Understanding Dissociative Experiences

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October 18, 2021  8:00 AM  MDT
90 minutes
CEU’s available

Description:   This seminar will explore the topic of Shame. Any behavior that is motivated by an inner sense of “not measuring up” is in fact a barrier to healthy relationships.  Shame impacts self-image and creates feelings of defectiveness and worthlessness.

Research shows that certain styles common in dysfunctional families can create an environment where secrets thrive and fosters incest and abuse. This is because of the shame base which their environment promotes and reinforces.

Understanding shame is fundamental to understanding abuse. These dynamics can be found in many institutional settings: schools, nursing homes, mental hospitals and church structures.

This seminar will help you identify Trauma Bonds that exist in relationships as pervasive patterns that include trauma repetition, avoidance, trauma pleasure, shame, reactivity, trauma splitting and abstinence.

We will highlight the basic indicators of shame based relational styles, fears, acting out, perfectionism and addictions. Learning how to identify unresolved feelings can free us from anxiety, frustration and a sense of helplessness to restore hope and the ability to dream.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand how attachments can occur in the presence of danger, shame and exploitation and the role of seduction, deception or betrayal being intertwined with danger, risk and fear.
  2. Define the “Stockholm Syndrome” as a form of traumatic bonding.
  3. Explain how traumatic shame can lead to exploitation.
  4. Describe the difference between guilt and shame.
  5. Outline the communication problems inherent in a dysfunctional family or organizational system.
  6. Learn to recognize feelings, dreams and childhood longings as important and deserving of attention and respect.

Brain Science

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How Emotional Trauma Impacts the Brain

October 18, 2021  10:00 MDT
90 minutes
CEU’s available

Description:  This seminar will explore new brain science and what we now understand about how a brain malfunctions when there has been emotional trauma.

The right and left sides of the brain are disconnected and normal cognitive processes are disrupted. With these changes, arousing events can trigger flashbacks, physical symptoms, an inability to integrate cognitive and emotional experiences, and difficulty putting words to feelings and memories.

Based on our understanding of the brain, we will explore recent research that indicates why trauma victims respond best to a sensory-based treatment model.

This brain science explains why the process of Rachelʼs Vineyard is an exceptionally powerful and effective treatment model because it helps to integrate the cognitive and emotional elements of trauma, calms and soothes the nervous system, stimulates the frontal cortex through prayer and meditation, and allows for a completion of the trauma as well as a reconnection to self, spirit and child.

This workshop will include a brief overview of the retreat and show how and where these neural connections are achieved.

Learning Objectives:

  1.  We will explore the role of different brain functions and the neurological causes of posttraumatic stress disorder as a persistent deregulation of brain chemistry.
  2. Define sensory based treatment.
  3. Understand why “talk therapy” does not always heal traumatic memories.
  4. Describe why sensory based treatment can be more appropriate for victims of trauma.
  5. Explore the role of the frontal cortex, Amygdala, brain stem and corpus coliseum in processing sensory input.
  6. Provide examples from the Rachelʼs Vineyard Retreat to explain the benefits achieved through a sensory based treatment program.

Choice Evangelism

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. . . the conspiracy of the Feminist Matriarchy

October 18, 2021  2:00 PM MDT
60 minutes
CEU’s not availble for this session

Description: This class focuses on the how many feminists seek to devalue and discount pregnancy and the mothering experience.

Their idea that abortion is a fundamental right, or the only way that women can care for themselves does not reflect the way that women actually experience abortion. It is more inherently felt as a violation of oneself rather than a caring and nurturing of oneself.

Yet women who were traumatized by this loss turn a blind eye to inner feelings of grief and oppression. Instead they vent their fervent emotions onto safer targets . . . like politics, religion, and legal battles.

This class will attempt to give you a better understanding of why some feminists have worked so hard to keep abortion legal, and how you can stand up and fight back for the rights of women. Case studies include Phyllis Chesler, Gloria Steinem, Kate Michelman, Ninia Baehr, and many more.

Learning Objectives:

  1.  To identify the psychological motivation behind early feminist need to keep abortion legal.
  2. To understand the principle repetitions of trauma in the framework of feminist theology, politics, and psychology.

Sex(ism), Identity and Intimacy

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. . . in a Pornographic Culture

October 17, 2022  12:00 PM MDT
60 minutes
Please note: this session is available for Rachel’s Vineyard Team Members only

Description: From Internet pornography to MTV, popular culture bombards us with sexualized images of idealized women and men, and conveys powerful messages that help shape our sexuality.

These pictures jump off the screen and into our culture, and are now so common place that they seep into our gender identity, our body image, and especially our intimate relationships. The result is not a more liberated, edgy sexuality, but a mass-produced vision of sex that is profoundly sexist – a vision that limits our ability to create authentic, equal relationships that are free of violence and degradation.

In this thought provoking presentation, examples from pornography, magazines, television shows, and movies explore how masculinity and femininity are shaped by a consumer-driven, image-based culture, and the ways public images spill over into our most private worlds.

Based on the lifetime research of Dr. Gail Dines observing the growth of the pornography industry into mainstream culture, we will discuss how porn influences what boys expect our girls to do on dates, and how the porn culture shapes the behavior and fashion of young women.

This class is taught from a feminist perspective, with recognition that trauma in womenʼs lives can lead them directly into the industry or to acting out in relationships.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Explore how masculinity and femininity are shaped by a consumer-driven, image-based culture.
  2. Discuss how porn influences the expectations of boys/men, and how porn shapes the behavior and fashion of young women.
  3. Recognize that trauma in womenʼs lives can lead them into the industry or to act out in relationships.