Understanding Complex Trauma

PTSD vs. C-PTSD · Somatic Foundations · Emotional Flashbacks · Indigenous Lens

A two-and-a-half-hour professional development course for therapists, counsellors, social workers, educators, and frontline helpers who want to better understand and support people carrying complex trauma, using a trauma-informed, somatic, and Indigenous-informed lens.

The Problem This Course Addresses

Some clients are hard to reach through the usual frameworks.

They may shut down in session, disappear from care, struggle to follow through, escalate quickly, return to shame, collapse, rage, fear, fawning, or freeze, or be described as resistant, non-compliant, emotionally dysregulated, or difficult to engage.

But what if the response is not resistance?

What if it is complex trauma?

Many helping professionals are working with people whose trauma began in childhood, whose nervous systems were shaped by chronic relational threat, and whose symptoms have been misunderstood through frameworks that were not designed for C-PTSD.

Most clinical training programs teach PTSD. Many do not provide a clear, practical framework for recognizing and responding to Complex PTSD.

This course exists to help close that gap.

What You Will Learn

This course covers four interconnected areas that can help professionals better understand clients who seem stuck, shut down, resistant, highly reactive, or difficult to reach through the usual tools.

PTSD vs. C-PTSD: the diagnostic distinction, why it matters clinically, and what can be missed when complex trauma is misread as something else.

Somatic Foundations: how the body holds trauma, what polyvagal theory helps us understand about complex trauma presentation, and how to bring somatic awareness into practice safely and effectively.

Emotional Flashbacks: what they are, why they are so often missed, and how to help clients recognize and respond to them with more understanding and support.

Indigenous Lens: intergenerational trauma transmission, cultural safety as a clinical stance, and common errors that can happen when Western frameworks are applied to Indigenous clients without cultural and colonial context.

Course Modules

Module 01: Setting the Stage
An orientation to the course framework, key definitions, and the clinical and cultural context for understanding complex trauma more clearly.

Module 02: PTSD vs. C-PTSD
The difference between PTSD and C-PTSD, the three domains of Disturbances in Self-Organization, and why this distinction matters when clients are not improving through the usual frameworks.

Module 03: Body-Up: The Somatic Foundation
How complex trauma lives in the body, what polyvagal theory helps us understand about shutdown, activation, and collapse, and why bottom-up approaches are often essential in C-PTSD work.

Module 04: Emotional Flashbacks
What emotional flashbacks are, how they can look like rage, shame, collapse, resistance, or treatment failure, and how to help clients begin recognizing what is happening.

Module 05: Indigenous Clients and Intergenerational Trauma
Pathways of intergenerational trauma transmission, cultural safety as a relational and clinical stance, and common errors that can happen when Indigenous clients are understood without cultural and colonial context.

Module 06: Clinical Application and Tools
Practical tools, scripts, and clinical considerations for responding with more safety, consent, attunement, and nervous system awareness.

Module 07: Closing and Integration
Consolidating the learning, identifying next steps, and supporting participants to carry the framework into their practice.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

Distinguish between PTSD and C-PTSD using ICD-11 diagnostic criteria, including the three domains of Disturbances in Self-Organization.
Identify the three autonomic states described in polyvagal theory and explain their relevance to shutdown, activation, collapse, and other complex trauma presentations in clinical settings.
Recognize emotional flashbacks as a distinct feature of C-PTSD and differentiate them from presentations that may be misread as treatment resistance, borderline traits, affect dysregulation, or lack of motivation.
Apply at least three somatic grounding tools appropriate for use with complex trauma clients, including key cautions and contraindications.
Describe pathways of intergenerational trauma transmission relevant to Indigenous clients, including epigenetic, nervous system, relational, and story-based transmission.
Identify a minimum of four common clinical errors that can occur when Western therapeutic frameworks are applied to Indigenous clients without cultural and colonial context.
Articulate cultural safety as a relational clinical stance, and distinguish it from cultural competency as a checklist.
Adapt trauma-informed psychoeducation scripts for emotional flashbacks to suit individual client needs, nervous system states, and cultural contexts.

Who This Is For

This course is designed for helping professionals who work with people carrying complex trauma, especially those whose responses may be misunderstood as resistance, non-compliance, emotional dysregulation, shutdown, or lack of motivation.

It may be especially useful for therapists and counsellors working with complex trauma, C-PTSD, dissociation, shame, emotional flashbacks, and nervous system survival responses; social workers, frontline helpers, community support workers, and healthcare professionals seeking a clearer trauma-informed framework for practice; school counsellors, trauma-informed educators, and school-based professionals supporting trauma-exposed students; students in practicum or training programs who want a stronger foundation in C-PTSD, somatic trauma responses, and culturally safer practice; and experienced clinicians who want to deepen or update their framework for working with complex trauma.

This course is appropriate for practitioners at different levels of experience. It offers an introductory but clinically meaningful framework for understanding the body, the nervous system, and the cultural dimensions of complex trauma.

What Is Included

2.5 hours of professional development content across 7 modules
Video lessons with downloadable slide PDFs
Full participant workbook, printable PDF
Individual module workbooks for easier reflection and integration
Audio and printable grounding practices
Certificate of completion
Lifetime access to all course materials
2.5 continuing education hours, pending approval through CCPA and BCACC

Enrollment is Now Open

Understanding Complex Trauma is now open for enrollment.

Waitlist members have been sent their early bird pricing by email. Early bird pricing is available to waitlist members until June 18, 2026 at 11:59pm Pacific.

Introductory rate: $97 USD
Available during the launch period.

Full rate: $147 USD
Once CE accreditation is confirmed through CCPA and BCACC.

About the Instructor

Ist’tThje łā (Wanda Wiwcharuck) is Tahltan and Gitxsan, a member of the Tsesk’iye (Crow) Clan, living and working on Ts’msyen Territory in Kxeen, Prince Rupert, BC.

She is a certified Trauma-Informed Coach, certified Somatic Coach, and has completed the Somatic EMDR Therapy Certificate Program. She is also a qualified BC educator with more than twenty years of experience in education and social development. She carries C-PTSD and brings thirty years of lived research alongside her formal training.

TIES was created to help helping professionals better understand and support people carrying complex trauma, especially those whose survival responses may have been misunderstood through frameworks that don’t fully account for the depth and complexity of what they have lived.