*Explanations of "Wrongfully Influenced" and "Deficient" ETM TRT Training
(This page will change as additional pertinent information is acquired and added) Updated 2/18/2008

Introduction

This document explains the necessity for some ETM TRT school graduates to take a corrective class provided as a training recall of prospectively deficient and wrongfully influenced ETM TRT training administered at TECS and ELCCC, or other hosting environments between January 1, 2005 and February 1, 2008. Because the deficiencies discovered so far are not the fault of the student / professional taking the subject course, the correction class is provided at no charge. CEUs are not affected.

This recall program was initiated as a response to complaints by graduating students from the ETM TRT Counselor / Manager Training Certification School. The complaints fall into 2 primary categories of ETM TRT training, deficient and wrongfully influenced:  

1. The course was "deficient" because of altered and omitted original course substantive information.

2. "Wrongfully influenced" refers to the convolution of ETM TRT training with a well publicized parallel training hosting environment of ETM TRT clinical applications and Web site advertisements that ostensibly condone implementation of ETM TRT in a manner that directly contradicts, and thus undermines, otherwise actual and explicitly stated (in the school a professional is supposed to get) ETM TRT policy regarding principles, theory, administration, and operational management directives pertaining to ETM TRT's application to patients as emphasized in the ETM Tutorial. 

"Wrongfully Influenced"  Examples

Here are two examples with attendant discussion of the referenced wrongful influences remedied by the correction class.

1. Example 1: Application of TRT by phone or Internet conferencing. Where the TRT course doesn't teach phone TRT administration, the training hosting environment's clinical program directed by the trainer saliently advertised the TRT phone method in conjunction with course advertising, implying that the phone application is in compliance with TRT's facilitation directives. Not only is phone TRT inappropriate as a TRT application method, but the application of TRT in that manner can be dangerous to a patient. This is not a small issue. During the personal unaccompanied phone conversation, failure of the therapist to attend TRT's deep travel into the damaged reality system can in the minimum, and no doubt will, limit the effectiveness of the resolution process, and not attain the trauma's resolution as defined in the ETM Tutorial. The distance approach minimizes the importance of one of the primary TRT facilitation principles, making explicit connections, that can only occur in a face to face session in the same room between the patient and therapist, and group members where appropriate. Worse, the client can enter a dissociative condition or other destructive psychological phenomenon like suicidal ideation and the therapist would never know it.  Failure to learn this concept thoroughly, as repeatedly emphasized and supported in the ETM Tutorial and at the level needed can have deleterious effects on learning related principles. That is, lack of connection can fail the process to the extent that the survival system referenced in the tutorial and course will maintain its resistance to complete resolution. The correction class to the course explains the contradictions inherent in the application of TRT via phone or Internet conferencing to the appropriate connections method.  The issue of the importance of constant connection to TRT's achievement of "complete" trauma resolution has been readily addressed in the tutorial on a can't miss it basis for 14 years.

2. Example 2: Requirement that ETM TRT Counselors in continuing (in this instance not recognized by the ETM Certifying Authority) training engage personal TRT with the ETM TRT trainer: A so called "Advanced" ETM TRT  counselor training program also advertised parallel (by the hosting organization) to the primary course advertisement a requirement that students (professionals) do personal trauma resolution work with TRT with the trainer or her representative while participating in the so called "advanced" program. That approach implies that ETM TRT Certified Counselors should do personal TRT in order to be more effective ETM TRT Counselors. As explained in the corrective class and also in the approved original 1 week course, not only is personal TRT by students not required, but even if desired by a student the trainer may not accept the student into personal TRT treatment. A referral must be made by the trainer to a Certified ETM TRT Counselor who is not economically affiliated with the trainer. Most importantly, the corrective class demonstrates through detailed focus on case management that personal TRT is not necessary as a prerequisite to TRT's proper facilitation. Again, this issue is a foundational one for understanding the role of TRT's structure and has been a part of ETM TRT training policy since the formal academic school's inception at the University of Houston in 1986.

Addressing and Correcting Course Deficits (and Wrongfully Influenced) Issues

The correction class lasts 4 to 8 hours depending on its size. Part of the program facilitates a trainer led discussion in group process of 31 supervisory - staffing level cases, all taught through the medium of the ETM Tutorial. They have historically provided the primary method for teaching the preponderance of the last day of the standard course, which appears to not be included as required by the ETM Certifying Authority in the courses receiving the bulk of the complaints. Where the cases have been included in the affected courses, the complaints indicated that the cases received very little emphasis, except as printed handouts. Subsequently, the referenced correction school includes that standard course's lasts day's subjects as they were supposed to have been presented from within the ETM Tutorial, but possibly were not provided in the school for which you paid. The standard course, as well as the corrections class, makes clear the appropriate applications of ETM TRT as they are different from the course apparently compromised by training deficits and wrongful influences.

A second component of the ETM TRT correction class addresses ETM TRT's strategic application. This subject is mandatory coverage in the school and ETM Tutorial because it shows the relationship of TRT's application to individuals to ETM's application to and within trauma affected, including perpetrator attacked and manipulated, systems. This component has been a part of the ETM TRT Counselor / Manager Training Certification Course / School since 1992, and a fundamental (major) element of theory and application addressed in detail in the online ETM Tutorial since its inception in 1994.

A third component of the ETM TRT correction class addresses a skewed definition of trauma apparently taught in either the deficient class or through its use in the wrongfully influenced group (used in the hosting environment). There are several aspects to the problems caused by the different definitions. One is exemplified here. The conflicting definition incongruously supports application of ETM TRT to presenting problem areas not to be addressed by ETM TRT. For example, it is reported that TRT has been used in the hosting clinical environment as a tool of standard (not disease or disorder affected as in alcoholism) marital therapy or family therapy where verbal abuse is the only presenting trauma causing event. Verbal abuse without an attendant disease or disorder causing source of the trauma is not and should not be treated by TRT. This directive is explained thoroughly in the corrections class and has been covered in the ETM Tutorial for 14 years, that is again, since the ETM Tutorial was published in 1994.

Most importantly, the correction class' focus and study upon the cases and other principles which may have been left out of the possibly deficient training course integrate the first 3 to 4 days of the standard training school that concentrates on theory, principle and application with the online ETM Tutorial. I could  not find it referenced in TECS site support materials and in fact discussion of the tutorial is omitted from FAQs that tell reviewers where to find additional information regarding ETM TRT. This is the most important component in the standard training (and corrective class) because the ETM Tutorial was designed and published online for the purpose of indexing virtually all issues related to ETM TRT's ongoing administration, including specific indexed information for both TRT counselors and TRT patients.

In the main, when the ETM Tutorial was published in 1994, it made two significant improvements to the original ETM TRT School started in 1986. First, the tutorial replaced the need for ETM TRT supervision of professionally licensed counselors by ETM trainers. Second, the tutorial solidified ETM TRT dissemination by ensuring the uniform application of ETM TRT to patients by all counselors who maintained their counseling agreements (they complied with ETM TRT administration directives provided in ETM TRT training and as also included in ETM TRT materials). For example, the tutorial's Patient Education section provided to patients the same facilitation guidelines and theory provided to counselors in the Counselor training school. Hence, if a counselor went off the facilitation tract, patients would have a compendium of materials with which to strengthen their own participation in the administration of the therapy. Similarly, if when training counselors a trainer diverted from the prescribed theory and application, counselors were informed immediately of the differences so that they could be reconciled. This model offered congruency to ETM TRT's use as experienced by all involved parties.  

Where the online ETM Tutorial has been used successfully for 14 years as the indexed guide supporting ongoing ETM TRT administration, I could not find the same thorough integrative learning approach (a focus during the affected school upon the tutorial's use for maintaining ETM TRT standards) in the apparently deficient training. Although some of the supposedly defective training referenced cases in print (handouts), that unauthorized substitution of course materials failed to teach students the value of the online tutorial in continuing the long term application of standardized ETM TRT. Integration through the course (thus the necessity of the corrective class) with the online ETM Tutorial is a must for all ETM TRT Certified Counselors / Managers because it gives them the ready and always available knowledge to provide TRT to patients at the highest level of confidence a counselor needs and to which he or she can aspire to deliver TRT at its best.

Who Determines Correction Class Qualification

If you are a potential participant in the correcting class, you do not have to determine whether or not you actually qualify for it. The ETM Certifying Authority (Jesse Collins, Nancy Carson, or Craig Carson in their absences), who is and has been that authority for 22 years of management of the formal course (training during TRT's development years extended the authority back to 29 years), makes that determination following an email based interview with the prospective corrections class attending professional. The interview seeks brief answers to several questions regarding the ETM TRT training you received. Any ETM TRT Certified ETM TRT Counselor / Manager may attend at no charge the correction class no matter the rationale.