When the past keeps interrupting the present. This course is particularly relevant for first responders and their families, while remaining accessible to anyone seeking a clearer understanding of PTSD. Drawing on both frontline professional experience and post graduate study, the course provides an educational framework for understanding how high-stress and high-impact experiences can continue to influence attention, emotional responses, and the body's stress systems. The emphasis is on education, normalisation, and practical understanding, alongside simple strategies participants can use at home to support steadiness and clarity in daily life.

Available Session Times - select from the following sessions:

64660 - Mon 10.00am 11 May 1 day x 6 hrs (Wea Centre) Fees available for this course:(Which Fee?) Standard: A$114.00 Discount: A$103.00 Concession: A$100.00

Select the number of places and click 'Enrol': 1 2 3 4 ENROL

Understanding PTSD

Course Description

PTSD and complex PTSD (C-PTSD) can affect anyone – even highly capable, goal-focused people who continue to perform, keep showing up, and maintain the façade of being “fine” while inside everything feels dry, numb, or chaotic. 

You might struggle with flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and emotions, vivid images, sleep disruption, irritability, hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, or avoidance, yet still look calm and in control, with strong workplace attendance and high standards. 

Sometimes it takes someone else to point out the change, because you can become so used to your internal reality that you don’t recognise how skewed it has become.

This workshop offers a clear, evidence-informed explanation of PTSD and C-PTSD, how they are defined and assessed, why symptoms can persist long after the event, and why two people exposed to the same incident can be impacted differently. 

You will learn what is happening in the nervous system and memory systems, how triggers and “state shifts” occur, and how PTSD can present in ways that are easy to miss, especially in first responders, veterans, and other high-performing individuals.

You may have tried therapy before and found it didn’t help or didn’t feel right – not because anything was “wrong” but because the approach didn’t match how you naturally process the world. 

The workshop includes guided practice of practical grounding and regulation strategies, including the “One Seat” approach: steadying attention so you’re less pulled into emotional overwhelm.

This course is educational, not therapeutic. Self-reflection is encouraged, but sharing is not required. You’ll leave with practical tools, take-home notes and workbook materials, and a simple pathway forward to support yourself or a loved one.

Course Structure

This workshop combines lecture-style teaching with guided practical exercises and individual self-reflection. The course is educational, not therapeutic, and there is no requirement to share personal experiences.

The course fee includes:

• A printed workbook summarising key concepts
• Practical grounding and regulation skills sheets to take home
• A simple action plan template to formulate your pathway forward

Topics covered include:

• Welcome, expectations, and overview
• What PTSD and C-PTSD are (and aren’t)
• How PTSD is assessed
• Why me? Risk factors and variability
• How PTSD shows up in high-functioning people
• The science: what’s happening in the brain and body
• Triggers and state shifts
• Practical skills: grounding and regulation
• Support pathways and next steps
• Supporting a loved one or colleague
• Your pathway forward.

Course Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Define PTSD and Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)  and describe how PTSD is assessed in practice
• Explain common causes and risk factors for PTSD and C-PTSD
• Identify the core symptom clusters and recognise early warning signs 
• Understand the physiology of the threat system (fight/flight/freeze/fawn)
• Make sense of triggers and “state shifts” and apply practical regulation skills 
• Select appropriate next-step pathways
• Support a work colleague or loved one more effectively 
• Create a clear pathway forward, leaving with a simple, goal-focused action plan to help support recovery.  

Student Testimonials

“My session with Nicole was wonderful. I immediately felt at ease with her and the instant she started helping me through some issues, something clicked. I should have seen her years ago! She has given me some useful strategies to implement. I felt her to be compassionate, knowledgeable and patient. The session was definitely value for money and she was generous with her time. Highly recommended.”

Your tutor is Nicole Powell

Nicole has been teaching at WEA since 2026

Nicole is a counsellor, former paramedic, and long-term meditation teacher with more than two decades of experience supporting people under pressure. She has worked across high-demand environments with first responders, veterans, and high-functioning professionals, and also has experience supporting people impacted by homelessness and addiction through Adelaide’s Hutt St Centre.

Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Addictive Behaviours, a Graduate Diploma of Counselling, a Bachelor of Education, a Bachelor of Arts, and a Diploma of Applied Science. Her therapeutic training includes CBT, ACT, Motivational Interviewing, trauma-informed practice, and mindfulness-based approaches, delivered in a practical, grounded way.

For more than a decade Nicole has taught meditation through the Lifeflow Meditation Centre, leading classes and retreats, and she has completed extensive retreat training including a year-long retreat. 

This combination of frontline experience, evidence-informed training, and sustained attention-training practice allows Nicole to teach calm as a learnable skill, especially for people who feel they can cope with anything except switching off.

MAddBehav (Monash), GradDipCouns (ACAP), BEd (JCU), BA (Flinders), DipAppSci (Flinders)