Reclaiming Resilience
Interview with Clinical Director and Course Creatrix Cree Lambeck
The Rewind Technique
Discovering a therapeutic tool like the Rewind Technique is a bit like stumbling upon a hidden treasure in the field of trauma healing. With an impressive 80-90% efficacy rate, this evidence-based intervention can lead to transformative results in just a few sessions. Canadian therapists now have the opportunity to be at the forefront of bringing this tool to our clients. Imagine the rewards of providing clients with a swift, safe, and sustainable resolution to their emotional injuries and distress, offering them the ability to reclaim control over their emotional well-being. The Rewind Technique isn't just a therapeutic tool; it's a catalyst for empowerment and healing in the landscape of trauma recovery.
The Interview
AMY: Okay, hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for this special Q&A session. We have a special treat for you as I sit down with Cree Lambeck, the visionary behind Cherry Tree Counselling to discuss her recently launched training course Reclaiming Resilience, designed to teach therapists how to integrate the Rewind Technique for treating trauma with their clients.
So I'm really excited to kind of get into the details of this innovative course designed to elevate the skills of therapists in trauma-focused care and Cree has graciously agreed to share insights into the inspiration behind the course, its unique features and how it stands out in the ever-evolving landscape of professional development in the mental health field. So without further ado, let's just jump right into the conversation. Welcome, Cree, and thank you for joining us today.
CREE: Thank you, Amy, for that lovely introduction. Oh my goodness. I feel very flattered and humbled. Thank you so much and thanks for this opportunity today.
AMY: Yeah, no problem. Thank you for joining us. So, I'll get to the right to the first question here.
Q: How did you identify the specific needs or gaps in training that prompted the development of this new course for therapists?
CREE: Oh yeah, that's a great question. Well, I mean, I think that really came out of my looking for tools myself in supporting our clients here at our clinic. And noticing that although we have, you know, so many wonderful tools and therapeutic modalities, I was also looking for something very specific in my case to treating reproductive trauma because a lot of the folks that we work with here at Cherry Tree come from the perinatal community.
And so then, when I became aware of this technique and started to use it in everyday practice and notice and experience the results, that's when I sort of dug deeper into the training and the learning process and expanded the scope to really start using the tool to treat many different types of trauma beyond just the perinatal experience of birth injuries.
“It’s not a cookie-cutter approach...when we talk about remaining adaptable and flexible and needing to pivot and meet clients where they’re at, we need a big toolbox.”
Q: Can you share some key principles or philosophies of this training program and how it might set itself apart from existing courses?
CREE: So first, I just want to tell you a little story because I brought a little prop today because this book is really special to me…So this book is called “Recovering from a Traumatic Birth: A Practical Guide” by Alexandra Heath out of the UK and was published in 2020 and back at that time I was just leafing through it late one night looking for some tools strategies resources supports for working with birth trauma. And there was a tiny little reference on page 61 to the Rewind Technique and I didn't know what that was, but I was curious.
So of course I started looking it up and digging around and doing some research and one thing kind of led to another and I discovered this training program. Went through the training, started using the intervention more and more in our practice and again just noticing those amazing results. And so what I learned in my training and researching and learning about the Rewind is that it's a very safe intervention.
So sometimes our clients or patients might come to us and share with us experiences of feeling re-traumatized by a particular therapeutic technique or modality or tool. And the Rewind is known to be non-retraumatizing. It's considered to be a very, very safe intervention and has a very high efficacy rate.
The Accessibility and Versatility of the Rewind Technique
What also really drew me to learning more and practicing the Rewind is how accessible it is. So, for our clients who, for various reasons, need shorter term therapy, brief therapy, perhaps don't have the financial resources or health coverage to fund their therapy or you know for many, many reasons…just sort of need something really granular that they can come in, we can treat, and see if it helps. And so the rewind is a very accessible and affordable therapy. It's also really, really flexible and adaptable.
So what's amazing partly about it is that it can be used as a standalone intervention and delivered in as little as 1 to 3 sessions to see results, but it can also be integrated into a broader therapeutic context. So it can complement the tools that are already there in our toolbox and the modalities that we love, that we're passionate about, and that we're trained in. It can work together as a supplement. So there's all these very practical reasons. I'm a pretty practical person and practitioner and I really like concrete practical tools that I can take into my sessions to offer to clients and see if they help.
“And so the rewind for me kind of checked all those boxes and that’s partly why I’ve been so excited to introduce it to more practitioners.”
Q: In what ways does this training course address the evolving landscape of mental health care considering the changing needs of clients and emerging therapeutic approaches?
CREE: Yeah, that's a great question, Amy. Well, you know, I think it's 2024 and so as practitioners, we need to be really nimble and adaptable and responsive. We're all learning how to pivot post-pandemic. We're all learning how to pivot, what changes have happened in our field, in our world as a result, you know, of this changing landscape of mental health. Also the technologically changing landscape of being able to offer, you know, sessions from anywhere online, trying to be really responsive to our client and patient needs and preferences.
And so we need to really be very flexible in this work these days, to be able to deliver what it is we're hearing that our clients need and want from us. Yeah, yeah, and that's what we want to do. We really want to meet the client where they're at and their specific situation and resources.
Q: In what ways do you feel the training emphasizes self-care and the well-being of therapists, recognizing there are unique challenges that they may face in the profession?
CREE: Well, as therapists, I mean, we are exposed every day in our work to you know, human suffering and human pain and emotional injuries. This is what we sit with and this is what we hold every day. And that's why in our training programs, of course, we learn about compassion fatigue. We learn about the vicarious traumatization of being on the front lines of bearing witness to everything that we hold, absorb, and carry in service to our clients. And so we need to take care of ourselves in this work. We know that.
We talk about self-care and we also need to do more than talk about it. We need to really practice it. Right, which can be challenging. And we're helpers when we're serving the needs of others and we're, you know, carrying these stories around with us. So the Rewind not only supports our healing journeys in our clients but also can be a really protective and effective tool for us in doing this work. So that we can, you know, help the clients, serve the clients who are coming to us and bear witness not just to that pain and suffering but also their healing and their recovery and their growth.
AMY: Yeah, that's so beautiful, especially with the high efficacy rate, right, and feedback from the studies that have been done to learn that it is really an effective tool. It really does help with the symptoms and the involuntary recall.
CREE: Yeah, and like we talk in the course about how, you know, no one therapeutic modality or technique is going to be the right fit for all of our clients. We know that. It's not a cookie-cutter approach, right? But I think that you know, when we talk about remaining adaptable and flexible and needing to pivot and meet clients where they're at, we need a big toolbox. We need a toolbox that's bursting. At the seams, right? And so we can reach into this toolbox where we have our evidence-based, you know, techniques and strategies ready to go. We have a deep understanding, competency, and skill in knowing how to use them and integrate them. And then we can offer our clients, you know, what might be the best fit for their needs. So again, this is one tool in the box of many, many tools.
AMY: And just thinking from my own experience as a growing therapist too…trauma work can seem very daunting. This tool could mean a lot to therapists who feel maybe like they may not be as prepared to address trauma with their clients.
CREE: Yeah, that's it exactly. In our supervision groups and consultation groups, we talk about this a lot. And this experience of feeling like, you know, I'm not a trauma therapist, which is something I hear regularly from our students and our supervisees, but really mean trauma is universal. It's part of being human to be exposed to emotional pain and to be exposed to emotional pain and injury and distress.
And so we're sitting with, to be exposed to emotional pain and injury and distress. And so we're sitting with this every day and injury and distress. And so we're sitting with this every day as practitioners as mental health practitioners, regardless kind of maybe the labels that we're using. And so, you know, we need to feel confident and competent that we have what our clients need. We have something to offer them that is going to be transformational that is going to be effective. And this is something, you know, I've heard from lots of therapists that we might be missing.
Maybe we haven't had the opportunity to take a longer, more intensive training or work through all of our certifications for example and some of the leading modalities here in Canada. But we still need those tools and we know when there are gaps and they're not there. So I think this is, you know, again, just another tool that we can bring into the mix and it's something very straightforward. It's really easy to learn. It's really accessible for both the therapist to learn and the client to receive and we can take it right back and put it into practice.
Q: Beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skills in this course, how does the training foster a sense of passion and/or purpose and resilience among therapists contributing to their long-term fulfillment in the profession?
CREE: Yeah, great question. And I think that's it, right? We were talking about self-care earlier and how are we going to be sustainable in the work? How are we going to continue to do this work when we know how heavy the work can be, we know how tough it can be and how that can accumulate over time. So again, one of the ways that we care for ourselves is, you know, professionally, right?
We care for ourselves. Personally, in our personal lives, what fuels us, what nourishes us, what feeds us, helps us to restore. And what helps us professionally. And again, I think when our clients come to us and we're bearing witness to that suffering up close and we have something to offer, something that we believe in, something that we trust, something that has that very high efficacy rate that we know is safe and we can say to our clients, “I've got this, let's try it and see if it helps.”
Right, that in itself, can be deeply, like in my experience fulfilling and empowering and help us grow our competence and our confidence in this work.
AMY: Yeah, yeah, to really connect with a modality such as this is really important to therapists, you know, to stand behind.
CREE: Exactly. And I mean, when we have solid training, a deep understanding of any modality or technique, we really feel it, you know, it's that felt sense and the more we use it, the more we put it into practice, the more that confidence grows and the more our clinical competency grows. And I think that our clients pick up on that. So as you said, to have tools that we really believe in and stand behind and have witnessed the results and then being able to bring that into our practices is something really special and amazing that we can offer and it helps our own growth as therapists as well.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts that you can offer to the community or any therapists that might be interested in taking the course?
CREE: Well, I mean, I think, you know, I'm just so excited to have this out there and I really want people to learn more about the Rewind. I think it can be a real game changer to our practices the same way as it has been to mine. I know when I started reading about it, I had no idea what it was, but I was intrigued.
And so if folks have questions, if there's anything you're wondering about, you know, I've been writing on some of the posts if you're Rewind curious, right? And you're wondering, what would this look like for me and my practice with the population that I serve? With the approaches that I use with my other training. Please don't hesitate to reach out because we love receiving questions from fellow practitioners and at the end of the day we really just want to share this amazing tool with as many as many helpers as we can.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU
CREE: I also just wanted to make a special note because we really couldn't have gotten to this point without the amazing support of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative. They really backed this project in the early days and we're so grateful for all of the good work they do every day in Canada, in the perinatal population. They're doing amazing things. And then with us, and with our experience of working with them in our practice and supporting this project. So we just want to give a special thanks and shout out to them.
AMY: Alright, awesome. Well, thank you so much. And anybody who's listening or watching, you're welcome to go on our website and check out the Reclaiming Resilience course under our programs and training.
If you’re interested in seeing whether online therapy is a good fit for you, we offer free 15 minute meet & greets with therapists on our team.
Connect with us and let’s talk about how we can help you.
