Spring Seminar 2026
Please join us for our 2026 Spring Seminar!
April 24, 2026
Pugh Auditorium in Benson University Center
Presentation One – When Empathy Has a Cost: Navigating Client Trauma Exposure in Counseling
9:00 am-12:00 pm
Presenter: Dr. Jennifer D. Deaton
3 CEUs
Dr. Jennifer D. Deaton (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) within the Department of Counseling and Educational Development. Jennifer aims to drive interdisciplinary and community-engaged research in areas of trauma-informed care, affective responses, and vicarious posttraumatic growth across helping professions impacted by client trauma. Jennifer holds methodology strengths in instrument development and program evaluation.
Trauma counselors routinely bear witness to profound human suffering while simultaneously holding space for resilience and recovery. Although this work is deeply meaningful, it can also have significant affective impacts on clinicians, including secondary traumatic stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. At the same time, many counselors experience vicarious posttraumatic growth and compassion satisfaction, highlighting the complex and paradoxical nature of trauma-focused work.
This interactive workshop is designed for licensed counselors and integrates didactic content, experiential exercises, and reflective dialogue to deepen understanding of counselors’ emotional and somatic responses to trauma exposure. Participants will explore the distinctions among common affective responses, examine the cumulative impact of trauma narratives across a caseload, and identify early warning signs of distress. Experiential activities will support participants in recognizing how trauma work shows up in their professional and personal lives.
The training also emphasizes sustainable, trauma-informed strategies for regulation, reflection, and meaning-making that can be integrated into daily clinical practice. By the end of the session, participants will leave with practical tools to support their well-being while continuing to engage in effective and ethically grounded trauma work.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
- Differentiate between key affective responses to trauma work, including secondary traumatic stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and vicarious posttraumatic growth.
- Identify cognitive, emotional, or somatic indicators of the impact of cumulative trauma exposure on counselors.
- Apply at least two practical strategies for regulation, reflection, or meaning-making to support sustainability in trauma-focused clinical practice.
Presentation Two – Treating Eating Disorders: The Least You Need to Know
1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Presenter: Dr. Lindsey K. Umstead
3 CEUs
Dr. Lindsey Umstead is a licensed clinical mental health counselor (NC; SC), qualified supervisor (NC), and Certified Eating Disorders Specialist and Consultant. Since 2017, Dr. Umstead has provided individual, group, and family therapy to patients in recovery from eating disorders at all levels of care in inpatient/residential; partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient; and outpatient settings.
Bio continues
Currently, Dr. Umstead works in private practice with children, adolescents, and adults. She provides evidence-based, trauma-informed treatment that integrates Family Based Therapy, cognitive behavioral, experiential, and psychodynamic therapies. In addition to her work as a clinician, Dr. Umstead has taught and provided clinical supervision to master’s and doctoral students as an adjunct professor in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development at UNC-Greensboro since 2019. She also serves as Education Chair for the North Carolina chapter of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals, is a member of the Academy for Eating Disorders, and remains engaged in research and scholarship. In the last year, Dr. Umstead has started co-hosting the podcast, “A Lot More Nuanced,” with her colleague, where they dissect the mental health themes present throughout their favorite television show. Outside of work, Dr. Umstead loves being a mom to her 2.5 year old daughter, wife to her husband of eight years, and body pillow for her two dogs, Honey and Boomer. She is an amateur florist and dreams of one day being a contestant on “The Traitors.”
Every 52 minutes, someone dies from the physiological and/or psychological effects of an eating disorder. Despite being considered a treatment specialty, it is vital for counselors across settings to have a working understanding of eating disorders in order to effectively identify and appropriately address the presence of these conditions in their clients and students. This presentation aims to enhance participants’ clinical knowledge of eating disorders so they are better equipped to support their clients when an eating disorder shows up in their office. The presenter will provide an overview of eating disorders and discuss the ways in which eating disorders impact an individual’s psychological and physical health. She will also explore how these health effects inform the various components of evidence-based eating disorder treatment, including the use of a multidisciplinary treatment team, levels of care, and goals of treatment. Eating disorder-specific assessment techniques and evidence-based treatments will be reviewed, and participants will have an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues to apply the information learned to a case example.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the primary components of evidence-based eating disorder treatment
- Identify at least 2 sources of information to include in eating disorder assessment
- Describe at least 1 evidence-based treatment used to address eating disorders
- Apply new information and insights though the use of case study
Registration is free!
We are no longer accepting registrations for Spring Seminar 2026. Please plan to join us for our next Spring Seminar in Spring 2027!