Healing the Healer: Spiritually-Informed Practices for Vicarious Trauma

 Earn 1.5 CE Contact Hours

In a time of global crisis, systemic injustice, and collective trauma, mental health professionals are called to hold space for immense pain with deep empathy and unwavering presence. This 90-minute experiential workshop offers a contemplative space for reflection, renewal, and learning, specifically designed to support clinicians impacted by vicarious trauma.

Grounded in Contemplative Psychotherapy, Buddhist mindfulness, and insights from Indigenous healing frameworks, this session introduces spiritually informed practices to help therapists reconnect to their own inner refuge, build resilience, and sustain presence in their clinical work. Through guided practices, relational inquiry, and clinical reflection, participants will explore how personal restoration is vital to ethical and effective care.

You’ll leave with tangible tools to support nervous system regulation, deepen self-awareness, and approach trauma work with greater spiritual clarity, personal authenticity, and cultural sensitivity.

Through a combination of guided practice, relational inquiry, and didactic reflection, participants will:

• Engage somatic and contemplative practices that support nervous system regulation and embodied presence in therapeutic work.
• Explore the intersection of spiritual resilience and clinical capacity within frameworks of collective trauma and systemic injustice.
• Learn principles of Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy (IFOT) and their relevance for supporting clients in culturally respectful, trauma-informed ways.
• Reconnect to the inner refuge of self-awareness, compassion, and transpersonal wisdom as foundations for sustainable care.

Inspired by the teachings of 8th-century Buddhist scholar Shantideva and the revolutionary self-care framework of Audre Lorde, this workshop cultivates the inner resources necessary for practitioners to remain present, connected, and whole as they accompany others through suffering. Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of how personal and spiritual restoration is integral to ethical, effective, and culturally attuned clinical practice.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

1. Identify at least two contemplative practices from Buddhist and/or Indigenous frameworks that support resilience in clinical settings.
2. Describe how spiritually-informed approaches can address the symptoms and effects of vicarious trauma.
3. Apply at least one principle from Contemplative Psychotherapy to client care in the context of collective crisis or systemic harm.

Who Should Attend:

Family therapists, social workers, and mental health professionals

Meet Helen Hyun-Kyung Park:

Helen Hyun-Kyung Park, LCSW, MFA is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, meditation teacher, and artist/writer based in New York City. She specializes in relational, anti-oppressive, and holistic therapies for teen and adult individuals, couples, and families. Helen integrates relational, strengths-based interventions with practices from Indo-Tibetan Buddhist psychology, somatic abolitionism, and insights drawn from Interpersonal Neurobiology and Applied Neuroaesthetics. She currently practices with the Psychotherapy & Spirituality Institute and Mindful Families, LCSW, PLLC, and provides organizational coaching with Freedom Flow Solutions.

Helen received a Master of Social Work from New York University, Master of Fine Arts in Digital Art/New Media from University of California, Santa Cruz, and was a Fulbright Fellow to South Korea. She holds certifications in Clinical Externship in Family Therapy from the Ackerman Institute for the Family and Mindfulness and Compassion-Based Contemplative Psychotherapy from the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. She is currently writing a book about intergenerational trauma and ancestral healing within the Korean diaspora.

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