Frequently Asked Questions

Anyone can take this course. The ATC 101 is the prerequisite to all other ITR courses. The skills learned will equip a person to be trauma-effective and supportive in any social or workplace environment. This is essential for caregivers, chaplains, peer support staff, coaches, educators, and all mental health practitioners.

!. Do I need to do all 3 of these presentations with a volunteer or client?

 

Do the course work on yourself for experience and the Exit Call requires you do a full ITR process with another person. 

 

2. Do all 2 cases need to be presented together during one consultation call?

No, you have 15 calls and 6 months. 

Wait awhile to present and watch a few to see others present of bring parts of your work with questions for the trainers and peers.

 

 

 

3. Is the final presentation separate from these 2 call presentations?

The final presentation (Exit Call) must be with a volunteer or client.

 

HOW GROUP CALLS WORK:

A participant has 15 peer group consultation calls. During 2 of these 80-minute calls on Wed 12-1:20pm ET on Zoom, they present their course work: one simple and one complex Graphic Narrative and 2 Unnamed/Guided Externalized Dialogues. These can also be from work with clients or volunteers but this usually takes longer to do.  To be ITR Certified a person needs to pass the 50-minute private Exit Call presenting an other complex case and the full checklist provided, proving they can implement ITR with a client and have fidelity to the model.  They have 6 months to do the minimum 10 of the 15 group calls. They can save 5 calls for after certification.

These calls are set up to give a person the opportunity to practice their ITR skills and learn from others as they present various parts of ITR. Besides this, the instructors can answer questions about a specific case to assist the facilitators in administering ITR. Private consultations are also available. See Consultation Call page for more information.

A person can study with ITR Training Institute for personal knowledge, but to practice ITR and get ITR Certified® a person needs to complete the ATC 101, 102, 103, attend 10 out of the 15 Peer Group Consultation Calls. They are required to present twice on those calls: one simple and one complex Graphic Narrative with Unnamed/Guided Externalized Dialogues. This is the work from the course or work with a client or volunteer. Next a person must pass the 50-minute private Exit Call presenting another full case presentation with a complex Graphic Narrative, proving fidelity and competency in implementing ITR. See more on Consultation Calls here.

If a person does not pass the Exit Call they must purchase another exit call(s) until they pass.

ITR Certified Trauma Specialist (ITR-CTS) are licensed.

ITR Certified Trauma Recovery Coach (ITR-CTRC) are unlicensed.

Being ITR Certified does not change a person's scope of practice. Please see your state laws for more information.

Being an ITR Certified Trauma Recovery Coach you are edible to be an ITR Certified Trainer for the ATC 101 Live In Person for agencies.

You must be an ITR Certified Traumatologist (ITR-CT) to train the clinical levels of ITR.

Many ITR Certified Trauma Recovery Coaches work in facilities where they can offer psycho-social support and work with the licensed therapists to help ease their burden. Some work along side therapists to assist in doing intensive work or group work. 

Many in the coaching field use the knowledge to do psychoeducation and help their clients get unstuck with Externalized Dialogues and they refer clients in meed to therapists to do heavier trauma work.

Please see your state laws for more information on what is allowed to be sure you are within your scope of practice.

An ITR Certified® Traumatology Specialist (ITR-CTS) is a licensed clinician who has taken every ITR course and has been using ITR in the field for over 5 years with every population. They are proficient in ITR and are usually a trainer. This is the highest level a person can be in the ITR education and experience ranks.

They are edible to become ITR Certified Trainers for clinicians.

ITR Certifications are good for 2 years. A person needs a Reboot Call to show proficiency and fidelity to the method. There is a special Re-Certification deal for old CTT re-certification. This includes the ATC 102/103 Self-Paced Videos and the Reboot Call.

If a person was certified after May 2024 they need to complete 3 CE Credits of ITR Courses every 2 years and do a Reboot Call to re-certify.

We have CEs available for NBCC and WCBSW. A certificate will be generated after you finish the Self-paced courses. You will be emailed a certificate at the end of the live courses after we receive your evaluation.

The founders of ITR believe in accessibility to mental health and knowledge about trauma. ITR is not hard to learn if a person is motivated and disciplined to do their own work. We recognize the number of mental health practitioners skilled and available to do trauma work is short.

We hope a trauma survivor can take the ITR knowledge and work through their own timeline and possibly have a mental health practitioner or another trusted person to share it with as a compassionate witness. 

Yes, Dr. Gantt recommends using your new skills and information as soon as possible and get more comfortable with them.

ITR is an empowerment model. It works best when the person is internally motivated to actively engage in all components of therapy.

We decide if ITR “works” by looking at the pre-treatment and post-treatment scores on our assessments and by observations of behavior. In a research study we did on the first people to go through our intensive program we found these results:

“This was a naturalistic study with pre- and post-test data on the first 72 patients who completed the program.

45% of the participants met the criteria for recovery, 44% were improved, 8% were unchanged, and 3% were worse after treatment. The improvement in scores on the post-treatment measures was robust and statistically significant for all groups of patients.” (Abstract, Gantt & Tinnin, 2007, Intensive trauma therapy of PTSD and dissociation: An outcome study. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 34 (1): 69-80).”

ITR will not work if the person is not on board and doesn’t want it to work. An example would be someone who has secondary gain from remaining in a patient role in order to receive disability payments. There have been some people who have been brought in by family members who are hoping the program will benefit their loved one but the loved one fights the process by foot-dragging. Occasionally, clients may experience external pressures to engage in the process and this can negatively impact outcomes. There have been others who are skeptical at first but they agree to try the process and are successful.

When trauma symptoms are too overwhelming, clients may be regressed and not ready to work through trauma re-processing. When this occurs, the individual needs to stabilize for a period of time before starting the method. Stability and readiness for treatment are crucial to ensure the successful resolution of traumatic stress symptoms.

If someone has mental disabilities or cognitive delays or deficits we work with the hometown team to find ways to modify doing the Graphic Narrative (GN). We want to make certain the GN is as effective as it can be with any medical conditions or learning disorders. We work to adapt our approach to an individual’s learning and expressive styles.

All of our instructors are approved and work through the ITR Training Institute only.

We do not recommend taking any training outside of the ITR Training Institute. We do not know what other people are teaching and have no control over what they say and do. Anyone training ITR outside of ITR Training is subject to a lawsuit.  ITR Certified® is the official credential you will receive from the ITR Training Institute, LLC.

~Treatment time to success– hours vs years: Unlike many other psychodynamic approaches, processing a single traumatic event can happen quickly, even in as little as one session.

~Integrates seamlessly with other therapeutic models: Regardless of your psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approach, ITR adapts to become part of your process.

~Can be used with both children and adults: This method can be applied to clients as young as 3 or 93.

With over 40 years of clinical experience helping individuals dealing with trauma and other mental health challenges, psychiatrist Dr. Lou Tinnin and art therapist Dr. Linda Gantt, developed and tested the approach in their practices. Dr. Linda Gantt now focuses on training the next generation of therapists to help their clients resolve trauma and improve their lives. Study to become a trainer with ITR.

ITR Clinical Benefits

• Gets to the root of the problem rather than focusing on coping skills
• Uses standardized procedures
• Minimizes disabling responses to future traumas
• Instructs how to anticipate and ward off the instinctual responses in tough situations- managing triggers and fixed states
• Makes it possible to give words to traumatic events and bring closure to them without reliving them
• Integrates the whole self into present-day awareness
• Expands consciousness, giving greater access to normal emotion
• Reduces or eliminates troubling symptoms caused by traumatic events
• Achieves results in a relatively brief period
• Provides effective ways to greatly reduce stress and deal with negative beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors
• Empowers a person with new life skills to use on their own in the present and in the future.
• Does not require developing a relationship with the facilitator (ITR can be used with a team approach)
• Does not need time between sessions to digest the material
• Can be used with all ages from 3 to 99 years old
• Is adaptable to individual or group therapy as well as to conventional weekly sessions.

Anyone who wants to learn to use the ITR protocol. You must be able to regulate and ground yourself. You will be doing your own work.

See Consultation Call Page

There is a pdf with the process for ITR Clean presentation and exit call checklist. This a map for how to conduct a session with a person.  This is in the front of the workbook:

ITR TASKS: 

1. Finish the story 
2. Repair traumatic dissociation 
3. Resolve Victim Mythology 

TREATMENT PLAN: 

Phase One: 

1. Prescreen/Intake: assessments, symptoms, concerns, goals and ITR overview 
2. ITR Psychoeducation 
3. Grounding/Safe Place 

Phase Two: 

1. True Self/Parts work 
2. Create Timeline 
3. Graphic Narrative® Finish the story. Draw, re-present and re-watch the story, add narration notes. 
4. Externalized Dialogue® Communicate with Parts, relieve, restore, and resolve Victim Mythology. 

Phase Three: 

1. Resolution/check-in/follow-up assessments 

Assessment Note: Many people can fill in their own assessments. Some facilitators use a session like the instructor talks about in the 102 course. This helps build rapport. You can send fillable pdfs or use google forms or use other services. It is important to keep a records of them to have pre-,during-, and post-assessments. You can also do a PPAT assessment.  (See FEATS course)