non-financial: Melissa Bradley-Ball is a member of the American Counseling Association. She is a Fellow and Diplomate for American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.