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About this course
Part 2 of skills training for recovery from narcissistic abuse, gaslighting and toxic stress, presented by Dr. Liane Leedom
Toxic stress is physically and emotionally overwhelming. Stress caused by the sociopath (psychopath, narcissist) curtails your ability to see reality, much less deal with it. Mindfulness can help you distance yourself from your stress so you can make good decisions.
First, however, you may need to extinguish the multi-alarm fire of emotional crisis, and in this course, Dr. Liane Leedom teaches you exactly how to do it.
The STOP skill means, stop, take a step back, observe and proceed mindfully. When your emotions are trying to make you act without thinking, this skill helps you stay in control.
The TIP skills, such as placing your face in cold water, help you change your body chemistry quickly, calming your extreme emotions and racing mind.
Finally, radical acceptance enables you to stop fighting reality. When reality is painful, it’s a signal that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. But making a change first requires accepting what is.
This skills training program is based on the concepts of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Dr. Leedom refers to many DBT concepts in this course. To jumpstart your own personal recovery, she strongly recommends that you purchase DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, by Marsha M. Linehan. In Dr. Leedom’s experience, the participants who worked with the handouts and worksheets in conjunction with her instruction make the most progress.
Highlights
- How toxic stress prevents you from seeing reality
- Crisis survival skills and how to use them
- Pros and cons of acting on crisis urges
- Radical acceptance — complete and total acceptance of what is
- Radical acceptance is willingness to do just what is needed
About the instructor Dr. Liane Leedom
Liane J. Leedom, M.D., is a psychiatrist and a professor of counseling and psychology at the University of Bridgeport. She is author of Just Like His Father? A Guide to Overcoming Your Child’s Genetic Connection to Antisocial Behavior, Addiction and ADHD, and Women Who Love Psychopaths: Investigating the Relationships of Inevitable Harm. She is also author of multiple peer-reviewed studies, including Counseling Intimate Partner Abuse Survivors: Effective and Ineffective Interventions; The Dominance Behavioral System and Psychopathology: Evidence from Self-Report, Observational and Biological Studies; The Problem of Parental Psychopathy; and Did He Ever Love Me? A Qualitative Study of Life with a Psychopathic Husband.
Read Dr. Leedom’s studies at ResearchGate.
In addition to her university research and teaching, Dr. Leedom is currently in private practice as a psychiatrist. She trained in medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She previously served on the medical staff of several Connecticut facilities, including St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Hall-Brooke Behavioral Health Services, the Hospital of St. Raphael and the Center for Optimum Care.
Cost and credits
This course is Part Two of Skills training for recovery from abuse, gaslighting and toxic stress, presented by Dr. Liane Leedom. The cost is $100 for 4 hours of instruction — two classes, two hours each. Once you purchase the course, you can access it online as long and as often as you want.
Dr. Leedom’s program has four parts, which will get you well on the road to recovery. Save $100 when you buy the entire program.
To maximize the benefit of the course, Dr. Leedom strongly recommends that you purchase the DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, by Marsha M. Linehan. You’ll be able to follow along in the training and complete all of the exercises, which will greatly help with your recovery. The manual is available on Amazon for $40.
Although this course does not award continuing education credits, you will be able to download a certificate of achievement upon completion.
Learning objectives
After completing this course, you should be able to:
- Recognize and alleviate the toxic stress in your life
- Use the STOP skill to stay in control in stressful situations
- Use the TIP skills to calm your body when it is roiled by emotion
- Explain radical acceptance — what it is and what it is not
- Describe strategies for accepting with the whole self — mind, body and spirit
Program agenda for Recovery from the bodily effects of toxic stress
Class 1
- Goals of distress tolerance
- Overview of crisis survival skills
- When to use crisis survival skills
- Stay in control with the STOP skill
- Evaluating the pros and cons of acting on crisis urges
- Changing your body chemistry with TIP skills
- Strategies for distracting yourself from distress
- Strategies for improving the present moment
Class 2
- Overview of skills for accepting reality
- Radical acceptance when you cannot avoid painful events and emotions
- Factors that interfere with radical acceptance
- Practicing radical acceptance step by step
- Turning your mind towards acceptance, and away from rejecting reality
- Willingness to participate fully in life
- Half-smiling and willing hands — accepting reality with your body
You are emotionally overwhelmed but demands must still be met. You have intense pain that can’t be resolved quickly. This is when you need crisis survival skills to help you slow down, calm down and think. Dr. Liane Leedom teaches you what to do.
Recovery from the bodily effects of toxic stress — $100