Via Zoom

Treatment for interpersonal trauma and the effects of violence is most often framed from a biomedical perspective in the individualistic cultural context of mainstream US society. This approach has left most psychotherapists, treatment professionals and other helpers with a major blind spot. We are also psychosocial cultural beings. One of the central injuries from interpersonal violence is harm to our interpersonal skills and capacity to trust. Healing well from trauma requires special attention to rebuilding our interpersonal and relationship skills and capacity to trust. Informed by cross-cultural research in relational cultures, we can enhance our understanding of both the harm done and the healing approaches required to more effectively treat interpersonal trauma and the aftermath of violence. This workshop outlines a way of viewing trauma effects and healing through a relational lens and introduces a set of principles to inform effective, cross-cultural collaboration and supportive group consultation. 

Fees

• General Public: $65.87 (includes $5.87 Fee)
• Student: $17.85 (includes $2.85 Fee)

About the Presenter:

Leyla Welkin PhD LMHC is a psychotherapist in private practice and a teacher, consultant and supervisor with an international non-governmental organization, Pomegranate Connection. She taught at Seattle University between 2003 and 2008. Since 2009 Pomegranate Connection has conducted research, provided training, and supported cross-cultural approaches to trauma healing and sustainable helping for people working with the aftermath of violence, forced migration and disasters in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. She is the author of Sustaining Open Hearts: Self-care for helpers working with trauma in our complex world published in 2025 and True Friend, a guide for women who have experienced sexual abuse and for people who want to support them, first published in English in 2014. She is based in the Salish Sea region of Washington State.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and compare the way that individualistic and relational cultural contexts shape our understanding of trauma effects and trauma healing. With special attention to the way that relational cultural schemas enhance trauma healing.
• Explain the way that cycles of trauma harm and healing framed with a relational emphasis enhance well being through supporting interpersonal skills and rebuilding trust. 
• Describe the way that cross-cultural collaboration can strengthen learning and resilience through a process that combines complexity, challenge and support within well-defined limits. 
• Become more alert to the way that power differences affect interpersonal relationships and require special attention to cross-cultural respect. 
• Identify a set of 6 Principles for effective cross-cultural working and how they inform the process of supportive consultation and collaboration across significant differences of point of view.