Trauma Exploration for Personal and Professional Development

These sessions are for therapists, facilitators, and helping professionals to understand themselves and others in the work they do.

This is not a closed group – you can join one or more workshops depending on your own personal and professional commitments.

“The world we believe in becomes the world we live in. Our beliefs are not only self-fulfilling; they are world-building.”

Gabor Maté (The Myth of Normal)

November 17th – Transforming core beliefs

The intention for this workshop is:

1. To understand what a trigger is and how they show up in our daily lives.

2. To become curious about our triggers and understand the underlying beliefs and their origins.

3. To develop the capacity to offer a compassionate presence to our own and others’ somatic experience.

4. To embody new beliefs grounded in authenticity.

Derek McMillan, the first certified practitioner and mentor of Gabor Mate’s compassionate inquiry in Scotland, is offering a series of trauma exploration sessions this autumn. They are aimed at facilitators, spaceholders, and helping professionals to support them in their work.

These insightful in-person events focus on understanding the impact of trauma, how it shapes our lives and learn from the wisdom it can offer. This unique opportunity is designed to support both personal growth and professional development.

Engage with the topic in a supportive environment that encourages understanding and healing. Whether you are seeking to deepen your self-awareness or enhance your professional skills, this event offers valuable perspectives and tools.

Guidelines for the space

Explicit agreements: The topic here is trauma, and you may get triggered. We’re here to learn how to work with it, and so I encourage you to lean into your edge. However, if things get too much for you, then know that you don’t have to share anything that you don’t want to; you can leave the room and give yourself some space; there will be an assistant here who can be with you if you need some support. What will support you in feeling safe?

If at any point you feel uncomfortable with a topic, a person, or an issue we’re discussing, get curious about it. Ask yourself, what am I making this mean? Is it true? And if it’s not true, then what is true?

If you do not want to share out loud, then you have the option of journaling or sitting and connecting with your breath and body, whatever helps you to regulate and express yourself in a way that feels safe.

Respect anything shared in the space by maintaining and honouring confidentiality.

About Derek

Hi there, I’m Derek.

I have a background teaching philosophy, psychology and religious/moral studies in secondary schools. I also love to travel and whilst my home is in Edinburgh, Scotland, I have spent the past three decades studying and practising bodywork, martial arts, movement, meditation and music throughout Asia.

There is no division between my personal and professional life. My offerings come out of my own deep