Finally be the therapist that helps clients who have a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder*
*This group and training are applicable for all adult children of parents of BPD, NPD, cluster B personality disorders, complex developmental wounding/trauma, Dissociative Disorders (DDNOS), “emotionally immature parents,” and for anyone who grew up in an invalidating environment.
CE credits available for each phase of training
Not ready to sign up or need more information?
Schedule a welcome call with Pamela.
I really resonated with so much of the workshop. The somatic exercises brought me to tears, so much emotion is moving through me… I am so inspired by your work. My deepest of gratitude to you and the work that you do. It feels really good to have these emotions flowing through me. I feel a release. Time to go out in nature!
Most therapists are at a loss when they sense patterns of Borderline Personality Disorder (or similar developmental wounding) in their client’s history or current character structure because they don’t know how to successfully work with them.
You can go from being scared of accepting clients with this wounding to confident that you have the key to unlocking lasting change for them.
Learn why you’re getting caught in a system with these clients.
More importantly: learn how to help them reverse patterns of intergenerational trauma without getting caught in reenactments that lead to your burn out, frustration, and even resentment.
Every therapist who works with clients who were raised by a parent with BPD (or similar emotional deficits) knows that these types of clients:
- Are suffering and often tormented by their interpersonal relationships, loneliness, and longing for healthy connection.
- Have tried many approaches over the years, but have been unable to free themselves from internalized messages, low self-esteem, and dysfunctional relational patterns.
- Are in danger of passing their wounding on to others, including their children. This wounding is often destined to repeat for multiple generations, as under-resourced parents unconsciously re-create the same activation and wounding to self, in their children. Unsafe, unpredictable home life, steeps young brains in the neurotoxins of anxiety.
- Act out their core wounding in multiple areas of their lives including work, friendships, and partnerships — creating ripples of discord that affect those in connection with them.
- Limit their life choices, even in adulthood, in favor of being available to their parent.
- Might struggle to make wise choices and to set boundaries in service of their own well being, over and above the attachment relationship, even if that relationship is harmful or not serving them.
It’s so clear that these types of clients need help.
But in sessions with these clients, it can feel impossible to know how to break through.
Here’s why:
Adult children of parents with Borderline Personality Disorder find it existentially threatening to thrive. Early on, they made unspoken contracts with their parent with BPD. Unbeknownst to them, their loyalty to their parent’s dysfunctional patterns became calcified and even now limits how the adult child moves through the world. Repeatedly they have learned: —to not take up space, submitting their needs in favor of protecting the attachment —to not have boundaries. —that disappointing someone is the worst thing in the world. —that getting it right is like an invisible moving target that’s impossible to hit. —to live in a world of shame, blame, and assuming responsibility for things that aren’t their fault. Life’s a constant state of effort to please and a pervasive sense of being wrong.
These types of clients have tried many ways to heal, without much lasting success:
- Regular talk therapy
- 12 step programs on codependency, and the like
- Reading books
- Trying to talk to friends (and fearing overwhelming them)
- Trying to connect with siblings who aren’t on the same page because they’ve had different experiences within the family
Patterns of Borderline Personality Disorder (or similar developmental wounding) in your clients’ family of origin can create interpersonal strain and can negatively impact the therapeutic relationship.
As a therapist, you want to be the one who can finally help your clients thrive.
But sessions with these types of clients haven't led to the results you want for your clients — and may have left you feeling drained.
- Week after week, each session feels the same.
- You have to drag yourself to sessions with these clients, which feels unfair to them.
- Clients give up.
- Clients project onto you. You feel pressure to be perfect for them.
- Clients might be dependent on you or stuck trying to please you.
- Clients might be self-reliant, and you don’t feel like you’re helping them to see a shift.
- You might feel scared of your clients’ volatile emotions.
You might find that these are your most meaningful and challenging client relationships, because their material touches on your own challenges; their stuckness mirrors your own. Hence, you’re particularly prone to getting caught in enactments with them.
Imagine:
Being able to help your clients break free after a lifetime of struggle.
Staying regulated in your own nervous system as you sit with clients with this wounding. And even taking this one step further: using your regulated nervous system to offer co-regulation to your clients
Being skilled at working relationally with a population who has strain around a parental figure.
Carving a niche for yourself as someone who successfully works with this population. It’s so rare — and so needed.
Hi, I’m Pamela Rosin, Marriage and Family Therapist.
It’s no surprise that I became a therapist. I’ve always been a personal growth junkie. I’ve been in therapy most of my life. Maybe it’s because I was wallowing or stuck or seeking maternal love in the form of a therapist. Go figure!
Everything changed 15 years ago when a bodyworker handed me the book Understanding the Borderline Mother. I was shocked as I read it. How did Christine Ann Lawson, the author, manage to hide in my childhood home and capture it so accurately? Equipped with the term Borderline Personality Disorder, everything made sense. Maybe I wasn’t crazy.
Right away, I started a peer group and it was revolutionary. All those years in therapy, I hadn’t realized, there’s only so much you can get from a therapist offering empathy without divulging their own experience. In a group you can share stories and it’s different. I remember someone saying to the group, “What are you doing in my head? I thought I was the only one having these thoughts!”
The group inspired me to become a therapist who could support this population. No one was offering groups for adult children of parents with BPD or similar emotional deficits. 
Hi, I’m Pamela Rosin, Marriage and Family Therapist. So I had to create it.
I drew on a multitude of modalities and life experiences to create Growing Ourselves Whole — a group therapy experience for adult children of parents with BPD. I like to say, this group is my baby. I genuinely mean it. I’ve dedicated myself to healing this wounding in the world. I’m committed to reversing the intergenerational trauma of BPD (or similar developmental wounding) in as many people as possible.
I’ve created a gem; it’s nothing short of magic. Each time I offer the group, I’m astounded by the synergy of the people who come together. As group leader, I create a field of safety and love where people step forward with deep truths and take in each other’s care. I get to stand back and bask in the power of a proven curriculum, having offered it nine times. The structure is conducive to deep sharing, ah-ha moments, laughter, tears, growth. Members experience an end to their lifelong sense of isolation. Every week as I close the Zoom meeting, I exclaim “#*@$! YES!”
As I see all the unraveling that’s happening in the world, I know there’s no time to waste. People need this. They’ve needed it their whole lives. It doesn’t just impact them, but everyone and everything around them.
According to Carl Buchheit, the Founder of NLP Marin:
“BPD sits behind and beneath about 80% of the pain in people’s lives. This is not a psychological observation. I am sure most psychologists would think this percentage is absurdly high. In my experience, it is accurate. Everyone deals with the effects of BPD patterning, either in themselves or in the behavior of the people they work with or relate with—or do anything with. There is no hyperbole in these sentences, alas.”
Experts on BPD and DBT who have contributed to the development of this program:
- Justine Polevoy, MFT Certified Hakomi Psychotherapist, Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist
- Christine Benvenuto, MFT Co-founder of Oakland DBT and Mindfulness Center, and psychedelic therapist
- David Fish, MFT DBT Center of Marin, Faculty of Hakomi Institute of CA
About your trainer
64 Successful Participants
164+ Instructional Hours
1,300+ Clinical Participation Hours
6+ Years of Targeted Therapeutic Support
Qualifications
- Masters degree in Integral Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies
- Group Therapy Training Program The Psychotherapy Institute one-year training program offering an in-depth study of the theory and practice of group therapy facilitation.
- Training in DBT skills: 6-week video course with Marsha Linehan, 8-week observation of a class at Oakland DBT and Mindfulness Center.
- Brainspotting Trauma healing technique Level 1 & 2
- Certified Hakomi Therapist
- Assisted Hakomi Comprehensive Training 2012-2013 and Hakomi Graduate Level course at California Institute for Integral Studies.
- Trained in ReCreation of Self. Assisted RCS trainings.
- Trained in Trauma healing at Hakomi Institute: From Trauma to Dharma-A Mindfulness-based Trauma Therapy Training
- Certificate in Relational Somatic Healing
- Certified Advanced Relax and Renew Restorative Yoga Teacher by Judith Lasater
- Trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples
- Advanced Hakomi Couples training with Rob Fisher
Pamela Rosin, MFT (she/her) helps clients move toward a sense of belonging, grounding, freedom, and comfort in their own skin. As a Certified Hakomi Therapist, Pamela utilizes experientially based modalities and a synergy of Buddhist and Somatic psychologies to cultivate healing. As a therapist, Pamela integrates her professional acting background, a decade as a bodyworker, and many years of teaching Shakespeare in prison.
As a teacher and group leader, Pamela draws from a multitude of experience in various educational and therapeutic arenas. She embodies the precepts of Reparentive Therapy; bringing relational, loving presence to support learning. Pamela’s creativity, ability to personalize the material, and emphasis on nervous system regulation, supports students’ access and integration of this sensitive and challenging topic.
A graduate of the Integral Counseling Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Pamela’s therapeutic orientation has been influenced by the Eastern/Western blend provided at CIIS, traditional Freudian, psychodynamic, and transpersonal approaches, and by the many wise mentors and guides with whom she has traveled.
Pamela is a seasoned guide, dedicated to healing this wounding in herself and others. She has led Growing Ourselves Whole numerous times over the past few years.
With the focus on the therapist’s nervous system as a resource, the healing begins with you, in a lasting way.
You can bask in the exponential healing in your clients.
TRAIN IN REPARENTIVE THERAPY & DEVELOP VALUABLE TOOLS FOR YOUR PRACTICE
Group participants wanted to share these words:
Get a Certificate in ReParentive™ Therapy (Phase 1) &
Learn to Lead Growing Ourselves Whole Groups (Phase 2)
What is ReParentive™ Therapy?
ReParentive™: the term is a hybrid of two therapeutic concepts: reparative (adj) and reparent (v) and includes the concept of reparations. This approach has roots in therapeutic modalities that prioritize embodiment, mindfulness, liberation, and social justice; it is non-hierarchical and non-pathologizing.
ReParentive Therapy is an active process of making up for past wrongs. It provides the opportunity for the client to receive what they never got, without disempowering them, infantilizing, or creating problematic attachment or reenactment. The therapist acts as a repairing parent (thus the term), who can make reparations to the client’s child self and encourages the adult child to take in the available, safe nourishment so that they can begin to shift their internal sense of what is possible, and let the new options impact their sense of self.
Reparentive Therapy is an intergenerational trauma healing model that encompasses three main elements: 1) an emphasis on the therapeutic relationship, 2) an emphasis on providing the group member/client with a missing experience, and 3) the use of the therapist’s own stable, regulated nervous system as an interactive, dyadic regulator of the group member/client’s nervous system, which supports the experience of secure attachment.
Reparentive Therapy requires the therapist to embody the characteristics and qualities that provide the adult child of a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder or with longstanding attachment issues, (emotional dysregulation, distress tolerance), with a missing, reparative, relational experience. In this model the therapist learns how to be a predictable and reliable source of support and to effectively, consistently, and non-defensively show up for relational interactions and provide repair.
The qualities that are cultivated in the therapist / group leader include transparency, humility, and authenticity. The therapist needs to provide both empathic relational connection and clear, consistent boundaries, while simultaneously supporting the clients’ experience of autonomy and choice. The therapist, unlike the parent with BPD, celebrates the clients’ success and reinforces their sense of agency and individuation. An emphasis is placed on accepting imperfection with grace and compassion and highlighting the reality that human beings are messy and mistakes are a natural part of being human, especially in relationship!
What’s Included in the Training?
Phase 1:
Immerse yourself in ReParentive Therapy. Learn instantly applicable skills that you can bring to your therapy practice, to care for your own nervous system, reduce burn out, and increase your awareness of countertransference. Deepen into your seat as therapist, and as a result, offer co-regulation to your clients.
ReParentive Therapy Professional Certificate Program
Phase 1 (3 months/20 hours worth of training plus 2 consultations with Pamela)
Learn ReParentive Therapy skills and presence. Receive a certificate of completion at the end of the three months.
Yes, there are 16 CE’s available for Phase 1. There’s a processing fee of $75
- CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
- The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
- LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
- For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Pamela Rosin info@reparentivetherapy.com
- For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at info@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com
- Receive a training manual, links to resources and access to recordings if you have to miss a session.
- The course meets weekly for 2-hour sessions for 10 weeks.
- Plus you’ll have two one-on-one meetings with Pamela during the training.
Payment info: $1250
With BIPOC discount: $1100
Not yet licensed as a therapist? Welcome! Launch your practice with a solid foundation, a niche, and the support of a cohort and mentor.
Training to Become a Therapy Group Leader
Phase 2 (3 Months/39 hours of training)
You will be a participant in the ten-week Growing Ourselves Whole group so that you learn by experiencing it. After each group session, you’ll have a chance to reflect on ReParentive Therapy techniques that you experienced in that session. (30 hours)
Your training also includes 6 didactic modules of 90 minutes each. (9 hours)
Through a mix of somatic psychotherapy techniques, psychoeducation, trauma healing approaches, expressive art and experiential exercises, group processes, etc, you’ll learn how to become an effective therapist for this population.
The course meets weekly for 3-hour sessions for 13 weeks.
Schedule details TBA
CE credits will be available
Payment info: $2050
With BIPOC discount: $1800
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3 hour Intensive:
Learn to promote your group, how to do an intake, how to determine right fit participants
Phase 3 (24 hours worth of consultation)
Weekly consultation as you promote, screen clients, and offer your Growing Ourselves Whole group for adult children of parents with BPD (or similar developmental trauma), either in person or online.
Promotional materials and support: you’ll get marketing support in real time as you launch your own group. You can use the Growing Ourselves Whole logo and promotional language.
Most importantly, and rather unique for a training: the cohort experience and group consultation with Pamela leading up to, during, and after your group.
Guides & handouts
- A manual with the full 10-week therapy group curriculum, detailing the structure and themes of each session. Many elements are scripted out precisely.
- Intake forms, screening criteria, and training on how to do an intake.
- Somatic resources toolkit. Learn a resource to teach each week of the group.
- Journaling prompts for each week.
- Handouts for clients.
- A feedback form to distribute at the end of your 10-week group.
What You’ll Learn
You’ll be learning reparentive therapy skills and have a therapeutic lens that you can apply immediately in your private practice with clients long before you launch your first group.
- Handouts to support psychoeducation about Borderline Personality Disorder in language that your participants can understand.
- The modulation model and how to teach it to your group.
- How to somatically resource yourself so that you can help clients regulate themselves too. Become an expert on your own nervous system so that you can detect activation before it takes over and reroutes you.
- How to create group agreements.
- How to somatically track group members, as well as the emotional journey of the group
- Beyond basic group facilitation skills, you’ll learn to create a field of love. You’ll also learn to use structure to create safety, predictability, and containment.
- You’ll have access to instructional videos for how to lead guided visualizations and somatic resources. Learn the somatic tools and test their efficacy for yourself in your daily life so that you can teach them.
- Mindfulness skills–learn to lead the group into mindfulness.
- How to set up experiential exercises including creative expression prompts and how to debrief these experiences with clients.
- How to use the whiteboard or a google doc for a group brainstorm.
- Skills for leading a group both over Zoom and in person.
- Anticipate challenges that may arise in your group.
- How to hold healthy boundaries with participants. Specific support around countertransference with this population.
Growing Ourselves Whole is a structured, 10-week group therapy experience for adults with a parent with BPD. You’ll learn how to facilitate groups of 8 as you guide them to finally have breakthroughs around their core wounding.
All the hard work has been done for you
Phase 2 of the training offers all that you need to promote your group plus time tested techniques that get results. Not only that, you’ll be supported to offer your first group and make back your investment while you’re still in training.
Why Group is the Most Effective Therapy for Adult Children of Parents with BPD
Leading groups allows you to help many people at once. You can work more strategically, for fewer hours and serve more people, while making more money hourly.
More words from past group participants:
“As a professional working in a leadership capacity for high-risk, high-trauma fields (law enforcement), Pamela’s workshops have become a critical part of maintaining a caring presence in my work & a sense of personal safety. Growing up with a borderline parent, I was never taught boundaries, self-worth, self-love or self-care. I developed a mindset of victim blaming, as well as a learned ability to self-blame and self-minimize. Doing the work of healing from the trauma of a borderline parent is easily one of the most difficult things I’ve taken on in my life, because it felt like a betrayal. I began my journey in this therapy group, which showed me that I was not alone, and that loving myself & my parent does not have to be a zero-sum game. For me, Growing Ourselves Whole was my first inkling of a community that truly understands my experience as the child of borderline parent.”
Next Virtual Live Training
2023 Meeting Schedule
Phase 1
ReParentive Therapy Professional Certificate Program
(20 hours worth of training plus 2 individual consultations-to be scheduled with Pamela)
10 Didactic & Experiential Sessions
virtual live meetings
Fridays 9/8-12/15 (no class on 10/27, 11/24)
9am-11am PST
____________________
Training to Become a Therapy Group Leader
Phases 2 & 3
Dates TBD
ReParentive Therapy Professional Certificate Program
Phase 1
Three-month online training
10 live virtual 2-hour meetings. Every session will be a mixture of didactic, experiential, and skills. 20 hours of training
Two individual 30-minute consultations with Pamela
Pertinent articles and recommended book list
Homework and journaling prompts to integrate learning during the week
Supportive cohort of colleagues
You will receive a ReParentive Therapy Certificate upon completion of Phase 1. To achieve full certification you must complete Phases 2 & 3
Live Class Dates and Times:
10 virtual live meetings
Fridays 9/8-12/15 (no class on 10/27, 11/24)
9am-11am PST
Plus two 30 minute individual consultations with Pamela, to be scheduled during the program
(Phases 2 & 3 – details coming soon)
Your Investment:
ReParentive Therapy Professional Certificate Program
Phase 1
$1250
$1100 with BIPOC Scholarship
Early Bird Rate: when you enroll and pay in full by July 8: $1125 or $1000 with BIPOC Scholarship
- Early Bird: paid in full $3600 due by December 10, 2022
- Standard: Tuition is $4000 Pay in full at time of enrollment (no later than January 10, 2023)
- Payment Plan: Make a $500 non-refundable enrollment deposit, along with a $1,000 tuition payment, ($1,500). Then pay $500/month over 5 months
- BIPOC Scholarship: $3300 ($700 off) paid in full at time of enrollment
- BIPOC Scholarship with Payment Plan: $3500 ($500 off)
$500 non-refundable enrollment deposit, plus $1,000 tuition payment, ($1,500) then $400/month for 5 months
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, there are 16 CE’s available for Phase 1. There’s a processing fee of $75
- CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
- The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
- LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
- For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Pamela Rosin info@reparentivetherapy.com
- For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at info@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com
Yes, absolutely! This training can start your practice off with a solid foundation and clear direction for your niche as you launch as a therapist. If you’re a somatic coach or do similar work with trauma, feel free to apply as well.
Full tuition cancellations made within 60 days or more in advance of the September 8 training start date will receive a 100% refund, less a $500 non-refundable deposit. Cancellations made 45 days in advance of the September 8 training start date will receive a 50% refund, less a $500 non-refundable deposit. Cancellations made within less than 45 days, will not receive a refund.
Phase 1 is comprised of 10 two-hour sessions plus two 30 minute individual consultations with Pamela, to support you along the way.
Phase 2 is comprised of 13 three-hour sessions, which include participation in and debrief of the 10-week therapy group. Experience the group as you learn to lead it, including learning skills and ReParentive Theory.
3-hour strategy session for promoting and screening for your group.
Phase 3: Consultation and support while you lead your group.
Video replays will be available for a limited time. It will be important that you watch the prior session’s video before the subsequent training.
Yes, the BIPOC Scholarship is $155 off Phase 1 and $255 off Phase 2
Yes, the phases are sequential. The skills you learn in Phase 1 will serve you as you lead groups.
FAQ about Phases 2 & 3
Absolutely! In fact, Phase 2, the integration and launching phase, is the most important part of the training. Your weekly consultation group will meet before and during your 10-week group.
You’ll leave the training equipped with all of the promotional materials that are designed with language that helps you reach your ideal clients for your group. You can get support around where best to promote your group to find people locally as well.
I’ve found 8 is the ideal number for groups. If you have fewer than 6 participants, I will encourage you to delay the start of your group.
I will support you with marketing ideas and will recommend that you hold off until you have a minimum of 6 participants.
Depending on local going rates for group therapy, you can generally charge in the range of $50-90/session. Your fee for the 10 week group can be $500-900, with room for a few sliding scale clients. With 8 participants, you can expect to gross anywhere from $4,000-7,000. If you offer the group three times per year, this amounts to as much as $21,000 increased annual income for you. The training pays for itself not after you finish, but during the training itself, while you offer your first group.
From the first module, you’ll be learning Reparentive Therapy skills that will benefit you in your seat as therapist with all of your clients. Your nervous system may even feel more resourced at the end of your work day.
Yes, if you’re shy and feeling called to this work, it is a great opportunity to breathe into your hesitation as you get support and a lot of structure every step of the way. I’ll hold your hand through all phases: during the training, as you promote your group, and then as you hold your group. You will not be alone as you do any of this.
Transform your practice. Change lives. Help end intergenerational trauma.
