As a practicing therapist herself, Lisa is passionate about helping clinicians develop a way of approaching trauma that includes concrete tools and shows you how to develop yourself as a clinician to treat trauma. Her unique approach avoids pathologizing trauma and treats lingering symptoms as the way an individual survives. Her treatment methods simplify complex trauma symptoms in ways that clients can finally begin to understand their symptoms with compassion and provide concrete tools to unravel the legacy of trauma.
As therapists, we aim to provide "trauma-informed" care, but we often don't realize that the very techniques we are taught — and even mandated to use —are actually causing harm.
That's because these practices can open wounds too quickly, leave clients in vulnerable states, and fail to provide the interventions clients need to heal.
Trauma expert Lisa Ferentz (founder/director of the Ferentz Institute) is one of the field's most experienced and compassionate trauma therapists. Her four decades of frontline trauma treatment have resulted in proven techniques that truly define and set the standard for "trauma-informed" care.
And now, you can join Lisa in this state-of-the-art certificate program that will equip you with a scientifically backed trauma-informed framework that can be implemented right away to reduce harm and increase your therapeutic impact.
7 in-depth, self-paced training sessions | 3 exclusive consultation calls to get help with your specific challenges | On-demand recording access | Comprehensive resource manuals | Bonus CE workshops & more!
Go at your own pace or follow the recommended weekly schedule.
View the full program schedule
Sign up today, and you'll get access to:
- A strengths-based assessment process that can increase the likelihood your clients continue in therapy
- The steps to take when inadvertent triggering occurs, as well as how to re-ground and resource clients
- Neuroscience insights to better understand trauma's impact on emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and somatic presentations
- In-depth knowledge and skills to work with attachment wounds
- Expert guidance to ensure your clients are in the optimal window during sessions
- And much more!
You'll walk away with powerful treatment strategies (including somatic resourcing, parts work, and using art therapeutically) that can be integrated into almost any treatment approach.
And, you'll be able to join Lisa for exclusive, live consultation calls where you can practice your skills and get answers to your clinical questions — plus, access the Q&A call recordings to revisit whenever you'd like.
At the end of this program, you'll earn your certificate as a trauma-informed therapist as proof of your accomplishment and your abilities.
Registration for the full intensive program (including live interactive calls) is only available for a limited time, so be sure to sign up today!
Register Today for Just $249.99!
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline

— Janina Fisher, PhD, world-renowned trauma expert and author

— Richard Schwartz, PhD, Internal Family Systems developer

— Joyanna Silberg, PhD, author of The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation
2 Modules
Discover how to apply trauma-informed concepts all throughout the therapy process — including how to do a safe, effective intake assessment, gather important historical and family-of-origin information, and more. You'll learn what to do when inadvertent triggering occurs, how to be culturally sensitive in your communication, and how to gather important information in ways that are reparative rather than retraumatizing.
As part of this module, you'll also get access to the latest neuroscience insights on trauma, so you'll better understand the cognitive and emotional conditions that need to be in place for your clients.
- Being a trauma-informed therapist
- What is the mental health field getting wrong when treating trauma?
- The rationale for a “trauma-informed” assessment
- Setting the stage
- Less threatening assessment questions
- Slowing down the runaway train
- Inherent challenges in the assessment process
- Treatment from the clinician's perspective vs the client's perspective
- The impact of cultural differences
- Assessment and counter-transference
2 Modules, 1 Live Consultation Video Call
In this part of the training, you'll discover the pivotal role that family-of-origin attachment has on a client's ability to self-soothe, regulate their emotional states, and allow for trust and vulnerability in all their subsequent relationships. You'll also gain key insights into working with clients whose early attachment has been with caretakers who are emotionally unavailable or toxic…
…and you'll learn how to make sure that clients are in the optimal window during sessions so that insight and integration can occur.
- In the beginning: infants and attachment
- Processing insecure attachment patterns
- Processing disorganized attachment
- Co-regulation and auto-regulation
- The challenge of attaching to abusive caretakers and the price kids pay
- The Still Face Experiment
- Attachment and subsequent relationship dynamics
- Defining trauma and the meaning-making that mitigates or exacerbates it
- Caretaker as perpetrator
- Inevitable, necessary, creative childhood coping strategies
- The adult manifestations of childhood abuse and neglect
3 Modules, 2 Live Consultation Calls
In this section, you'll experience a wide range of creative treatment strategies designed to help traumatized clients develop and enhance affect regulation skills. These strategies will help to promote internal safety, grounding, containment, self-soothing, self-compassion, and emotional stabilization.
You'll learn and practice powerful trauma healing interventions, including: "parts work" strategies, the creation of a safe place; soothing breath work; somatic resourcing; journaling and creative cognitive re-framing; using art therapeutically; and flashback halting protocols. You'll also hear about the power of integrating the left and right hemispheres of the brain for deeper processing and healing.
- Creating safety
- Incorporating a "parts" perspective
- Addressing the two antidotes to shame: curiosity and self-compassion
- Trauma and somatization
- Using art therapeutically
- Working with dissociation
- Summarizing how to best help traumatized clients
Register Today for Just $249.99!
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
(a $399.98 value!)
Have you ever been working with a traumatized client, compassionately bearing witness to their symptoms, but unable to shake the feeling that you're overly focusing on their pain? You're not alone. We all want clients who've survived trauma to chart a path forward. Fortunately, there are ways to help them heal and grow while still acknowledging what happened to them — even in the very first sessions. In this experiential recording, we'll explore creative ways to help trauma survivors navigate the impact of traumatic events while guiding them to a place of newfound hope, resiliency, and healing. You'll learn:
- Why the meaning clients attach to trauma is so important
- How to incorporate the body in trauma work, plant the seeds of hope in your earliest sessions, and identify and nurture tangible markers of post-traumatic growth
- Creative strategies like internal and external resourcing, before-and-after imagery, two-handed writing, and future-self visualizations
Although trauma can affect clients' inner lives in countless ways, most survivors grapple with deep-seated feelings of guilt and shame. Until these powerful and debilitating emotions are specifically addressed, it's difficult for clients to fully heal. In this recording, learn how to compassionately help clients understand the root causes of shame and guilt, and offer creative strategies for releasing themselves from the grip of these toxic emotions. You'll explore:
- The difference between guilt and shame, and why shame is so difficult to resolve
- The specific dynamics of trauma and early childhood coping strategies that promote and sustain shame
- How secondary gain and "protective parts" affect clients' willingness to let go of shame
- How to cognitively, somatically, and creatively enhance the two antidotes to shame: self-compassion and curiosity
Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C DAPA, is a recognized expert in the strengths-based, depathologized treatment of trauma and has been in private practice for 41years. She presents workshops and keynote addresses nationally and internationally, both live and online, and is a clinical consultant to practitioners and mental health agencies in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland Italy, Israel, Poland and Spain.
She's the founder of The Ferentz Institute, now in its eighteenth year of providing continuing education to mental health professionals and graduating over 3000 clinicians from her two Certificate Programs in Advanced Trauma Treatment.
In 2009, she was voted the "Social Worker of the Year" by the Maryland Society for Clinical Social Work. Lisa is the author of Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors: A Clinician's Guide, now in its second edition, Letting Go of Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Workbook of Hope and Healing, and Finding Your Ruby Slippers: Transformative Life Lessons from the Therapist's Couch.
Register Today for Just $249.99!
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
The weekly sessions begin on June 2, 2025. Watch as soon as they release, or access anytime after, when it's convenient for you. You'll get immediate access to two bonus videos.
No problem, you'll have access to the call recording to review whenever it's convenient for you.
Your access to this course is unlimited for as long as you have your account.
Yes. Once you register for this self-paced course, you will have unlimited access to all the materials — including slides, handouts, worksheets, and more.

- 7 all-new core modules led by Lisa Ferentz providing step-by-step guidance for assessing, treating, and recovering from trauma and PTSD.
- 3 LIVE video consultation calls with Lisa Ferentz (90 min each), each including Q&A and LIVE demonstrations based on the prior modules. You'll have lifetime access to the recordings.
- Complete manual including all presentation slides, exercises, worksheets, and handouts. Access to download and keep for your files.
- Two bonus workshops
Register Today for Just $249.99!
Click here for Credit details | Click here for course objectives and outline
We’re that confident you'll find this learning experience to be all that's promised and more than you expected.