The Professional Training Program (PTP), chaired by Sandra Bouabjian, coordinates ISSTD’s PTP curriculum and course offerings. The PTP includes multiple courses, at varying levels, which have been designed, updated, and re-designed by many dedicated volunteers. We have moved with the times, embraced online technology, and have gone from teaching just face-to-face classes to predominantly live teleseminar courses the last few years. Courses in Spanish are also available in an asynchronous online format. All courses were most recently updated with the latest research for the 2022 class year.
As befits an International Society, we now have instructors from all over the world (and in various languages) and thousands of students from all over the world have taken the courses. The PTP courses were already in place and well-established prior to the explosion of online learning and CEU’s during the pandemic and have since grown to include more than 300 students in our current courses this year.
Current Courses:
The PTP courses contribute to the necessary credits for the ISSTD Certificate in Complex Trauma and Dissociation. There are now four levels of Adult courses which are approved for APA and ASWB continuing education credits under ISSTD’s approvals. The Level I course, The Complexities of Complex Trauma, and the Level II course, From Complex Trauma to Dissociative Disorders, both have two parts to the course. Level III in the program is the Advanced Course in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Complex Trauma and Dissociative Disorders, and Level IV is the Masters Seminar. All courses are now available through the ISSTD Online Learning Center. Courses are offered in either English or Spanish, and the entire program is currently being developed for India. For more information on any of these courses, please see here.
Opportunities for Teaching:
With so many courses and an increasing demand for them, we are looking for more instructors who would be willing to teach the provided curriculum and included articles for study. Every course is well-planned, with set readings and objectives. We also provide new instructors with a webinar training, as well as mentors for their first year of teaching. The criteria for instructor selection is available here. We encourage those who meet the criteria to consider applying to become a PTP instructor, via the application form. If you have further questions, please contact Sandra Boubjian via email sbouabjian@hotmail.com. With the change of the year, we will see some changes of leadership of the PTP Committee. As of January 2022, Rebeca Scherman will become PTP chair and Peter Maves will become Chair-Elect. Sandra Bouabjian will be looking forward to continuing activities as Past Chair, and Su Baker, our current Past Chair, will be ending her term after six years of dedication to PTP leadership.
Courses currently open for registration can be found in the Online Learning Center here.