Working Clinically with Shame, Absence, and Relational Trauma

Join psychotherapist and author Ken Benau, Ph.D. for a clinical training and education group focused on new ways of thinking about and working with adult psychotherapy patients, with a particular emphasis on the chronic effects of traumatic, mind/body shame states, and the long-term consequences of “absence” or early relational neglect.

Dr. Benau works from an integrative perspective that includes psychodynamic, experiential, and somatic approaches to therapy, including Deep Brain Orienting (DBR) that is particularly well-suited to psychotherapy with the shock of chronic absence.  During each two-hour group session, Dr. Benau will first present for 15 minutes on a theme pertaining to psychotherapy with shame states and/or the chronic effects of absence, as well as specific themes arising in previous sessions.  While not formal clinical consultation, the remaining group time will be devoted to clinical and conceptual questions, as well as exploring ideas about case formulation and practice. While participant presentations may not always pertain to the chronic effects of “shame” or “absence”, these will be of special interest.

Dr. Benau has written and presented extensively on working with shame states with non-DID survivors of relational trauma, including his book Shame, pride, and relational trauma: Concepts and psychotherapy, published in 2022 (Routledge).   More recently, Dr. Benau has presented at national and international conferences and webinars on how the long-term effects of caregiver absence, i.e., the failure to see, feel, recognize, reciprocally respond to, and even delight in the child, manifest in psychotherapy with adults who may not realize how they adapted to “the absence of presence and the presence of absence”.