Date: October 17, 2025
Times: 10:00 am-5:30pm Eastern (Find the time for your location) In person registration and breakfast at 9:30 am
Instructor: Mary Jo Barrett, MSW
Location: Live at Grandview Farm in Burlington MA and Live on Zoom (synchronous)
Credits: 6 CEs
This event is co-sponsored by Burlington Youth and Family Services
Moving Past Silence:
Treating Families Impacted by Sexual Abuse
Since Freud found that his patients were impacted by incest then shifted gears, our field has struggled with addressing this type of harm. Even now, there is very little published about working with families to address sexual harm perpetrated by family members or trusted others. Mary Jo Barrett has spent her career working with and writing about complex trauma including the impacts of intrafamilial sexual abuse. She asks: In today’s world, have we helped to keep incest and sexual abuse by trusted others a secret by lumping it under the name of trauma? Have we been complicit in sweeping the relational trauma of sexual violation under the rug like so many clients and their family members do?
Intrafamilial abuse can deeply affect children and their families, creating cycles of shame, stigma, and isolation that reverberate across the family system. Conversely, when families handle disclosures/discovery and their aftermath well, healing can happen. This training equips clinicians with knowledge and tools to recognize, assess, and treat the complexities of intrafamilial abuse, including its emotional and psychological impacts. Participants will explore how emotional incest and parentification affect children’s development. They will learn culturally responsive approaches. By deepening their understanding and skills, clinicians will be better prepared to support families in healing, resilience-building, and navigating disclosure with sensitivity and cultural awareness.
This workshop will address the significant number of our “trauma” clients who are victims of intrafamilial sexual abuse. The work includes people who have been violated by trusted others including coaches, family friends, and clergy. Mary Jo will discuss the differences between incest and other forms of relational harm including physical and emotional abuse. You will learn how to provide treatment enlightened by understanding the nuances of this complex developmental trauma. What clinicians will learn includes: interventions for the crisis of discovery and disclosure as well as later phases of treatment; understanding how clients’ being related to or emotionally close to a perpetrator impacts the therapeutic relationship; learning about the dynamics of sibling sexual abuse; specific treatment interventions for family therapy when the sexual abuse is current between family members; methods for family of origin work when our clients are adults.
Mary Jo Barrett, MSW
Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, is the Founder and Director of The Center for Contextual Change, located in Metro Chicago. CCC is a clinical Training Center specializing in The Collaborative Stage Model-a component phase model working with individuals, families, and groups. Mary Jo was previously a long-time adjunct faculty member of the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, the Family Institute of Northwestern University and The Chicago Center for Family Health. She holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois Jane Addams School of Social Work.
Ms. Barrett is a nationally prominent expert in the treatment of trauma and traumatic violence in the family and in our communities. Her model is a collaborative, resilience-oriented approach which helps families create healing plans that can provide lasting change. Mary Jo also works extensively with helping therapists prevent Compassion Fatigue and heal from Vicarious Traumatization. She is a leading authority on family violence, including the physical and sexual abuse of children, neglect, incest, and spouse abuse, as well as neighborhood gun violence and has been working on these issues in since 1974.
Ms. Barrett has co-authored a new book Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change with Linda Stone Fish (2023). Ms. Barrett has co-authored two books with Dr. Terry Trepper: Treating Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective (2014) and The Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook (1989). She is working on two handbooks: Systemic Treatment of Trauma and Interpersonal Violence and a handbook addressing compassion fatigue. Her other publications focus on systemic and feminist treatment of women, adult survivors of sexual abuse and trauma, eating disorders, couples therapy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Ms. Barrett provides consultations, workshops, and courses both nationally and internationally to families, lawyers, psychotherapists, social service providers, staff of residential treatment facilities and staff of governmental agencies.
Schedule: Eastern Time
Learning: 10:00 am-11:45 am 1.75 hours
Break 11:45 am- 12:00 pm
Learning: 12:00 pm-1:30 pm 1.5 hours
Lunch served on site or Zoom break: 1:30 pm- 2:30 pm
Learning: 2:30 pm-4:00 pm 1.5 hours
Break: 4:00 pm-4:15 pm
Learning: 4:15 pm- 5:30 pm 1.25 hours
Learning Objectives, Participants will:
1. Learn the nuances of working with intrafamilial sexual abuse, describing the differences between other forms of child abuse and neglect
2. List several dynamics that contribute to the expression of incest in a family
3. Explain a vulnerability/resource model of assessment
4. Describe how to apply the Collaborative Change Model of Trauma Treatment to intrafamilial sexual abuse
5. Identify a minimum of two ways to practice therapist self-awareness and self-regulation in working with intrafamilial sexual abuse
Target Audience
This learning event is designed for helping professionals including, but not limited to, social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage & family therapists. People who attend from professions other than those for whom we are approved for CEUs may check their local Board of License Registration to see if these CEUs will apply.
Cost
- Individual Registration: Regular Rate—$160; Early Bird Rate: $140
- Early Registration Deadline: September 5, 2025
- NEAFAST Member Rate: $110
- Our EQUITY rate for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ clinicians is $100. Use the “promo” code EQUITY in the online registration form to access this discount.
- 6 CEUs will be available at an additional cost of $25 paid upon registration for social workers, mental health counselors, marriage & family therapists and anyone else who determines their board will accept our CEUs.
Location
Live at Grandview Farm in Burlington MA and Live on Zoom
Additional Information
Participants MUST attend 100% of the program to earn the 6 CEUs approved for eligible professions.
CEU certificates will be downloadable within three days of each event after participants complete the workshop or course and fill out the online evaluation.
- Therapy Training Boston is approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6707 for Mental Health Counselors. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Therapy Training Boston is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELORS -
This activity has been certified by NEAFAST on behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Allied Mental Health & Human Services Professions for LMFT Professional Continuing Education. Certification #212779353-C LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS
- This program has been approved for 6 Social Work Continuing Education hours for relicensurc, in accordance with 258 CMR, NASW-MA Chapter CE Approval Program Authorization Number D 10211-1 LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
- Check with your state board to determine whether our approved CEUs meet the criteria for your license
Read detailed information about CEUs here.
No refunds are available for late cancellations. If participants cancel 30 days or more prior to the start of the event, they may apply the fee to a future program. Workshops may be cancelled by Therapy Training Boston if minimum enrollment requirements are not met or in the case of other unexpected circumstances. If this occurs, a full refund will be provided.