Presence Under Pressure: Existential-Humanistic and Multicultural Practice in Trauma-Informed Care
Keynote Speaker: Theopia Jackson, Ph.D.
Cost: $50 - $195
In-person at George Fox University
Portland Center
12753 SW 68th Ave.
Portland, OR 97223
Online via Zoom
Description:
Maintaining an existential-humanistic stance when a client's safety may be at risk requires balancing rigorous legal duties with deep phenomenological presence, and few situations test that balance more severely than those in which the law asks the clinician to act. Clinicians and supervisors must cultivate a high capacity for "presence" and "holding space," allowing them to sit with the existential dread, powerlessness, and terror (the person of the therapist) that such cases evoke without prematurely rushing to clinical detachment or intellectualization. This tension between the humanistic commitment to the client as the primary expert in their own healing and the mandates of the institutions within which clinicians practice is not particular to any population; it arises wherever a practitioner sits with suffering inside a system.
Drawing from an existential-humanistic, multicultural, trauma-informed framework, this interactive full-day workshop with Theopia R. Jackson, Ph.D., will utilize critical discourse, vignettes, experientials, and videos to engage participants in expanding their conceptualization and treatment when safety concerns arise, in addressing the clinician's vicarious trauma as an existential encounter with suffering, and in synthesizing philosophical depth, cultural humility, and trauma science into actionable clinical practice.
Case material will draw on potential child abuse situations, among the most demanding contexts in which these questions present themselves, through the skills, the stance, and the ethical reasoning developed over the day translate directly to work with adults, adolescents, couples, and families across settings. Practitioners at every stage of career will find value, with particular relevance for clinicians-in-training, early career professionals, and those who supervise them.
About Theopia Jackson, Ph.D.
Theopia Jackson, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist who received her master’s degree in clinical psychology from Howard University, Washington, DC, and her doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Jackson has held several leadership roles in higher education and is the immediate past Chair of the Department of Humanistic Clinical Psychology degree program at Saybrook University in Pasadena, California. She recently launched Sekhmet Wellness, LLC, providing mental health and consultation/training services. Dr. Jackson is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) Council of Representatives (CoR) on behalf of Division 32 Society for Humanistic Psychology. She is a past president of The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), Inc.
Dr. Jackson relocated to Maryland after more than 30 years of practice in the Bay Area. There, she held medical privileges at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland. She practiced in the Healthy Hearts program, Department of Psychiatry, as Associate Training Director, and was also affiliated with the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center. Dr. Jackson served as the Clinical Training Director at the Women’s Therapy Center in El Cerrito, CA, and was an external supervisor for several community mental health programs. She managed a vibrant private practice and consultation in the Bay Area. Dr. Jackson is a co-developer of the Therapist-in-Residency Program (TnRP), a clinical training program grounded in Black psychology, and of the Emotional Emancipation CirclesSM, a community-defined practice that is a collaboration between the Community Healing Network, Inc., and ABPsi. She serves on the medical advisory council for the Sickle Cell Community Advisory Council (SCCAC) and several boards. Dr. Jackson has a long history of providing child, adolescent, and family therapy services, specializing in serving populations coping with chronic illness and complex trauma. Honoring culturally grounded psychospiritual healing, liberation, and activism, Dr. Jackson espouses: “What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help [them] to learn.” ~African proverb
For any questions, contact us at: event-host@ehnwpdx.org