Social Trauma and Adversity: Restoring Connectedness and Resilience

Human beings are social animals with a fundamental need for social connectedness and inclusion. Yet many people feel they don’t fit, experience social anxiety, face threatening societal dynamics, or otherwise struggle in groups. Socially adverse experiences including developmental social trauma, stigmatization, discrimination, exclusion, being “canceled” and marginalization can lead to isolation, invisibility, addiction, and alienation. This true “workshop” will include clinical tools and experiential exercises designed to convey key concepts including the nature of social information processing, ingroup/outgroup effects, a new category of resonating NC/PCs (connectedness/belonging), social identity formation, internalized social messages, the impact of “isms” and multiple cultural considerations.