About this course

Learning Objectives

• Differentiate structural pain from neuroplastic pain.
• Describe how fear, stress, trauma, grief, and conditioning influence chronic pain.
• Explain how neuroscience-informed approaches can help reduce suffering and support recovery.

Learning Levels

• Beginner, all levels are welcome

Target Audience

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Erena DiGonis, LCSW-R

  Erena DiGonis, LCSW-R, is a New York State Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Health Coach, and Certified Clinical Anxiety and Trauma Treatment Professional. She is also certified in Brainspotting and trained in EMDR and Pain Reprocessing Therapy. Erena has twenty-three years of practical and professional experience as an active clinician, teacher, and supervisor. She has worked in a variety of community, psychiatric, in-home, and private practice settings with hundreds of complex cases.

  Erena is a sought-after writer, speaker, and consultant and has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Psychology Today, Reader’s Digest, Women's Health, and MEL magazine. She has reviewed book proposals for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and is an Advisory Board Member for the CPTSD Foundation. Erena serves as the Founder and Continuing Education Director of EngagedMinds, a national Continuing Education business providing training for Counselors, Social Workers, and Therapists.

• 

  Kelly Daugherty, LCSW-R, FT, GC-C, BC-TMH

  Grief Specialist and Educator

  Kelly Daugherty is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Fellow in Thanatology, and grief specialist with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals, families, and professionals through some of life's most profound losses. Based in Malta, New York, Kelly is the founder of Kelly Daugherty, LCSW, PLLC, a private clinical practice specializing in acute and traumatic grief, and the Center for Informed Grief, LLC, an education and training organization dedicated to advancing grief-informed practice across school, clinical, and community settings. She is also the creator of Healing Strides, a trademarked, research-based program that combines grief group support with 5K race training for grieving women.

  Kelly's clinical expertise spans traumatic grief, suicide loss, parent loss, and grief in children and adolescents. She is a sought-after trainer and educator whose work reaches mental health professionals, school counselors, and helping professionals across the country. As a Senior Faculty Member for EngagedMinds Continuing Education, she brings both clinical rigor and personal understanding to every training she delivers — drawing on her experience as a motherless daughter and bereaved child to deepen her work with others.

  A prolific author and contributor to the grief field, Kelly is the lead author of The Grief Experience: Tools for Acceptance, Resilience and Connection, a collaborative work featuring 25 authors, and has contributed chapters to Holistic Mental Health, Brave Kids (Volumes 1–3), and Ultimate Guide to Self Healing, Vol. 6. She also recently published The First Year After Loss: The GRIEF Ladies Guide to Everything You Need to Know and is currently completing The GRIEF Ladies: A Guide to What Comes Next. Kelly is the co-host of the GRIEF Ladies Podcast and co-creator of the GRIEF Ladies framework, a practical, evidence-informed approach to navigating life after loss.

Disclosure

References

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