Retreats for Clinicians
Our 5-day CPD holiday is focused on Shame Containment Theory (SCT), held in the idyllic Bodrum Peninsula, Turkey. This introductory course, spread over three learning days, will provide therapists with a foundational understanding of SCT, examining shame as a process and its five key components. This dedicated CPD opportunity is designed to enrich your client work and is not intended as a personal therapy retreat.
8:30 – Somatic yoga/mindfulness
9:30 – Breakfast
10:30 – Psych-Ed: A basic understanding of SCT
12:30 – Lunch
1:30 – SCT
3:30 – Short break
4:00 – Creative activity
5:30 – Connect & relax
This CPD holiday offers a valuable opportunity to integrate Shame Containment Theory (SCT) into your therapeutic practice. You can expect to gain:
Develop a clear grasp of shame as a dynamic process and its five core components, providing a robust framework for understanding client experiences.
Learn to recognise the subtle and overt manifestations of shame in your clients, leading to deeper empathy and more accurate assessments.
Gain practical knowledge and tools to help clients process and contain shame, fostering greater resilience and permission.
Explore how shame operates within interpersonal contexts, enriching your understanding of client relationships.
Benefit from focused learning in the inspiring environment of the Bodrum Peninsula, fostering both professional development and personal well-being.
Lisa Etherson has been a psychosexual therapist in private practice for over a decade and is currently a PhD researcher.
As part of Lisa’s PhD and clinical work, she has developed an innovative theory of shame called shame containment theory (SCT). Although Lisa’s research explored SCT from the perspective of men who identify as having compulsive sexual behaviour, SCT can be applied to all human experiences. Her work as a psychosexual therapist and her PhD research has meant that she has developed a particular interest in how childhood experiences influence what we do as adults.
Alongside Lisa, her husband Rob provides rich, real life experience of shame and applying SCT. Rob has a background in setting up and working in therapeutic communities, particularly in drug and alcohol addiction. He is also an experienced trainer. Together, they have created The Shame Training Company and offer training to therapists and other allied practitioners and organisations.
Shame Containment Theory (SCT) is concerned with the development of shame from an attachment perspective and the subsequent experiences of shame when we have experienced attachment injuries in childhood. Although the primary experiences are always in childhood, SCT spans the entire life spectrum and difficulties with shame often manifest more significantly in adulthood.
SCT provides a theoretical understanding of shame, as well as a framework with which to work with shame. It is made up of 5 components:
These are events experienced as small children, felt as life threatening, as they sever the connection between the caregiver and child. These injuries can take the form of overt physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Or, they can be more covert, such as emotional neglect, emotional unavailability or uninterest from the caregiver towards the child
Contained shame is the part of shame that is experienced internally, as a sense of self. This shame can lead to issues such as low self-worth or self-esteem, addiction, depression, violence, anxiety.
This part of shame is what we experience when our contained shame is felt by self or seen by others. It is an acute experience that can feel excruciatingly painful.
Given how terrifying uncontained shame events are, we need to ensure that we do not experience uncontained shame and our contained shame can remain intact. To facilitate this need, we develop shame containment strategies (SCS).
The fifth component of SCT are re-containment strategies. When shame has been uncontained, either as a big, devastating feeling or as a smaller shame leak, strategies are required to re-contain the shame as it can be intolerable to remain in a state of uncontained shame.
Single Occupancy: £3,360
Early Bird: £2,800
Double Occupancy: £3,120
Early Bird: £2,600
Early Bird – before 1st July 2025
