Coercive Relationships: Therapeutic Interventions for Survivors of Intimate Partner Abuse

The workshop focuses on survivor stages of change, interventions, and the concept of abuse-instilled fear that complicates recovery.

Help your clients heal

Coercive relationships are characterized by behaviors such as manipulation, control, intimidation, and abuse. These behaviors can  have a significant impact on a person's mental and emotional well-being, and may cause long-term trauma and psychological harm. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 10 men have experienced intimate partner violence during their lifetime.

Join Jennifer Parker as she draws on thirty-five years of therapy experience, reports from survivors, and her book, Coercive Relationships: Find the Answers You Seek. Jennifer begins the course with a survivor story and applies survey responses and examples throughout. The course will also identify common issues with counter-transference and best practices for assessment and intervention. 

Participants will attend 3 live online educational sessions that will build on the asynchronous assignments. As a new addition to the live, online sessions, there will be interactive role-plays performed by Jennifer and Ronna Trapanese, actor and survivor presenter.

Program objectives:

• Improve ability to identify and assess intimate partnerabuse survivors.  
• Learn how coercive control injuries, personal circumstances, and past history affect the use of therapeutic interventions.
• Increase awareness of countertransference and how it affects the therapeutic relationship.   
• Learn factors that complicate survivor trust in themselves and healing, including post-separation abuse and high-conflict divorce.

Participants will also receive a copy of Jennifer's book; Coercive Relationships: Find the Answers You Seek.

Who should attend

Human service and mental health professionals such as social workers, therapists, professional counselors, psychologists, and nurses.

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  Jennifer Parker is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Wisconsin and is accredited as a clinician through the National Association of Social Workers. She provided psychotherapy for 36 years until December 2021 for both trauma victims and general mental health issues. Jennifer's internship at a battered women’s shelter began her passion to develop resources for victims. In order to reach more survivors, she published "Coercive Relationships: Find the Answers You Seek" in 2021.  This book includes knowledge from her training and research, as well as insights gained from working alongside survivors on their healing journeys. Jennifer's accomplishments include a curriculum for intimate partner abuse group work, workshops, professional newsletter articles, expert witness testimony, a website blog, and awards from state and local agencies. Since retiring from clinical practice, Jennifer devotes her energies to three things; reaching survivors through social media, podcasts, and presentations, publishing a blog that focuses on topics of interest to survivors, professionals, or family and friends concerned about someone they think is being abused, providing specialized training in effective therapy for intimate partner abuse victims.

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  Ronna Trapanese is a creator, artist, actor, and survivor presenter. Her passion is to empower therapists and medical professionals by acting out realistic scenarios. She loves seeing the light bulbs go off in providers. Ronna's experience includes adaptive acting and interactive role-playing for testing, instruction, and education with medical students, physician assistants, nurses, veterinarians, and pharmacists. She does independent contracting for IPV training with UW Medical School, and training for transplant nurses to develop communication strategies for families in trauma. In addition, Ronna is an independent contractor-actor for UW Medical Department, providing palliative training for doctors across the country and promoting empathic strategies when dealing with palliative care patients. In the past, she worked as an independent contractor-actor-trainer for the Department of Children's Services-Southern Child Welfare Partnership. She has also done training at Columbia Correctional Institution along with a psychiatrist for corrections officers to facilitate their work with difficult inmates.