EMDR Advanced Training
EMDR For Spiritual Trauma and Religious Abuse
Trainer: Erica Bonham
Live: February 28th, 2025 - 8:30 AM - 1:00 PM MTN | On-demand after
Unlock the healing potential of EMDR for spiritual trauma and religious abuse in a supportive, specialized course. Designed for EMDR therapists, this specialized course will teach you the essential tools to help clients process the painful and confusing experiences of spiritual-based trauma.
Led by trauma and EMDR expert Erica Bonham, you’ll learn strategies to address dynamics like gaslighting, spiritual bypassing, and shame-based identities. With concrete interventions, somatic resources, and strategies for identifying and reprocessing targets with EMDR, this course empowers you to support clients from diverse backgrounds. Explore the impact of spiritual abuse on the LGBTQIA+ population and its intersectionality with domestic violence and sexuality.
With a foundation in polyvagal theory, this training equips you to create safe, compassionate spaces that support each client’s unique healing journey. Dive into the intersection of EMDR, spirituality, and social justice to help clients reconnect with their authentic selves. Join us to enrich your trauma-informed, EMDR treatment approach and make a meaningful impact. Â
This course will be recorded on February 28th, 2025.
Available for synchronous-online or asynchronous-on demand learning.
Free resource from our team!
A guide to help you recognize and understand the signs of spiritual trauma.
COURSE DETAILS
EMDR for Spiritual Trauma and Religious Abuse explores core issues for clients who struggle with religious abuse and spiritual trauma and best practices for supporting the EMDR process. We define Spiritual trauma in a broad sense and explore common themes to assess for in the history-taking phase of EMDR.  Themes like gaslighting, toxic leadership (the Dark Triad), boundaries, shame-based identities, and spiritual bypassing are necessary to address and find proper resources for; otherwise, reprocessing will be blocked.
We explore how to use the AIP to view shame as adaptive while also exploring the importance of a both-and approach to spiritual trauma so that clients can find their true identities.  The course also addresses how spiritual trauma contributes to collective traumas in the LGBTQ community and addresses other special populations like those at risk for suicide and domestic violence. The course also incorporates somatic resources to assist in nervous system regulation, which is necessary for addressing spiritual trauma.
SCHEDULE
- 8:30 – 9:15: TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE: BROAD DEFINITION OF SPIRITUAL TRAUMA AND EXPLORING COMMON THEME
- Taking a Broad, Gentle Approach When Addressing This Issue
- We do not get to decide what is traumatic and what is not
Spiritual trauma in a broad sense - The Values of a trauma-informed practice
- What is gaslighting?
- When we unintentionally gaslight clients, minimize their experience/ skip too soon to positivity or hope
- Meeting people where they’re at and the importance of validation (History Taking-phase 1)
- Guiding clients towards pain and through it, rather than out of their painful experience.
- 9:15 – 9:45: POLYVAGAL SYSTEM AND SOMATIC RESOURCES
- Brief Overview of polyvagal system
- The importance of bringing in the body
- Somatic Resources (Preparation- phase 2)
- 9:45 - 9:55: Break
- 9:55 – 10:25: TOXIC SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP
- The Dark Triad
- Accountability
- Toxic Bonding in Toxic Spiritual Communities
- Manipulating Humans’ Natural Need for Belonging
- 10:25 – 10:55: USING THE A.I.P. LENSÂ
- The two buckets (connection and belonging)
- Intro to parts work and IFS in with religious trauma
- Self of the therapist (knowing our own parts as it relates to spiritual trauma)
- 10:55 - 11:05: Break
- 11:05 – 11:35: RESOURCES AND COGNITIVE INTERWEAVES
- Welcoming the truth, “finding the tether”
- Cognitive Interweaves
- Both-And approach and the importance of holding paradox
- Creating Safety in the office
-  11:35 – 11:45: Break
- 11:50 – 12:35: CORE ISSUES AND SPECIAL POPULATIONS
- Boundaries
- LGBTQ+ community
- Domestic Violence and the misuse of toxic religion to justify abuse
- Sexuality
- The Struggle with Self-Care
- Suicidality and Religion
- Spiritual Bypassing
- 12:35 – 1:00: QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Identify the large need for further training in this area.
- Describe spiritual trauma in a broad sense.
- Discuss what a trauma-informed approach is as it relates to spiritual trauma.
- Identify at least three areas of life that are affected by spiritual trauma.
- Name three interventions/resources that can help clients process spiritual trauma.
- Identify at least one way that maladaptive coping skills related to spiritual trauma can be seen through the AIP (Adaptive Information Processing Model).
- Explain spiritual bypassing and how that relates to dissociation.
ABOUT YOUR TRAINER, ERICA BONHAM
Erica Bonham is a certified EMDR clinician, consultant and trainer and is a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado. She aspires to be a catalyst for change, justice, growth, evolution and all around badassery. She has lead trainings and workshops all over the country, including Montgomery County School District in Baltimore, MD. Athens-Clarke County School District in GA, and the Domestic Violence Collation in Denver, CO.
She specializes in serving the LGBTQ community, abuse recovery, and trauma related to social injustice and spiritual abuse. She incorporates her training as a yoga instructor and mindfulness practitioner to deepen clients healing of their bodies and specializes in somatic and attachment EMDR and ego state work. She is a published author, speaker and the creator of the courses:Â
- Cultivate Your Inner Badass
- Healthy Hope: EMDR Best Practices for Healing Spiritual Trauma
- Co-creator of Healing Racial Trauma with Somatic Therapy with Dr. Chinwe Williams
She seeks to get into good trouble to dismantle systems of oppression and white supremacy and aspires to be part of the emergent, reimagining of a world rooted in the values of beauty, equity, nonviolence, and empowerment of all beings.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
