Advanced Frameworks
in Trans Affirming Therapy
7 Weeks | ONLINE | April 29 - June 9 2025
Evidence-based frameworks to help your trans clients thrive, not just survive
Join a comprehensive training program that goes beyond basic inclusion, delivering practical frameworks developed from real clinical and personal experience. Perfect for mental health professionals ready to deepen their expertise in trans-affirming care.
Profound Conceptual Clarity
"This was wonderful... Lots of lightbulb moments."
Actionable Guiding Frameworks
"Appreciate the practical framework and in-depth explanation."
Deeper Skills and Confidence
"I know will really benefit from having that framework in my work with clients"
Ready to move beyond basic inclusion to create profound positive change for your trans clients?
Do you have questions that are hard to find good answers to related to. You might have questions about
- Gender identity development
- Gender dysphoria
- Affirmation decision making,
- Language
- Internalised transphobia
A lot of guidance and training online covers very foundational principles.
This training goes well beyond that, because trans people deserve more than just basic inclusion and respect.
They deserve positive change.
It can be difficult to find mentorship, training and literature that will equip you to do profoundly effective work with your trans clients, and to feel confident in your knowledge and skills as you do it.
Our practitioner program does just that.
You will feel more confident, knowledgeable, and effective in your practice, and will see your clients experiencing meaningful change and tangible movement towards greater personal ease.
This training distills years of clinical experience and lived expertise, hundreds of hours of research and community wisdom.
What You Get
Advanced Video Course
- Week 1-2: Training: 'De-Pathologising Gender Diversity'
- Week 3-7: 'Advanced Frameworks' course. Weekly self-paced video module and live Q&A call
3 Months of Support
- A library of resources, visual frameworks, templates and recordings
- A community forum of other trusted professionals
- Personal, specialist support, any day of the week
And the opportunity to join our ongoing Practice Group, for ongoing consultation and peer supervision.
Course Outline
This groundbreaking course will provide you with frameworks, concepts and strategies formed over a decade of personal experience, clinical practice and research.
Week 1
De-Pathologizing Gender Diversity
The most foundational questions are often the most difficult, and the most important.
- Why do trans people exist?
- Isn't gender a social construct?
- Why is it so hard for people to initially open their hearts and minds to gender diversity?
This is the learning (and unlearning) we all must do to embrace our authentic ways of being, no matter if what our experience of gender is, and to support our clients to do the same.
Week 2
The Gender Identity Formation Process
Having a clear model for gender identity formation will allow you to support clients in the earlier stages of the gender awareness and affirmation process.
- How do we help clients who are asking, "what am I?"
- How necessary is identity language?
- What is the role of desire?
- How do we support healthy entitlement?
- What are the common stuck points and how do you help clients continue to grow and heal.
Week 3
Working with Dysphoria
Understand the cause of gender dysphoria and our 3-part framework for dysphoria relief, so that you can:
- Support clients to reduce the factors in their life leading to dysphoria distress
- Help clients understand their inner process and triggers
- Explore ways to reduce dysphoria in the moment
- Work towards meaningful alleviation
Week 4
Emotional Safety and Relationship to Living
- How do we support clients in a harmful political and social context?
- What are the real and under-estimated risks to safety that no one is talking about?
- How can we respond to clients when they experience direct transphobia.
- Why do so many trans people struggle to envision a future for themselves, and say they "don't feel like a real person"?
In this module you will learn what to listen for, and the most effective interventions, to increase safety from survival to wellbeing.
Develop a map of risk and resilience that you can track with each client to know what aspects of their life cause them real harm and what aspects are missing that will increase their resilience in the face of challenges.
Week 5
The Real Purpose of Gender Affirmation
Dive into the concept of transition or gender affirmation, understanding its true functions. Support clients as they make choices for their own greater wellbeing and towards authentic connection with themselves and others.
Week 6
Healing Internalised Transphobia
Bringing the course concepts together, here we will look at how the concepts in this course come together and you will understand what is required to move from safety to 'trans healing'.
Week 7
Case Studies (from you) and Questions
Dive into the concept of transition or gender affirmation, understanding its true functions. Support clients as they make choices for their own greater wellbeing and towards authentic connection with themselves and others.
Comprehensive and Flexible
The 'Advanced Frameworks' Course
Five 90-minute in-depth modules packed with insights, frameworks and actionable strategies. Pre-recorded to watch on your own schedule.
Live Group Discussion
7 group calls: Discuss the content, ask questions, and apply the content to your cases.
These are recorded for you to watch if you miss out on the live group.
Community of Trusted Professionals
Get support and guidance, share resources, submit Q&A questions if you cannot attend the discussion live, any day of the week.
Dates and Times
April 28 - June 9, 2025
One live group call per week for 7 weeks.
- Week 1:
- Group introductions and training 'de-pathologizing gender diversity' (recorded after introductions)
- Weeks 2-6:
- Video module (self-guided)
- Live Q&A (recorded)
- Week 7
- Case Study discussions
The USA
Mondays
8-9.30pm Eastern Time
5-6.30pm Pacific Time
Melb, Australia
Mondays - 7.30pm
OR
Tuesdays - 9am*
*Tuesday morning is our USA cohort. You are welcome to attend this as a repeat session
Early Bird Pricing Ends March 20
Meet Your Trainer
Hi, I'm Ari Heart (they/them).
I am a psychotherapist, educator, parent, trans non-binary person, and co-founder of Trans Wellbeing.
I have been supporting trans people and their families to navigate the various stages of their journeys for many years.
When I began working with trans clients, I quickly realised that lived experience wasn’t enough to guide me in working with other trans and gender diverse people.
When sitting with a client in tears about their struggle with body dysphoria, I could offer presence and empathy, but I felt ill-equipped to help in other ways.
I felt sure that there must be more to know, and I just could not find the information I wanted. The existing guidelines and standards of care didn’t offer the granularity, nuance, theoretical underpinning, or the strategies I wanted. Mostly, they re-iterated similar principles about inclusion and respect – something I felt was setting the bar too low for where I wanted to take my practice and how strongly I wanted to help my clients.
It took me many years and hundreds of clients before I started to develop the frameworks I use today to help my clients experience transformative healing in their relationship to their gender and body, and often within just a few sessions.
My personal experience as a non-binary trans person informs the depth of care I bring to this work, but it is the many thousands of hours of conversations with trans people and their families that has built much of the purpose and content of our programs.
I am grateful to all the people I have worked with, who have taught me many things; not least the imperative and courage of authenticity and connection.