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Why It’s Okay to Talk to a Teapot: Creative Narrative and Jungian Approaches in Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy

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Why It’s Okay to Talk to a Teapot: Creative Narrative and Jungian Approaches in Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy

Jan. 30, 2027

10:00 AM - 1:15 PM (EST)

Virtual Event
3 CE Credits
Discover how creative writing, fairytales, and Jungian psychology can deepen trauma-informed psychotherapy. This engaging CE training explores symbolic storytelling as a powerful therapeutic tool to process trauma, integrate shadow material, restore narrative identity, foster resilience, and support healing through imaginative, evidence-informed clinical interventions that enhance therapeutic practice.

This presentation critically examines the role of creative writing, fantasy, and fairytale processes within trauma-informed psychotherapy, exploring how imaginative engagement with symbolic objects and narratives can foster healing, integration, and individuation. Trauma has been described as a rupture in narrative coherence that silences the subject and fragments affective experience, often binding emotion in shame or dissociation (Herman, 1992; van der Kolk, 2014). Creative writing, particularly when structured through fairytale forms, provides a symbolic container in which such experiences may be externalised and reimagined, enabling clients to reclaim authorship of the self and restore narrative agency (White & Epston, 1990). Situated within a Jungian framework, the presentation considers how archetypal motifs, shadow material, and the individuation process can be activated through imaginative storytelling (Jung, 1959/1969). The metaphor of talking to a teapot functions as an entry point into symbolic engagement, where the client can safely project inner states onto external figures or objects. Such imaginative dialogue creates both distance and depth, allowing traumatic experience to be encountered without retraumatisation. Fairytales in particular, with their recurrent archetypes and transformative structures, mirror the psychological processes of struggle, integration, and renewal. The session draws on my doctoral research, which examines the use of fairytale writing as a method for working with shadow material and facilitating individuation in psychotherapy (Brock, forthcoming). Clinical vignettes will demonstrate how the imaginative act of conversing with symbolic figures and constructing fairytales enables clients to articulate silenced experiences, metabolise trauma, and reauthor their identities. These practices will be contextualised within trauma-informed principles of safety, collaboration, and empowerment. The presentation seeks to contribute both theoretical insights to the field of trauma studies and practical interventions for clinicians who wish to integrate narrative and Jungian approaches into therapeutic work.

Session Highlights
  • Trauma and Narrative Healing – Discover how creative writing restores coherence to silenced and fragmented experiences of trauma.
  • Fairytales as Maps of Transformation – See how archetypal motifs and fairytale structures support psychological integration and renewal.
  • Talking to the Teapot – Learn how symbolic dialogue with objects enables safe exploration of traumatic material.
  • Clinical Stories in Action – Experience vivid case examples showing how storytelling fosters healing and reauthorship of the self.

This live interactive webinar is designed for behavioral health professionals, including:

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychotherapists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Substance Use Disorders Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Physicians
  • Other Mental Health Professionals
Pearl Brock, PhDPearl Brock, PhD

Jungian and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Educator

Pearl Brock, PhD, is a consultant clinical psychotherapist, educator, researcher, supervisor, and international presenter whose work integrates Jungian and post-Jungian thought, psychodynamic psychotherapy, ethics, narrative, symbolic imagination, trauma-informed practice, and the applied humanities. She is the Clinical Director of Think Well Psychotherapy Clinic in Mullingar, Ireland, and a faculty member at the Global Centre for Advanced Studies College Dublin.

Pearl Brock, PhD, approaches psychotherapy as a relational and meaning-centered process. Her work explores how present distress may connect with earlier relationships, unconscious patterns, shame, identity, cultural experience, personal values, dreams, symbols, and the stories people use to understand their lives. Rather than assigning universal meanings to dreams or images, she emphasizes collaborative exploration grounded in each client’s experiences and associations.

Pearl Brock, PhD, also brings experience from clinical, academic, forensic, and community settings. Her official clinic biography identifies work involving complex trauma, crisis intervention, offending behavior, gender identity, relationship diversity, and sensitive court-related matters. Across these areas, her approach emphasizes ethical containment, role clarity, professional supervision, and respect for the complexity of each person’s psychological experience.

Professional Background

Pearl Brock, PhD, earned her doctorate through the Global Centre for Advanced Studies College Dublin and now appears on the institution’s faculty roster. Her current GCAS profile identifies psychodynamics, psychotherapy, ethics, applied humanities, and narrative therapy among her principal academic and clinical interests. It also states that she teaches, supervises, and presents internationally on psychotherapy, ethics, and the contribution of the humanities to human flourishing.

Pearl Brock, PhD, serves as Clinical Director of Think Well Psychotherapy Clinic. Think Well describes her as a consultant clinical psychotherapist with experience across clinical, academic, and forensic environments, including trauma work, crisis intervention, offending behavior, and expert-witness responsibilities in sensitive and high-risk cases. Her work includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families, alongside mentoring and professional development for trainee psychotherapists.

Pearl Brock, PhD, is a founder and the current President of the Irish Association for Psychodynamic Psychotherapists. The association reports that she has been involved in psychotherapy and mental health education since 2005 and identifies Jungian theory, archetypes, dream analysis, and the collective unconscious as important influences on her work. Her leadership supports professional education, ethical practice, research, collaboration, and wider recognition of psychodynamic psychotherapy in Ireland.

Pearl Brock, PhD, developed Personal Philosophy Focused Psychotherapy, a framework connecting psychotherapy with philosophy, narrative, meaning, and the humanities. Her GCAS profile presents this framework as a distinctive component of her clinical and scholarly work. It should be described as her developing integrative framework rather than as an independently validated treatment model unless peer-reviewed effectiveness research becomes available.

Pearl Brock, PhD, completed doctoral research examining therapeutic writing and fairy-tale creation through Jungian and post-Jungian perspectives. Her work considers how symbolic stories may help people approach shadow material, internal conflict, shame, fear, longing, and psychological transformation when ordinary language feels limited. Her research places fairy-tale work within psychodynamic, narrative, supervisory, and ethical structures rather than presenting storytelling as a substitute for psychotherapy.

Areas of Expertise

Jungian and Post-Jungian Psychotherapy. Pearl Brock, PhD, explores dreams, symbols, archetypal themes, imagination, shadow material, and individuation within a relational therapeutic process. The goal is not to impose fixed interpretations, but to help clients consider how an image, story, or recurring theme connects with their own history, culture, relationships, and present concerns. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy’s overview of therapy approaches identifies analytical psychology as the approach developed from Carl Jung’s work and recognizes symbolic and unconscious processes as central areas of inquiry.

Psychodynamic and Relational Practice. Dr. Brock helps clinicians examine how early relationships and unconscious expectations may influence current emotions, defenses, interpersonal patterns, and experiences within therapy. Transference and countertransference can provide useful clinical information when approached with self-awareness, supervision, appropriate boundaries, and openness to correction. Clinical Events’ transference and countertransference ethics training offers complementary education on recognizing and managing these relational dynamics.

Therapeutic Writing, Fairy Tales, and Narrative. Dr. Brock’s doctoral work explores fairy-tale writing as a way of creating psychological distance from experiences that may be difficult to communicate directly. Characters, landscapes, obstacles, helpers, and transformations can provide material for reflection, but the client remains the primary authority on personal meaning. Her Think Well writing describes this work as a structured and ethically contained practice situated within psychodynamic and narrative traditions.

Dream Analysis and Symbolic Exploration. Dr. Brock works with dreams as subjective material that may illuminate emotional conflicts, relationships, fears, wishes, and recurring patterns. Ethical dream work does not treat a dream as a prediction or as factual proof of an unremembered event. Instead, the therapist invites the dreamer’s associations and considers the dream in relation to personal history, cultural meaning, memory, and present circumstances.

Complex Trauma and Shame. Her clinical background includes work with people experiencing complex trauma, profound shame, crisis, marginalization, and difficult relational experiences. Treatment in these contexts requires safety, consent, careful pacing, predictability, and attention to the client’s capacity to remain emotionally present. Clinical Events’ trauma therapy guide for clinicians offers related discussion of assessment, stabilization, treatment planning, and clinician responsibility.

Forensic and High-Complexity Psychotherapy. Dr. Brock has worked in forensic settings and as an expert witness in sensitive and high-risk matters. This work requires explicit role definition because treatment, evaluation, consultation, and expert testimony carry different responsibilities. Informed consent, documentation, confidentiality limits, competence, impartiality, and consultation become especially important when psychological services intersect with courts or legal decision-making.

Identity, Inclusion, and Relationship Diversity. Her current clinic profile identifies work with LGBTQ+ communities, trans youth, people exploring gender identity, neurodivergent clients, and individuals in polyamorous relationships. Affirmative practice requires clinicians to examine assumptions about identity, family, intimacy, communication, and socially accepted relationship structures while avoiding the pathologizing of difference.

Ethics, Supervision, and Professional Formation. Dr. Brock teaches ethics and supervises developing practitioners. Her approach aligns with professional frameworks emphasizing client dignity, informed consent, confidentiality, boundaries, competence, supervision, and structured ethical decision-making. Clinical Events’ guide to ethics, boundaries, confidentiality, and competence provides complementary material for clinicians, while the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Code of Ethics offers a relevant professional framework for practice in Ireland.

After this training, participants will be able to:

  •  Describe how fairytale writing and symbolic imagination can be used to explore shadow material, shame, and unspoken aspects of the psyche.
  • Apply reflective and imaginative writing techniques to support self-understanding and deepen therapeutic insight with clients.
  • Integrate Jungian and narrative approaches into their clinical practice in ways that foster individuation, empowerment, and reflective growth

10:00 – 10:05 am – Introduction
Welcome and overview of the session, framing the role of creativity and symbolism in trauma-informed psychotherapy.

10:05 – 10:30 am – Trauma as Narrative Rupture
Exploring trauma as a disruption of narrative coherence and how imaginative writing can restore agency.

10:30 – 11:00 am – Fairytales as Therapeutic Blueprints
Unpacking archetypal motifs and transformative structures as pathways for psychological integration and renewal.

11:00 – 11:30 am – Symbolic Dialogue and the Talking Teapot
Demonstrating how symbolic projection enables safe engagement with shadow material.

11:30 – 11:45 am – Break

11:45 – 12:15 pm – Clinical Vignettes from Practice-Based Research
Case examples illustrating how fairytale writing supports healing, integration, and individuation.

12:15 – 12:40 pm – Reflective Writing Activity
Participants engage in a short symbolic writing or a fairytale exercise.

12:40 – 1:05 pm – Group Sharing and Reflection
Optional space for participants to share their writing, thoughts, and insights, with group discussion facilitated.

1:05 – 1:15 pm – Q&A and Closing Reflections
Final questions, takeaways, and closing remarks.

All levels (content will be accessible to beginners while offering theoretical and clinical depth for advanced practitioners).

Registration Cost

Registration $67 | Jan. 30 | Virtual Event | 3 CE Credits | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm ET

Registration Deadline:  Jan. 30, 2027

Cancellation Policy

All registrations are non-refundable. However, you may request a full credit toward a future training if:

  • You notify us at least 72 hours before the event starts.
  • Credit is valid for up to 6 months from the original event date.
  • No credit will be issued for no-shows or cancellations made on the same day.
  • When you register for an event, you agree to these terms

Please email [email protected] to request a credit or reschedule.

A total of 3 CE credits are available.

Additional Approvals Pending.


ASWB ACE

Clinical Events, LLC, (provider # 2201) is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 11/01/2025 – 11/01/2028.

NBCC

Clinical Events, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved   Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7643 Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Clinical Events, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

NAADAC

This course has been approved by Clinical Events, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #320899, Clinical Events is responsible for all aspects of the programming.

NY State Board of Psychologists

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0292.

NY State Board of Psychoanalysts

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0073.

NY State Board of Social Workers

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0828.

NY State Board of Mental Health Counselors

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0329.

NY State Board of Marriage & Family Therapists

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0140.

NJ State Board of Social Workers & Professional Counselors

The New Jersey Social Work Examiners Board accepts ASWB ACE Provider credits. The New Jersey Professional Counselors Board accepts NBCC-approved CE provider credits.

Florida Certification Board

Clinical Events is approved by the Florida Certification Board (FCB) to offer continuing education programs (Provider # 5527-A).

Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation

SWB Provider # 159.001697 PC and CPC Provider # 197.000434.

 

All Other States Social Workers & Professional Counselors

All other states accept ASWB ACE Provider credits and NBCC-approved CE provider credits. Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their jurisdictions. States and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Canada Social Workers

BC, AB, SK, MB, ON, and QC accept ASWB ACE-approved provider programs to meet licensure renewal requirements.  Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their province. Provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Canada Counsellors

Clinical Events is an NBCC-approved provider.  Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their province. Provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Please contact us if you would like to inquire about applicable approvals for your continuing education (CE) needs.

Each professional is responsible for understanding and meeting the specific CE requirements set by their individual licensing board or regulatory agency. We encourage you to reach out to your licensing body directly to confirm how our programs apply toward your licensure renewal.

Questions:  [email protected]

In accordance with continuing education standards and requirements, the presenter discloses that they have no relevant financial relationships, affiliations, or conflicts of interest to report.