The Flooded Patient: Safety and Presence During Emotional Episodes in Acupuncture
When Emotions Overflow: Navigating Acute Overwhelm in the Treatment Room
Master the Art of Patient Regulation, From Needling Errors to Trauma Responses in Clinical Practice
Transform challenging moments on your treatment table into opportunities for profound healing. This intensive training equips you with essential skills to recognize, understand, and skillfully navigate the three distinct types of patient overwhelm—from simple needling errors to complex trauma responses.
Learn at your own comfort
On-demand Video
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CEU/CPD/PDA
Gain tools to support your clinical work. Taking this course you will learn to
- Identify key signs of dissociation, flooding, or panic in the treatment room
- Distinguish between a healing reaction and trauma-driven overwhelm
- Use simple grounding techniques to bring patients back into their window of toleranc
- Apply verbal and non-verbal strategies to maintain therapeutic safety
- Integrate trauma-awareness into everyday acupuncture and manual therapy sessions
Course Overview
Understanding the Flooded Patient
Even in the calm setting of treatment, emotions can suddenly erupt. A patient who lies quietly one moment may the next be gripped by pain, panic, or dissociation. These moments test our clinical presence—and offer a gateway to deep healing.
In this integrative class, trauma-informed practitioner Tzafrir Nachmani offers a rare blend of Chinese medicine expertise and somatic psychotherapeutic insight. Drawing on 20+ years of work with trauma, PTSD, addiction, and complex emotional presentations, he helps you make sense of what happens when the spirit stirs beneath the symptom.
A Clinical Framework for Overwhelm
You’ll learn to differentiate between three distinct types of acute overwhelm:
- Needling error—the body’s immediate response to incorrect needle placement or technique
- Healing reaction—the somatic and emotional surfacing of suppressed or repressed material during treatment
- Trauma flooding—when unresolved trauma pushes a patient outside their window of tolerance
Tzafrir explains how to ground, contain, and reorient patients while keeping your own center. You’ll also practice specific tools to bring patients back into their bodies—and their present-moment awareness.
Practical Tools You Can Use Tomorrow
From somatic resourcing to verbal presence, and from sensory grounding to trauma-informed touch—this course equips you with immediately applicable methods that deepen your ability to treat not only the physical body, but the emotional undercurrents that often arise in the clinic.
This course is approved for CEUs by:
Disclaimer | Before You Purchase
Accessing Your Course
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NCCAOM PDA Course Participant Attestation
By registering for this course, I agree to abide by the NCCAOM PDA Course Participant Attestation.
I understand that the information in this course presented by the Provider and/or Instructor(s) is for educational purposes only and should only be applied with appropriate clinical judgment and used by a trained and licensed
practitioner. Governmental laws and regulations vary from region to region and the contents of this course vary in permissible usage. The participant is required to check their local, state, and federal laws and regulations regarding the practice requirements and scope of practice issues and the use of the information of this course including, but not limited to, theory, herbal medicine, and acupuncture. I acknowledge that NCCAOM does not endorse any specific treatment regimens of any kind. Furthermore, if I use any modalities or treatments taught in this course, I agree to waive, release, indemnify, discharge, and covenant not to sue NCCAOM from and against any liability, claims, demands, or causes of action whatsoever, arising out of any injury, loss, or damage that a person may sustain related to the use of the information in this course. I understand that this Release is governed by the laws of District of Columbia, U.S.A. and shall survive the termination or expiration of this course.
Unlimited Access
Once purchased, we grant you a lifetime access license. See more on our Terms of Use page.
We encourage you to return to courses as learning continues; in each view, we learn and understand new things.
CEU/CPD/PDA
Unless otherwise stated, CEU/PDA/CPD requirements must be completed within 1 year of the purchase. You are advised to print and save your certificate for your records and under your association requirements.
Dimploamtes of NCCAOM & Floridas members need to fill in a form after completing their courses for us to submit the points. CAB & Fachverband members need to write to us an email upon completing their courses to get the required documents. Look for our email after the completion of the course.
Course Content
About the Teacher
Course Includes
- 1 Hour Course Duration
- Course Certificate
- Course Credits
AACMA1 CPD's 
NCCAOM1 CEU's 
TCM FACHVERBAND1 Hours
