In-Person Workshops

Understanding Horrible Things

Following up on the success of How To Talk About Horrible Things, a new training that will change everything for you: Understanding Horrible Things

“If your training never covered this, you’re not alone—and this series is your missing piece.”

“The best training I’ve ever attended.”

This is the last time Rebekkah will be offering in-person workshops

Workshops are $225 per day or $400 for two day intensives.

About Rebekkah, your workshop facilitator

Rebekkah continues her extremely well received National Trauma Trainings, offering new essential, engaging and unique training opportunities across Canada.

Raised by a sex offender and indoctrinated into human trafficking as a child, Rebekkah Williams, RP, combines this honest perspective of her lived experience, with the clinical expertise of 38 years of specializing in sexual trauma as a Registered Psychotherapist allowing for a rare and humanizing perspective on both recovery and response.

Halifax Workshop: Understanding Trafficking Through

the Lens of Adaptation and Neurobiology

Completely change the way you think. This powerful one-day intensive workshop will completely shift your understanding of human trafficking.

Grounded in neuroscience, attachment theory, and trauma-responsive practice, this training explores how trafficking and all sexual coercive relationships are not sustained by choice or weakness—but through powerful, adaptive processes within the body.

Participants will examine how biochemistry, and neural development shape responses to threat, attachment, and survival. We will unpack how systems such as the autonomic nervous system, stress hormones, and neurochemicals like dopamine and oxytocin contribute to trauma bonding, compliance, dissociation, and addiction patterns.

This workshop offers a clear and accessible understanding of:

How coercion, control, and intermittent harm create powerful attachment bonds
Why individuals may feel loyalty, connection, or inability to leave exploitative situations
The role of the brain in survival states, including shifts from thinking to automatic responding
How early experiences and developmental factors increase vulnerability
The biological underpinnings of “stuckness,” repetition, and return

Learning Objectives

Explain how the autonomic nervous system responds to threat and prolonged stress
Describe the role of dopamine, oxytocin, and stress hormones in trauma bonding and attachment
Analyze how intermittent harm and reward cycles reinforce attachment in exploitative relationships
Identify how early attachment patterns and developmental experiences increase vulnerability
Differentiate between cognitive understanding and neurobiological conditioning
Apply a neurobiological framework to re-interpret behaviours such as compliance, loyalty, and return

This is not just information—it is a paradigm shift.

$225 incluidng all materials and break refreshments, lunch is on your own

St. John's and Winnipeg Workshops Day 1 - Understanding the

‘Why’ — Neurobiology, Attachment, and Conditioning

This powerful one-day intensive workshop challenges common assumptions about human trafficking and sexually exploitative relationships by shifting the focus from behaviour to biology.

Grounded in neuroscience, attachment theory, and trauma-informed practice, this training explores how trafficking and coercive relationships are not sustained by choice or weakness—but through powerful, adaptive processes within the body.

Participants will examine how anatomy, biochemistry, and neural development shape responses to threat, attachment, and survival. We will unpack how systems such as the autonomic nervous system, stress hormones, and neurochemicals like dopamine and oxytocin contribute to trauma bonding, compliance, dissociation, and addiction patterns.

This workshop offers a clear and accessible understanding of:

How coercion, control, and intermittent harm create powerful attachment bonds
Why individuals may feel loyalty, connection, or inability to leave exploitative situations
The role of the brain in survival states, including shifts from thinking to automatic responding
How early experiences and developmental factors increase vulnerability
The biological underpinnings of “stuckness,” repetition, and return

This is not just information—it is a paradigm shift.

If we understand the body, we understand the behaviour.
And when we understand the behaviour, we can finally respond with effectiveness, clarity, and dignity.

St. John's and Winnipeg Workshops Day 2- Understanding the

‘How’ — Adaptation, Survival, and Behaviour

Day 2: The How: The Body Under Siege — Survival, Sexuality, and the Hidden Adaptations of Trauma

If Day 1 answers “What happens in the brain and body?”
Day 2 asks: “What does that look like in real life—and how do we respond?”

This second day deepens the exploration into the lived, embodied realities of survivors of human trafficking and sexually exploitative, coercive relationships. Moving beyond theory, we examine how neurobiological adaptations show up in ways that are often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or judged.

Participants will explore the complex interplay between survival states, sexuality, behaviour, and the body, with a focus on responses that can appear contradictory, confusing, or even confronting.

This workshop will unpack:

Hyper-vigilance and dissociation — how the nervous system simultaneously scans for danger while disconnecting from the body
Survival and sexuality — understanding sexual responses within coercion, conditioning, and trauma bonding
Somatic responses — how trauma is held, expressed, and repeated through the body
Oxygen deprivation and head injury — the neurological impact of strangulation, choking, and blunt force, and how this alters cognition, behaviour, and regulation
Risky and criminalized behaviours — reframing substance use, returning to exploiters, and survival-based actions through the lens of adaptation rather than pathology

This is where the work becomes real.

Because once we understand how trauma lives in the body,
we can no longer respond the same way.

Participant Outcomes

By the end of this two-day intensive, participants will:

Develop a fundamentally shifted understanding of human trafficking and sexual exploitation through a neurobiological and attachment-based lens
Recognize behaviours commonly misinterpreted as choice, consent, or resistance as adaptive survival responses
Identify the role of intermittent reinforcement, conditioning, and neurochemistry in maintaining exploitative relationships
Understand how trauma impacts the autonomic nervous system, shaping responses such as hyper-vigilance, dissociation, and compliance
Gain insight into the complex relationship between survival and sexuality in coercive environments
Recognize the effects of head injury and oxygen deprivation on cognition, behaviour, and emotional regulation
Reframe “risky” or “criminalized” behaviours as functional adaptations rather than pathology
Strengthen their ability to respond with empathy, precision, and clinical effectiveness

Learning Objectives

Day 1: Understanding the ‘Why’ — Biology, Attachment, and Conditioning

Participants will be able to:

Explain how the autonomic nervous system responds to threat and prolonged stress
Describe the role of dopamine, oxytocin, and stress hormones in trauma bonding and attachment
Analyze how intermittent harm and reward cycles reinforce attachment in exploitative relationships
Identify how early attachment patterns and developmental experiences increase vulnerability
Differentiate between cognitive understanding and neurobiological conditioning
Apply a neurobiological framework to re-interpret behaviours such as compliance, loyalty, and return

Day 2: Understanding the ‘How’ — Adaptation, Survival, and Behaviour

Participants will be able to:

Identify and differentiate between hyper-vigilance, dissociation, and other survival states
Explain how trauma is expressed through somatic (body-based) responses
Describe the neurobiological and psychological impact of oxygen deprivation and head injury
Analyze the intersection of survival, sexuality, and conditioning in coercive contexts
Reframe behaviours such as substance use, risk-taking, and criminalization as adaptive survival strategies
Demonstrate trauma-informed approaches to responding that support regulation, safety, and reconnection

$225 or $400 for both days - all materials and break refreshments are included, lunch is on your own