About
What is Constructed Awareness?
Constructed Awareness® (CA) is a nonviolent, awareness-based approach to resourcing and processing trauma, attachment wounds, and disturbing emotional states. CA provides a blueprint for deep insight and freedom from a variety of mental health issues by relying on three principles:
1. Bringing awareness to the client’s experience changes their experience.
If you’re like most, you were brought up with the belief that hard work is the answer to getting what you want. Though this is true for many task-oriented achievements, willpower alone doesn’t work to regulate emotional experiences, despite the fact that many of the more popular approaches to therapy are rooted in this very notion. Inner peace isn’t earned through willpower; rather, it's discovered simply by teaching the client how to observe their inner experience. Observation alone has the power to bring about the change clients are looking for.
2. The human experience is made up of three building blocks: thoughts, sensations, and external senses.
CA teaches a unique practice of bringing mindful awareness to the client’s own experience—an experience that is constructed by thoughts, sensations, and external senses. In the training, we will look at how thoughts, sensation, and external senses make up the entire human experience, especially in regard to how they construct the client’s emotional experiences and interpretations of self, others, and the world. Expanding awareness of how these three building blocks construct the client’s experiences can transform how they regulate and respond emotionally and relationally.
3. Most people naturally orient their awareness more strongly to one of the three building blocks.
By this we mean some people spend more time in their minds analyzing, fantasizing, or planning. Whereas other people direct more attention to sensations and what they feel in their bodies. And some people focus more on what’s happening around them in their external environment. The Constructed Awareness Level One training teaches both structured and informal techniques for determining how the client’s awareness is oriented. A typology of six personality styles will be taught to help the client understand their personality and character traits based on their orientation style. The training will also cover how to determine which resources would be more useful to deepen self-awareness and the ability to self-regulate based on the client’s specific needs.
Explore the Constructed Awareness® Training & Certification Pathway
In level one, you will learn about:
Expanding awareness of the client's experience and recognizing how awareness itself can support change.
Understanding how thoughts, bodily sensations, and external senses contribute to the client's emotional and relational experiences.
Recognizing the client's orientation style.
Introducing awareness-based resources that support self-awareness and regulation.
In level two, you will learn about:
Building upon Level One to process traumatic memories through awareness-based approaches.
Applying memory reconsolidation research to a structured yet responsive approach to processing traumatic memories.
Using the Attachment Bridge to identify earlier experiences that may contribute to present symptoms.
Bringing awareness to thoughts, bodily sensations, and external senses throughout trauma processing.
In level three, you will learn about:
Integrating CA principles and resources into Responsive Trauma Processing.
Recognizing the natural emergence of trauma responses during therapeutic sessions.
Working with sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system responses, including fight, flight, freeze, and dissociation.
Understanding how clients' orientation styles, including fixed and fragmented orientations, influence trauma processing.
Responding to clients' experiences with greater presence and flexibility.
In certification, you will:
Complete 12 hours of CA consultation through twelve one-hour sessions, generally scheduled every other week over approximately six months.
Participate in small-group consultation with Tyler Orr and another clinician pursuing certification.
Audit and assist with an additional CA Level One training.
Audit and assist with an additional CA Level Two training.
Complete a CA-related project that contributes to the exploration, development, or sharing of Constructed Awareness®.
Successful completion of all certification requirements leads to the designation Certified Constructed Awareness Clinician (CCAC).
Who is Constructed Awareness for?
Constructed Awareness® training is designed for mental health professionals who are curious about exploring new ways of understanding and working with human experience. Through practical, experiential, and creative approaches, clinicians learn to support clients in recognizing their patterns of awareness, navigating trauma and attachment experiences, and discovering new possibilities for change.
Beyond continuing education and professional skill development, Constructed Awareness® invites therapists into their own process of personal exploration. As clinicians deepen their awareness of their thoughts, bodily sensations, and relationship with the world around them, they may discover new ways of being present with themselves and the people they serve.
At the Constructed Awareness Institute, we believe that personal growth and clinical practice are deeply connected. Our trainings offer opportunities for clinicians to explore their own experiences alongside developing the understanding and skills they bring into their therapeutic relationships.
Upcoming Trainings & Events
Reflections from CA-Trained Clinicians
“CA has been transformative to my practice. The idea that I can support my clients in becoming the best version of themselves in a non-violent way is life changing. CA is the blueprint for deep insight and emotional freedom from layers of trauma and attachment damage.”
Leah Sampson, MSW, LCSW, Director of Clinical Services, Three Oaks Behavioral Health and Wellness, Durham, NC
“The CA process helped to increase my awareness of how I view the world which also helped me to increase the way I regulate and process events both in the here and now and in the past. I'm so grateful for this experience!”
Monica Snyder, LMFT, Clinical Director, Wellspring Counseling, Miami, Florida
“This training really gave me a blueprint for how to be more present with my clients. I thoroughly enjoyed Tyler's teaching/coaching style and gained a deeper awareness of myself. I am confident that this training will vasty improve the therapeutic relationships that I build with my clients. The information is practical and I am impressed with how well this model works.”
Kourtney Young, LPC, EACC Counselor & Intake Coordinator, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Training Dates
Weekend One: October 23–24, 2026
Weekend Two: November 13–14, 2026
Time: 9:00 AM–6:00 PM Eastern Time (ET), each training day
To support greater access to training, tuition has been reduced to $457 through December 31, 2027. Additional scholarships and payment plan options are available below. The content, continuing education hours, and training experience remain unchanged. Previous promotional discounts cannot be combined with this reduced tuition rate.