Parentification: What it is and how to heal

Gen Z's Tips To Conquer Parentification 2

Parentification: What it is and how to heal (1.5HR)

$27.00

Course Description

In this training we will explore the profound impact of parentification on emotional development, relationships, and identity. This training will define the different types of parentification—emotional, instrumental, and destructive—and examine its long-term effects, including guilt, hyper-independence, and difficulty setting boundaries. You will learn therapeutic strategies to help clients recognize, process, and heal from the burdens of premature caregiving, fostering self-compassion and a reclaimed sense of self. Through psychoeducation, experiential exercises, and practical interventions, you will leave equipped to support clients in breaking free from old survival roles and creating healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

Upon completion of this training, participants will be able to:

Identify the roots of parentification
Analyze how clients are psychologically impacted by parentification
Implement therapeutic strategies to address parentification

Social workers completing this course receive 1.5 Clinical asynchronous continuing education credits.

For other board approvals, this course qualifies for 1.5 Clinical continuing education training.

Course Instructor: Dreya Blume, LCSW

Recording Date: 07/22/2025

Course Format

NBCC ACEP # 7091, CE Training Workshops has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP #7091. Programs that do not qualify are clearly identified. CE Training Workshops is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. CE Training Workshops designates this continuing education activity for 3 continuing education hours.

CE Training Workshops, LLC, #1770, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 08/02/2025 to 08/02/2028. Social workers completing this course receive 3 Clinical continuing education credits.

Meet Your Facilitator

Dreya Blume, LCSW, has traveled a long and winding road to arrive where she is today,as a therapist, coach, author, and group facilitator.

She has taught English in Thailand, Japan, Australia, and Hawaii. She has worked in psychiatric wards, served as a case manager, and eventually launched her own private therapy practice.

She has taught part-time as an adjunct professor for over twenty years, led multi-day international retreats, and written seventeen books, with an eighteenth on the way.

Syllabus

Introduction

This course explores the concept of parentification, a relational pattern in which children assume roles or emotional responsibilities typically belonging to adults. Participants will examine how parentification develops, how it shapes identity and functioning into adulthood, and how clinicians can support clients in healing from these early role inversions. The focus is on recognizing patterns, understanding impacts, and applying trauma-informed therapeutic strategies.

Objective 1: Identify the Roots of Parentification

Participants will begin by defining parentification and learning about its various origins. This includes reviewing family dynamics such as role confusion, parental absence, emotional neglect, illness, substance use, and intergenerational trauma. By understanding how and why parentification emerges, clinicians can identify it more clearly in client narratives and case formulations.

Objective 2: Analyze the Psychological Impacts of Parentification

This section examines the emotional and cognitive effects of growing up in a parentified role. Participants will explore how early responsibilities shape self-worth, boundaries, attachment, and relational expectations. Discussion will include both the burdens and the adaptive skills that may arise from parentification, with an emphasis on helping clinicians identify long-term patterns of distress, overfunctioning, and self-sacrifice.

Objective 3: Implement Therapeutic Strategies to Address Parentification

Participants will develop trauma-informed approaches for working with clients who have experienced parentification. This includes recognizing the importance of trauma work, building therapeutic trust with clients who may struggle to rely on others, and establishing healthy boundaries within the therapeutic relationship. The course will provide practical tools for helping clients renegotiate roles, reclaim agency, and heal from unmet childhood needs.

Objective 4: Reflect and Integrate

The course concludes with a summary and Q&A. Participants will reflect on the material, consider how to integrate these concepts into their clinical work, and identify next steps in supporting clients affected by parentification.