Michael Shiffman, PhD, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #122513) in private practice in Los Angeles. Michael is a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), a certified Neuroaffective Relational Model Therapist (NARM), a Level 2 PACT Couple Therapist, and is trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Michael is uniquely trained in the use of touch for trauma resolution and attachment repair.
Michael sees individuals and couples, and runs groups. His clinical work is mindfulness based, somatically grounded and asset oriented. He has a substantial background working with anxiety, panic, traumatic stress, substance abuse and recovery, relapse prevention, and somatic-oriented therapeutic practices. He teaches mindfulness meditation, neuroaffective regulation and somatic psychotherapy.
Michael received his PhD from the UCLA department of sociology. His academic training includes conversation analysis, social movements, labor union history, gender studies, and social psychology. His doctoral dissertation was on family trauma and posttraumatic stress among adult children of alcoholics. He has worked in program evaluation, health care research, grant writing and has provided technical services at UCLA and through several private computer companies.
Michael began meditating in 1994 under the guidance of Shinzen Young. He founded LA Dharma in 1999 through which he hosted a meditation group and coordinated 20 daylong retreats and two large conferences with teachers from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Insight Meditation Center. In 2002 he began teaching mindfulness meditation and has since taught beginning, intermediate and advanced meditation practices. He studied with Shinzen Young and Jason Siff, and has studied and practiced with Rev. Hye Wol Sunim since 2002. Michael loves to cook and is frequently happy at home in Encino, California.
For more details, visit his website at https://michaelshiffman.com.
Michael Shiffman, PhD, LMFT
Complex Trauma:
From Transgenerational to Intrapsychic
March 23, 2024
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Pacific Time via Zoom
Complex trauma is distinctively different from simple trauma. Its effect on our hearts, minds and bodies radically changes the inner-most core of our being. It is different from the ordinary and extraordinary traumas of our everyday lives. To begin to comprehend the depth of complex trauma demands a willingness to understand both the lived experience and the existential meanings of that experience. It deeply affects the very logic of our being, our ontological security.
We will explore Complex PTSD from both transgenerational origins and the local neurophysiological symptoms. While neurophysiological and neuroaffective traumatic reactivity is observable in our offices, transgenerational trauma most often can only be inferred, experienced as an omnipresent haunting.
Trauma therapy is a non-linear three-stage process that requires effective reorganization of both somatic reactions and psycho-social identity. Top-down and bottom-up processing is essential in both PTSD and C-PTSD. In this workshop we will expand our conceptualization of top-down processing of identity to include the impact of transgenerational and intergenerational trauma.
Most of us are familiar with the basics of nervous system regulation in trauma therapy. As such, intergenerational trauma is generally treated as arising in the family system and most often related to sexual abuse, intimate violence, addiction, and mental illness. We will integrate the broader context to give deeper meaning to these familial struggles.
Transgenerational trauma addresses the historical context, older and broader than the family. This would include the horrors of slavery, the Holocaust, genocide and ethnic or religious cleansing, sexual and gender persecution, and the impact of multi-country and multicultural migrations to escape persecution.
Continuing Education
Continuing Education credits are available for this training.
Psychologists: The Insight Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Insight Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This course provides 4 CE.
MFTs / LCSWs / LPCCs: The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts APA authorized continuing education. This course provides 4 CE.
Workshop Overview
The first part of this workshop will be an explication of transgenerational and intergenerational trauma. This will involve didactics, small group and group as a whole discussions.
The second part of the workshop will review the basics of trauma physiology, the three-stage treatment model, activation-deactivation cycles, and the value of authenticity and transparency.
The third part of the workshop will address developmental deficits and their association with adult attachment strategies. We will address how compromises to the capacity for connection, attunement, trust, and autonomy, can be repaired by creating the felt-sense of safety and security, feeling seen and known, and feeling valued and comforted.
The last part of the workshop will address therapist self-care in providing trauma therapy and will include an extended question-answer discussion period.
Instructional Objectives
Participants will be able to:
Describe transgenerational and intergenerational trauma;
Appropriately discuss the impact of transgenerational trauma;
Differentiate between PTSD and C-PTSD;
Identify top-down and bottom-up processing of trauma;
Describe neurophysiological and neuroaffective trauma symptoms;
Explain methods for therapist self-care while providing trauma therapy.