Adena Bank Lees, LCSW · Creator of the ABL® Trauma-Responsive Psychodrama Model
The 6-Week Covert Emotional Incest Training Course for Clinicians
Go from recognizing the pattern to confidently treating it — a live 6-week cohort with weekly sessions, case consultation calls, and a community of clinicians doing this work alongside you. (Bonus: You'll get a free CEIS Assessment)
Next cohort begins October 15, 2026, 8:00–9:30 AM PT · $997, one-time
You Just Learned What CEI Is. Now Learn to Treat It.
What you covered in the free training was the foundation. This is where you master it.
Where you are now
You can name Covert Emotional Incest when you see it. But naming a pattern and knowing how to treat it — ethically, safely, session after session — are two different skill sets.
Where this course takes you
Six weeks that move you from understanding to embodied clinical practice — through live cohort calls, case consultation, and a framework you can bring into session starting week one.
The Framework You'll Master
Every module moves you through Head, Heart, and Hands — from clinical understanding to embodied practice.
Head
Name It, Understand It
The clinical vocabulary and diagnostic lens to recognize CEI — and stop conflating it with enmeshment, parentification, or codependency.
Heart
Hold It, Pace It
The ethics, informed consent, and grief work CEI treatment demands — including your own countertransference as the clinician in the room.
Hands
Work It, Embody It
Psychodrama- and IFS-informed techniques that complete what talk therapy alone often can't — introduced with safeguards against retraumatization.
Curriculum
Six weeks. One module a week. A live cohort call to bring your own cases to.
Module 01
Naming What Has No Name
Define CEI as a distinct clinical construct and place a presentation on the continuum from healthy attunement through enmeshment to CEI — so you can name it with confidence, not just a hunch.
Module 02
The Developmental and Relational Impact
Trace CEI's effect on attachment and identity formation, and how it resurfaces in adult addiction, codependency, and self-worth work.
Module 03
Recognizing CEI in the Room
Build your diagnostic eye across individual, couples, and family work — and learn to distinguish CEI from the presentations it's most often mistaken for.
Module 04
Treatment Foundations
The ethics, pacing, and informed-consent groundwork for CEI treatment, plus the grief work clients need before deeper healing can begin.
Module 05
Experiential Approaches
Live demonstration of psychodrama- and IFS-informed techniques for CEI-affected clients — with the safeguards to introduce them without retraumatizing.
Module 06
From Survivor to Thriver
Integrate CEI-informed care into your existing clinical model and leave with referral pathways and a peer consultation network for ongoing cases.
What's Included
Everything you need to bring CEI-informed care into your practice.
Why This Hour — and This Course — Matters
Three clinical moments that show what changes when you have the framework.
The Client You Think Is "Just" Codependent
A high-functioning caregiver, exhausted, says she's "responsible for everyone's emotions." You work on assertiveness. But what if her relational template was built at age nine, at a kitchen table, carrying her mother's marriage pain?
Once CEI is named, it's no longer "codependency." It's a specific boundary violation shaping how she loves.
The Panic He Calls "Responsibility Issues"
He panics whenever anyone depends on him. Accomplished, profoundly alone. At eight, his mother told him he was the only one who could protect her. His nervous system has been scanning for her collapse for two decades.
The framework stops you from pathologizing his attunement — and starts the work of releasing the obligation.
The Clinician Blind Spot
Twelve years trauma-informed. She saw the enmeshment and triangulation but couldn't name the sexual-confusion piece — until one framework gave her the lens she'd been missing.
Her clients started moving faster. The framework gave them language — and language is where healing begins.
Enroll Now
Reserve Your Seat
Cohort begins October 15, 2026, 8:00–9:30 AM PT. Registration closes October 8.
Questions before enrolling? Email adenabanklees@gmail.com
Your Instructor
Adena Bank Lees, LCSW, LISAC, BCETS, CP
With over 35 years of clinical expertise in traumatic stress, addiction, and complex trauma, Adena has delivered more than 1,000 workshops on childhood sexual abuse and related mental health concerns.
She is the developer of the ABL® Trauma-Responsive Psychodrama Model and author of Covert Emotional Incest: The Hidden Sexual Abuse — the book that named this pattern for the first time.
This course is where she teaches clinicians to do what she does: hold dual compassion for parent and child, and move clients from self-blame into integration.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have attended the free workshop first?
No — the course opens with a review of the core CEI framework, so you'll be fully oriented even if this is your first exposure.
Is this live or self-paced?
Modules release weekly with live elements; all sessions are recorded and yours for life, so you can revisit or catch up anytime.
Will this count toward continuing education?
Yes, "How to Identify and Work with Covert Emotional Incest in Your
Practice has been approved for 9 CEUs. Of these, 3 CEUs have been approved as
Ethics."
What if I can't attend live sessions?
Every session is recorded with lifetime access, and the community stays active between modules for ongoing case consultation.
What's your refund policy?
[Insert refund/cancellation policy here before publishing.]
The clinicians who invest in this are the ones who become the experts in their communities.
Be the person other therapists refer to when they have a client with CEI.
Adena Bank Lees
LCSW · LISAC · BCETS · CP | Tucson, AZ
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