Course Description

Systemic trauma is socially created and transmitted via relationships.  Particularly for minoritized individuals, the impacts ripple through our nervous systems and shape our relational patterns.  Frameworks of relational privilege, survival strategies, and intimacy stories can help us make space and find language for the impact of systemic trauma as it appears in relationships.  As supporters of healing, Surrogate Partners have the responsibility of honoring clients’ experiences and being accountable for what we bring to the dynamic.  While taking part in expanding relational imagination and inviting new possibilities, what tools are available to us to support the most ethical and affirming experiences for our clients?

In this course we will:

• Develop and hone lenses that support providers in serving minoritized clients from a stance of honoring and co-creation

• Learn tools and techniques to shift interactional dynamics to further center clients’ own knowings 

These concepts will be explored through the lens of surrogate partner therapy, with concrete exercises for somatic learning, self-reflection, and expression.

In addition to lecture videos, there are close to three hours of bonus videos to further synthesize these concepts.  Akilah takes us through this first, with generative and community-based conversations and then through somatic, grounded learning exercises.

Learning objectives include:

• Learn and explore the frameworks of systemic trauma and relational privilege

• Assess elements of our own relational privilege and how it impacts our work as providers

• Recognize the impact of systemic trauma and relational privilege on sexual and relational development

• Explore dynamics in co-created interactions and learn protective tools that support participants in grounding to and honoring their truths throughout the process

• Identify often invisible ways that providers contribute to systemic trauma through norms of provider-client dynamics

• Learn tools for genuine accountability within the provider-client relationship

About the presenter:

Akilah Riley-Richardson, MSW, CCTP is a published researcher, Relational Healing Facilitator, STAIR Method Certified clinician, couples therapist and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. She has been a helping professional for seventeen years and has experience working with couples and persons practicing consensual non monogamy, both in the Caribbean and internationally. Akilah also specialises in work with sexual minorities and racial minorities. As an educator and facilitator, she has provided consultancy to organizations such as NASTAD (National Alliance for State and Territorial AIDS directors), I-TECH (International Training and Education Center for Health), CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency)  and CVC (Caribbean Vulnerable Communities). She has presented in various spaces including the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, the Academy of Therapy Wisdom, Harvard Medical School and the Black Mental Health Symposium. She has been a Social Work Educator at the University of the Southern Caribbean since 2012.  She is the founder of the Relational Healing Institute and creator of the P.R.I.D.E model.

For AASECT CEs, please email embrace@asterpsychotherapy.com