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How can you heal the trauma within?

Melissa Killeen

Melissa Killeen

Trauma changes you. You might not necessarily like that change. How can you heal the trauma within? You have the ability to transform yourself into a healthier person. You have enormous healing potential; the goal is learning to access it—and then to use that potential to heal the trauma, release the addiction(s), and obtain a glorious new life.

Without your consent, trauma can change you, often into a person you’d rather not be.                                                                           -Michele Rosenthal

Working through trauma can be scary, painful, and sometimes retraumatizing. Because of the risk of retraumatization, this healing work is best done with the help of an experienced trauma specialist. The clinical term for a therapist that has experience in treating trauma  is a trauma informed therapist. The therapist will be able to answer questions over the phone as to his/her experience in trauma-informed care. You want to ask if they are experienced in EMDR, Light Entrainment or Somatic Experiencing.

Treatment for Trauma

When a trauma memory is triggered, your nervous system gets stuck in overdrive. Successful trauma treatment revisits these traumatic memories, and allows you to observe the trauma and your “fight-flight-freeze” response. The therapist will establish a sense of safety and help you resolve the past traumas. The following therapies are commonly used in the treatment of PTSD, emotional and psychological trauma:

    • Somatic Experiencing:  Somatic processing of trauma takes advantage of the body’s unique ability to heal itself. The focus of therapy is on bodily sensations or movements (like excessive leg movement, wringing of the hands or profuse perspiration) rather than thoughts and memories about the traumatic event. By concentrating on what’s happening in your body, you gradually get in touch with trauma-related energy and tension. The therapist will encourage you to safely release this pent-up energy through shaking, crying, and other forms of physical release.
    • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): This practice incorporates two paddles that when held in your hands vibrate, and a headset that sends a low tone alternating between one ear and the other ear. The tones and the vibration of the paddles distract the conscience mind, allowing for the unconscious or sub-conscience memories to arise. The therapist and you explore these memories and discuss them in an attempt to resolve the feelings around the trauma.
    • CLEAR Therapy (Colored Light Entrainment and Re-patterning) Clear Therapy is a method of releasing unresolved core emotional issues using colored light. When a flashing light is emitted into the eyes, the brain adopts the rhythm of the strobe. In the initial intake session, you look at eleven different colors of flashing light and the therapist is able to pinpoint issues based on what you see in each color. In the following sessions, the feedback from your perception of the colors enables the therapist to uncover core beliefs that drive your thinking, feelings or behavior. CLEAR is coordinated with eye movement (see EMDR), breath work and meridian-based therapies (see EFT) to facilitate rapid resolution of the problem.
    • LST (Light Stimulation Therapy) LST enhances learning abilities and performance by stimulating the eye and brain with light. A LST session has you sitting comfortably in a darkened room, looking at a waveband of colored light, which is focused directly on your eyes. It is advised to have three to five sessions per week until a total of 20 sessions is completed. At the end of the 20 sessions there is a reevaluation to determine the necessity of further treatment.
    • The Brain and Brainwave Entrainment-The DAVID Device: The senses of sight and hearing, by their very nature, provide a favorable environment for affecting brainwaves. By presenting pulsed audio and visual stimulation to the brain, the brain begins to vibrate at the same frequency as the pulsed audio from the DAVID Device. The device sends flashes of lights into a pair of glasses, and pulsed tones through a pair of headphones to gently guide the brain into altered states of consciousness.
    • The Green Wave Therapy: The Green Wave Therapy is a technique that combines green laser light, micro-current energy, and some of the principles of EMDR and EFT (see below). You rest on a massage table, and a micro-current device focuses on the region between your eyebrows. You hold the EMDR paddles in your hands as they pulse rhythmically. You also wear a headset that delivers audio tones in unison with the paddle’s vibrations. The practitioner stands back about four to five feet and encircles the entire body with green laser light. With every one- to two-minute pass, the clinician checks the level of distress you are experiencing while thinking about the trauma.
    • Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT): Based on impressive new discoveries involving the body’s energies, EFT has been reported to be 80% clinically effective in relieving trauma. The EFT procedure involves tapping with the fingers on points on the body that are associated with acupuncture pressure points. While performing the tapping sequence, distressful thoughts and/or events are targeted and healing statements are repeated out loud. EFT often works where nothing else will. It is rapid, long-lasting and gentle. No drugs or equipment are involved. It is easily learned by anyone in less than an hour. EFT techniques can be taught and be self-administered.

Trauma Recovery Tips

Recovering from emotional and psychological trauma takes time. Give yourself time to heal and to mourn the losses you’ve experienced. During your trauma therapy there are some self-help strategies to keep you healthy and continue the healing between your therapeutic sessions:

           1: Don’t isolate

           2: Stay grounded

           3: Take care of your health

Don’t try to force the healing process. Be patient with your pace of recovery. Finally, be prepared for difficult and volatile emotions. Allow yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling without judgment or guilt.

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What kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

melissa-new-post

Melissa Killeen

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013. Since then, recovery coach or peer recovery specialist training has become one of the fastest growing aspects of the coaching field. So what kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer recovery-specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to 250. Many state certification boards have established recovery coach and peer recovery support specialist certifications.

Many of the organizations that offer addictions recovery coach training or peer recovery-support specialist training are listed on my web site: https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/recovery-coach-training-organizations/. For many people interested in being a recovery coach, the training costs, deciding on the best training organization and the training necessary to fulfill the certification requirements can be confusing. So I would like to attempt to clear up this confusion and will answer these questions in this post:

  • What are the guidelines I must meet to apply for recovery coaching training?
  • What kind of training do I need to be a recovery coach?

What are the guidelines to apply for recovery coaching training?

Applicants must meet the following guidelines to apply for a training course in order to be a recovery coach or a peer recovery support-specialist. These guidelines are shared by many training organizations and certification boards across the nation as a standard for what a potential recovery coach must have before applying for recovery coaching training:

  • High school diploma, GED or higher
  • Minimum of one year of direct knowledge of sponsorship and 12-step programs
  • Minimum one year of sobriety from substance use or one year sobriety in co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (self-attestation)

What kind of training should I look for?

Certification boards require the coach to receive outside training that fulfills the requirements mandated by the state board. These requirements are often a certain amount of hours training in topics such as addiction recovery theory and models, coaching ethics, motivational interviewing, relapse prevention, nicotine cessation, suicide prevention and HIV-AIDS education. Each state and organization has different requirements. So first check with your state to ensure the course you take will be accepted by the state credentialing board.

There are trainings offered that can give a coach more information that may not be on the state certification board list, but are very helpful. The kinds of training I found helpful as a new recovery coach were: conflict management, anger management, intervention training, co-occurring disorders, behavioral addictions, the pharmacology of addiction, and psycho-pharmacology as well as knowledge about coaching families in relationships with addicted persons. There are also training organizations that offer three different levels of recovery coaching training: novice-, intermediate- and master-level coaching certificates.

The places in which you receive this training are quite diverse. In the links section of this web site, I list over 250 organizations offering recovery coach training. The courses can be online, or in a classroom. The costs for this training is diverse as well, from free (in Ohio) up to $4,000 per course. The length of the course could be three days or four months.

At no time does taking a recovery coaching course give you an immediate state certification board recovery-coaching credential. It gives you a document (called a certificate) that says you completed the training. There are many coaches who do not seek state board certification, and use this document or certificate from a training organization as adequate proof they are knowledgeable in performing the duties of a recovery coach.

There is one international credentialing organization, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium, commonly known as the IC & RC (http://internationalcredentialing.org/) that runs many state credentialing boards and has developed an exam for a Peer Recovery (PR) Certification. The IC & RC suggests applicants check with their state credentialing board for specific test taking guidelines.

Are there any additional requirements for recovery coaching certification?

NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals, and the National Certification Commission for Addiction Professionals (NCC AP) http://www.naadac.org/NCPRSS offer the Peer Recovery Support-Specialist Certification. Similar to the requirements of the IC & RC, the NCC AP recommends, in order to receive certification, a coach read and sign a statement on the application affirming adherence to the Peer Recovery Support-Specialist Code of Ethics. Credentialing boards require supervisors of the coaches-in-training to sign a document verifying they have supervised the coach during the period of the coach’s training. Letters of recommendation are also items required by some credentialing boards. Other state boards require a recent photograph. As always, check with the state credentialing board for specific requirements for credentialing.

Next week’s post will review what certification is required to be a peer-to-peer support-specialist working with people in mental health recovery

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

melissa-new-post

Melissa Killeen

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013. Since then, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist certification training has become one of the fastest growing aspects of the coaching field. So what kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to 250. Many state certification boards have established recovery coach and peer-recovery support specialist certifications. Yet, for many people that seek to be a recovery coach the qualifications, the training, the requirements for certification, or credentialing seem baffling. So I would like to attempt to clear up this confusion and will answer these questions in this post:

  • What is the process for certification as a recovery coach or peer recovery specialist?
  • What kind of certification should I be focusing on?

What is the process of being qualified, getting training and then credentialed as a recovery coach or peer-recovery support specialist?

If you are investigating becoming a recovery coach, I suggest you follow these steps:

  1. Research the training organizations that offer recovery coach training you can afford. Go to https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/recovery-coach-training-organizations/ for a list of addiction recovery coach training organizations
  2. Verify that you meet the qualifications to apply for the course (e.g. be 18-years-old, have a GED or high school diploma, one year sobriety from any addiction)
  3. Take and pass the course, retain the coaching certificate for future purposes
  4. Research places like Recovery Community Organizations or treatment centers to work or volunteer as a recovery-coach-in-training
  5. Apply to your state certification board for recovery coach certification (a fee may apply)
  6. Complete the recovery-coach-in-training supervised practice hours that are required by the state board
  7. Send in your application with paperwork verifying the completion of practice hours to the state credentialing board with a certification fee (fee varies for every state, from $100-$250)
  8. Receive your recovery coaching or peer-recovery support specialist certificate
  9. In the next 2 – 5 years take the required courses for renewing this certificate. Refer to your state board for more information on courses and renewal time frames. A renewal fee will be required.

What kind of certification do I need to be a recovery coach?

For an addiction recovery coach, the certification and training is prefaced with the terms: peer-support specialist, certified peer-recovery practitioner, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist. Every state is different and every state uses different names for these certifications. Look for courses that offer the training needed for an addictions coach and a peer working with people in mental health recovery certification. It is the exact same training, in the same exact classroom, for two different jobs descriptions! It may be confusing now, and quite possibly the content and descriptions of  these courses may change going forward. But I would have to have a crystal ball to predict that for certain.

I suggest you first take a certification training course. You can make the decision after the training is completed to apply for state board certification. As a coach if you are interested in being your own business person, certification by a training organization should be adequate. If you want to work in a treatment center, with a recovery community organization, social services agency or hospital, certification issued by the state’s certification board or the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) is required by the institution hiring you. If you want to carry professional liability insurance, or be reimbursed by Medicaid for your services, certification by a state certification board is mandatory.

What is a state certification board?

The process for receiving a certificate as a recovery coach is overseen by a state’s certification or licensing board. A state certification board tests and renews practitioner’s (coaches, therapists, nurses, etc.) certificates to ensure their knowledge is up to par. Also, that they have the ethical knowledge to practice in their profession. These processes for certification, such as training, educational requirements, exams and renewal guidelines, varies from state to state. These certification standards are recognized by health care companies, insurance companies, Medicaid, Medicare as well as companies that hire these practitioners.

These state certification boards are the same boards that issue licenses or certifications for drug and alcohol counselors, and therapists. Some states have combined licenses and certifications boards all in one office, so it could be the same office in which nurses or hairdressers receive their licenses. I suggest you search the Internet for drug and alcohol certification for your state. Then search for the state board website for recovery coach or peer-recovery support specialist certification. As of May 2008, thirty state credentialing boards had developed criteria for the training and deployment of recovery coaches and peer-recovery specialists, so you should have no trouble finding these boards on the Internet.

What is Reciprocity?

Reciprocity is a term you will see used often on these board sites. When you are certified through your home state’s certification board, you may have the ability to transfer that credential to another state. This is called reciprocity. State certification boards may offer reciprocity to certified coaches in other states. The state boards have the authority to set reciprocity requirements for coaches to practice in their state. Not all certifications are eligible for reciprocity. It is vitally important that you investigate reciprocity guidelines prior to relocating to another state, because it can be a very complicated process.

There are national and international recovery coach certifications available. In 2013, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) developed a peer recovery credential. The application for the peer-recovery certification appears on the IC & RC web site. An IC & RC credential is accepted by many agencies and treatment centers when they are hiring recovery coaches.

In next week’s post I will review what kind of training you need to have in order to apply for recovery coach certification.

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