Trauma does not have to be a life sentence.

That is not a hope. It is a clinical reality that hundreds of practitioners — licensed therapists, coaches, peer supporters, chaplains, foster parents, and first responders — have watched happen in their own work after learning the Instinctual Trauma Response® method.

ATC 101 — the Accelerated Traumatology Course — is the foundational training. Five hours of self-paced video instruction built on forty years of clinical development by psychiatrist Dr. Louis Tinnin and art therapist Dr. Linda Gantt. It is the course that changes how you see trauma, how you talk about it, and what you are able to do when it walks through your door.

It is not a theory course. It is not another awareness training. It is a skills-based, experiential course packed with neuroscience, practical tools, and ITR®-specific interventions that you can begin using immediately — whether you are a licensed clinician, a coach, a peer supporter, or a parent.

If there is one course to take on trauma, this is it.

Who This Course Is For

ATC 101 was designed for anyone who works with, lives with, or supports people who carry trauma.

Licensed therapists, counselors, and social workers who want faster, more complete outcomes with clients who have been stuck for months or years.

Coaches, peer support specialists, and community health workers who want a method that goes beyond listening and referring.

Chaplains and first responders who are present at the worst moments of people's lives and want to do more than witness.

Foster and adoptive parents, educators, and school counselors who live and work alongside traumatized children every day.

And anyone who has ever sat across from someone in real pain and felt the limits of what they knew.

No clinical background required.
If trauma shows up in your world
— this course is for you.

What You Get

Eight modules. Immediate access. Skills you can use before you finish the course.

A Complete Understanding of Trauma and Its Neuroscience

Not the textbook version. The real one. You will understand why the Instinctual Trauma Response® activates, how it moves through its stages, and why things that did not make sense once make complete sense after. This is the piece that changes everything — because once you understand trauma as a biological process rather than a psychological mystery, you cannot unsee it. And neither can your clients.

Trauma, Triggers, and Fixed States

How to recognize when the Instinctual Trauma Response® has been triggered in real time. What fixed states look like in a child or an adult who is stuck in a stage of the response. How to use grounding techniques to identify where someone is and what they need. This is immediately practical. You will use it the next time things go sideways.

True Self and Parts Work

How trauma creates internal parts — each with their own perspective, their own fear, their own way of trying to protect. How to recognize which part is driving the behavior you are seeing. How to begin working with parts rather than against them. This is the piece that explains why your client — or the child in front of you — can seem like two completely different people, and what to do about it.

Grounding — Including Grounding in Crisis and Suicidal Ideation

Multiple grounding techniques across sensory modalities. What to do when a client is in the middle of dissociation. What to say. What not to say. How to use your own regulated nervous system as a tool. A dedicated section on grounding in situations involving suicidal ideation — because these moments happen, and the people who face them need to be prepared.

The Trauma Timeline and Introduction to the Graphic Narrative®

The trauma timeline helps a client sequence a fragmented history on paper — without words, without talking through it, without re-traumatizing. The Graphic Narrative® gives further structure — the client draws their story from before the event, through it, and out the other side, giving the brain what it has been missing: a sequence with an ending.

"This is real therapy. I've had five other therapists,
and I've never felt like this."

— Client of Krista Trahan, LCSW-C, ITR-CTS,
Baltimore County Department of Social Services

Introduction to Externalized Dialogue® and Parts Work

How to begin helping a client have a direct conversation with the parts of themselves carrying the Instinctual Trauma Response®. The part that lies to stay safe. The part that rages because rage was the only thing that ever worked. The part that takes food because comfort was not enough. These parts are not character flaws. They are brilliant adaptations that can finally begin to understand they are no longer needed in the same way

Victim Mythology, True Self, and Recovery

How trauma creates false beliefs about self and worth. How to recognize victim mythology in the children and adults you work with. How the True Self — the person underneath the response — begins to emerge when the Instinctual Trauma Response® finally completes. And how to support self-care and recovery throughout the process.

Digital ITR® Workbook in English and Spanish — and Psychoeducation Cards

These are the tools your clients hold in their hands. The workbook guides them through the ITR® process in their own time. The Psychoeducation Cards give you something to put on the table in a session that explains, in plain language, what is happening in the nervous system. Practitioners describe these as some of the most useful things they have added to their work.

5 Continuing Education Credits

Approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors and the WV Board of Social Workers. Your license matters. So does your time.

Everything you need to go from
trauma-informed to trauma-effective
In five hours.

What People Are Saying

"This ATC 101 course gave me more knowledge about first responders, more clearly defined knowledge about neurobiology and trauma, and confidence about delivering interventions. There were so many applicable, practical interventions included in this course. There is nothing more I wanted from it. I love the course and rate it 100%. If there is one course to do on trauma, please do this one."

— Karen Hvidding, Social Worker, Art Therapist

"Everyone should know about ITR®. Nobody needs to suffer from traumatic stress for years or decades. With the ITR® model it is extremely treatable and it does not require talk therapy or re-living traumatic experiences. I love that it is rooted in neuroscience and that it works so quickly. It is brilliant."

— Brenda Mays, Coach

"A+ job. Reasonably priced. Essential for anyone in medical and non-medical roles. Essential for all first responders."

— Lee Magryta, Leadership and Healthcare Advisor

"Recognizing and helping our kids cope is step one. But I want to do more. So we can give them the freedom of not being a prisoner to their trauma the rest of their life. That is really what ITR® has brought us at Kids to Love."

— Lee Marshall, MSW, Certified Trauma Therapist, Kids to Love Foundation

"I was nervous because I am not a therapist. But going through the training, the nerves were gone. Because it is not hard. I could sit down with the children in my home and do this. That is a huge deal for that kid. And for us."

— Jenny Sanders, Foster Parent, ITR® Certified Coach, Tennessee

"She has seen results in just a few days. For the first time in almost a year, she was able to go through the trauma memory without blacking out. This is real, helpful therapy."

— Adoptive Parent, Florida

Practitioners across every role and setting.
One result in common.

ATC 101 Is the Beginning
of Something Larger

The full ITR® certification — ATC 102 and 103 — is where you learn to fully facilitate the Graphic Narrative® and Externalized Dialogue® directly with clients. It includes live group consultation calls, one private consultation call, additional continuing education credits, and lifetime access to the HelpForTrauma.com practitioner community.

Many people who take ATC 101 know within the first week
that they want to go all the way.

That path will be there when you are ready.

For now — this is where it begins.