Emotional Repatterning in Trauma Therapy

Credit

Speaker

Antonieta Contreras, LCSW R, CCPT II Related seminars and products

---

Antonieta Contreras, LCSW R, CCPT II, is a licensed clinical social worker, trauma specialist, author, and educator with over a decade of clinical experience working with individuals impacted by complex trauma, developmental trauma, dissociation, and relational injury. She is the author of Traumatization and Its Aftermath: A Systemic Approach to Understanding and Treating Trauma Disorders (Routledge, 2023) and How Deep Is the Wound? A Guide to Investigating, Understanding, and Resolving Your Emotional Pain (2025).

Her work focuses on clarifying the full spectrum of emotional injury – from extreme and complex trauma to more common yet highly impactful emotional wounds – through a neurobiological and systemic lens. She supports clinicians in moving beyond oversimplified nervous system explanations toward precise, developmentally informed case conceptualization and effective treatment planning. Her approach integrates neuroscience, attachment theory, dissociation theory, and relational models into clear, accessible frameworks that enhance clinical decision making without sacrificing depth or nuance.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Antonieta Contreras has employment relationships with NY Counseling Services, The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, Instituto Medico Imaya, Instituto Peruano de Psicología Contextual S.A.C, Udima University of Madrid, IPC, and New York University. She is the developer of the Emotional Architecture Model and Structural Emotional Reorganization framework. Antonieta Contreras receives royalties as a published author. Antonieta Contreras receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Antonieta Contreras is the co-founder of the New York Association of Trauma therapists and a member of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation.

 

Additional Info

Program Information

You will have access for 90 days after the program for review. For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. Please note that this requirement may vary by credit type. Please see detailed credit information for specific requirements for each credit type.

Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.

Objectives

1. Explain how systems theory and predictive processing inform the organization of emotional experience, including the role of anticipation in shaping perception, meaning, and response.
2. Describe the Emotional Architecture Model and how emotions emerge from interacting layers of affective activation, salience detection, valuation, meaning-making, and action readiness
3. Differentiate emotional dysregulation from structurally organized emotional scripts, and explain how this distinction informs clinical decision-making.
4. Identify common forms of rigid emotional scripting that develop through trauma, chronic adversity, or repeated emotional learning, and recognize their presentation in clinical practice.
5. Apply an integrative, mechanism-informed framework (Structural Emotional Reorganization) to deconstruct entrenched emotional scripts by targeting their underlying components, including meaning, valuation, and action tendencies.
6. Integrate mechanism-informed emotion processing strategies into psychotherapy to support the reorganization of emotional responses and increase flexibility, relational responsiveness, and adaptive behavioral choice.

Outline

Understand Why Emotional Patterns Persist in Trauma Treatment

• Untangle the clinical dilemma of insight and processing without lasting change
• The neurobiological foundation of the structure Emotional Reorganization Model
• Decode the limits of memory-focused and regulation-based approaches
• Emotional reactivity as a learned, anticipatory pattern of response

Understand Emotional Architecture and Structural Patterning

• Identify how emotional responses are constructed by a predictive brain
• Differentiate emotional dysregulation from structural rigid patterning
• Clinical assessment and treatment planning for rigid emotional scripts
• Differentiate trauma-based patterns from non-traumatic learning
• Apply the principles of The Emotional Architecture Model in treatment

Clinical Application of Structural Emotional Reorganization (SER)

• Clinical interventions to work at the level of emotional structure
• Observation skills to identify rigid emotional scripts in real time during session
• Recognize patterns of rigid emotional responses across contexts and relationships
• A clinical roadmap for mapping emotional architecture in clinical work

Intervention Strategies for Deconstructing Emotional Scripts

• Clinical tools for increasing client’s awareness of emotional construction in real time
• Psychoeducation skills to break down client’s rigid emotional responses
• Identify and deconstruct hidden meanings and learned expectations
• Clinical skills for working with prediction errors to foster psychological flexibility

Clinical Interventions for Reorganizing Emotional Responses and Restoring Flexibility

• Clinical interventions for reconstructing emotional meaning and action tendencies
• Strategies for supporting new emotional configurations
• Interventions for expanding behavioral choice when triggered
• Interventions for strengthening and integrating adaptive emotional responses

Case Examples and Clinical Applications

• Case scenarios targeting common rigid emotional scripts
• Apply SER across different client presentations and modalities
• How to support long-term change beyond symptom management
• Risk and limitations of research and when to sue or not use SER in treatment

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Psychologists
• Addiction Counselors
• Case Managers
• Psychiatrists
• Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
• Other Mental Health Professionals