Empowered Healer: What Healthcare Professionals Need You to Know and How to Help Them Heal

Directions

Healthcare professionals are hurting in plain sight—overextended by systems that prize productivity over people, praised as “heroes” while carrying invisible wounds, and left to reconcile impossible choices with their conscience. When perfectionism, parentification, and an overlearned sense of responsibility collide with moral injury and chronic stress, the result isn’t just burnout—it’s a slow erosion of identity, meaning, and clinical presence.
This course meets that moment with a clear, compassionate roadmap grounded in real clinical practice.

Led by Elizabeth Hartshorn, LPC—clinical supervisor, depth-oriented therapist, and longtime clinician to physicians, nurses, therapists, and other healthcare workers—you’ll learn how to accurately differentiate impairment from wounding, name what’s actually harming your healthcare-professional clients (moral injury, cumulative trauma, boundary collapse, the “caregiver complex”), and guide them from survival to Empowered Healer. Hartshorn’s approach is rigorous and humane: Jungian/existential depth work paired with practical referral pathways (EMDR, DBT, somatic treatments), concrete consent language, and supervisor-level ethics when impairment is present.

With her experiential teaching style, Hartshorn invites you into the work: brief mindfulness to center the room; a three-panel reflection (impaired, wounded, empowered) to map identity; and intention-setting that threads through the session. She models how to use self-disclosure ethically (what to share, what to keep, and how to pivot from the clinician’s story back to the client’s growth), how to speak plainly about suicidality (no euphemisms), and how to recognize the “slow slide” toward impairment long before a crisis. She also surfaces the quiet drivers of distress—loss of autonomy, loss of meaning, institutional pressures to “resilience-train” people back into harmful environments—and replaces them with an Empowerment Plan that restores agency and meets universal human needs (connection, rest, purpose, safety, belonging) in and beyond work.

You’ll apply these skills to the realities healthcare professionals face: being labeled “heroes,” working under 15-minute visit quotas while delivering life-altering news, absorbing secondary trauma, managing countertransference when clients enact harmful beliefs, and navigating polarized spaces without shaming or “canceling” the therapeutic relationship. Topics include moral injury (definition, presentation, repair), caregiver complex and parentification, shadow/activation work and countertransference, boundary clarity, impairment decision-points (what to say, what to document, where to refer), universal human needs mapping, meaning and vocation versus employment, and the design of a client-owned Empowerment Plan that can live past discharge.

Key Takeaways:

• Identify and name moral injury, caregiver complex, and parentification in healthcare clients—and distinguish wounding from true impairment with clear behavioral markers and next steps.

• Use depth-informed, culturally responsive strategies (mindfulness grounding, shadow/activation framing, limited ethical self-disclosure) to strengthen alliance without centering the clinician.

• Build a personalized Empowerment Plan that restores autonomy and meaning, integrates referrals (EMDR/DBT/somatic), and operationalizes universal human needs at work and at home.

Why this course?

• Replaces vague “burnout” talk with precise, clinically actionable language and tools specific to healthcare professionals.

• Translates Jungian/existential depth work into session-ready moves—assessing activation, using disclosure ethically, and maintaining strong guardrails.

• Provides a repeatable framework to move clients from survival to Empowered Healer—supporting client welfare, clinician integrity, and team culture.

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate impairment, wounding, and empowerment in healthcare professionals; spot early warning signs and outline ethically sound intervention/referral steps.

• Conduct values-aligned treatment planning using the Empowerment Plan to map universal needs, meaning/purpose, and autonomy back into daily life.

• Apply depth-informed techniques (activation vs. “trigger,” shadow work, caregiver-complex re-patterning) and use clear, direct safety language for suicidality/homicidality in session.

Are your healthcare-professional clients surviving on grit while losing themselves in the work? Help them reclaim meaning, boundaries, and self-leadership—without asking them to “be more resilient” to systems that harm them.

Enroll today to get a practical, humane framework you can use in your very next session.

Format and Access

This is a non-interactive, self-study program and consists of 3 hours of video instruction and a post-test.

Course Details

Availability: 

From the time of registration, you have six months to access the coursework.

Who Should Attend: 

This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services.

Teaching Methods: 

This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Teaching methods for this course include recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation.

How to Attend: 

Course access and completion instructions.

Instructor and Disclosures

Instructor

About Elizabeth Hartshorn, LPC

Elizabeth Hartshor is the owner of Full Circle Counseling & Coaching, LLC, based in West Linn, Oregon. With over three decades of experience in the fields of mental health and addiction treatment. Elizabeth is an approved clinical supervisor with the Oregon Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists. Her extensive experience includes adjunct faculty for the counselor education department at Portland State University and former board member for the Oregon Board of Professional Counselors.

Driven by her own dark night of the soul, Elizabeth has honed her clinical focus on treating licensed healthcare professionals and providing professional training. Additionally, she offers the "Empowered Healer" online coaching program, which is designed to extend her reach and impact.

Outside her professional endeavors, Elizabeth treasures the time spent engaging in outdoor activities in the Pacific Northwest and with her grandson, who she fondly believes to be the sweetest boy in the world.

Disclosure Statement: 

The instructor(s) for this course receive compensation for their services. There are no reported conflicts of interest to disclose.

CE Hours

Credit Hours:

This course consists of 3 continuing education hours of credit.

Counselors:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No, 6693.  Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified.  Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0048.

Marriage and Family Therapists:

Many MFT licensing boards accept our courses or one of the approvals which we have from professional associations.  You can check with your board to determine if your licensing board would accept this course.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0135.

Social Workers:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, #1609, 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: 05/02/2024 – 05/02/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 3 clinical continuing education credits.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0435.

Addiction Professionals:

This course has been approved by Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #193104, Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is responsible for all aspects of the programming.

Psychologists:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0128.

Art Therapists:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Creative Arts Therapists #CAT-0093.

Other Professionals:

This course qualifies for 180 minutes of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations.  Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements.

Participants may request a printed version of their certificate of completion to be delivered by mail. A shipping/handling fee of $6.95 will be charged per request. Shipping internationally may require an additional charge.

Accommodations and Policies

Close Captioning is available for live webinars and recorded video presentations.

You can click on the following links to view our policies:

• Accommodations for Individuals with Disabilities.
• Cancellation Policy
• Grievance Policy
• Support Options
• Disclosure Statement