Recognize What Others Miss. Help Clients Heal What Has Never Been Named.
Learn how to identify Covert Emotional Incest, understand its developmental and relational effects, and bring trauma-responsive, experiential approaches into your clinical practice.
Explore the 6-Week CohortWhy Clinicians Miss Covert Emotional Incest
Are you seeing clients with unexplained shame, boundary difficulties, perfectionism, hyper-performing people-pleasing, or relational distress—and not quite sure why?
Covert Emotional Incest (CEI), also described as emotional enmeshment or parentification, is an often-misunderstood trauma presentation. It occurs when a parent relies on a child for emotional support that should come from another adult, placing the child in a surrogate or substitute-spouse role without direct sexual contact.
What may be happening in your practice
- You may not see CEI because most training programs do not teach it.
- You may not screen for it because you were never given the right questions.
- Clients may minimize it because it never "looked like" abuse.
- You may be treating visible symptoms without identifying the relational wound beneath them.
The ABL® Trauma-Responsive Psychodrama Model
Adena Bank Lees brings decades of experience in trauma recovery, addiction, complex trauma, and experiential learning to a multimodal approach that reaches beyond conventional talk therapy.
Experiential Action Methods & Psychodrama
- Experiential Action Methods & Psychodrama
- Somatic & Body-Based Trauma Processing
- Guided Visualization & Role-Play
- Neurobiology-Informed Practice
- Mindfulness & Mind-Body Integration
Safety & Stabilization
Trauma Processing
Reconnection
The result is a clinician who does not merely understand CEI intellectually, but can recognize it, hold space for it, and support clients through meaningful integration and change.
Designed for Trauma-Informed Helping Professionals
- Licensed therapists and psychotherapists working with adult survivors
- Psychologists, counselors, and clinical social workers seeking deeper trauma training
- Clinicians treating clients from dysfunctional or emotionally enmeshed families
- Professionals interested in psychodrama, somatic work, and experiential methods
- Clinicians supporting clients with shame, addiction, people-pleasing, or boundary difficulties
- Professionals committed to ethical, trauma-informed, client-centered care
Begin With Awareness. Continue Into Clinical Integration.
The free clinical workshop has already taken place — but you can still deepen your understanding and practical application through Adena's six-week live cohort below.
PAST EVENT
Free 60-Minute Clinical Workshop
How to Identify & Work With Covert Emotional Incest in Your Practice
This free introductory workshop has already taken place and registration is now closed. It covered:
- How CEI operates within family systems—and why it often goes unseen
- The psychological, relational, and somatic effects survivors may carry into adulthood
- How neurobiology, attachment, addiction science, and mindfulness inform CEI treatment
- Practical trauma-responsive tools and perspectives for your practice
Didn't make it? Everything covered in the workshop — and much more — is built into the six-week cohort.
DEEPEN YOUR PRACTICE
Six-Week CEI Training Cohort
Move from clinical understanding to embodied practice.
The six-week cohort helps you deepen your understanding and begin integrating CEI-informed care into your clinical work.
- NASW-approved for 9 CEUs, including 3 Ethics CEUs (Certification #4599)
- Naming What Has No Name
- The Developmental and Relational Impact
- Recognizing CEI in the Room
- Treatment Foundations
- Experiential Approaches
- From Survivor to Thriver
- Live cohort calls and case consultation
- Recorded sessions with lifetime access
From Recognition to Confident Clinical Application
1. Discover
Learn to recognize CEI and its lasting clinical presentation — whether you caught the free workshop or are starting fresh with the cohort.
2. Deepen
Explore assessment, developmental impact, treatment foundations, and experiential approaches.
3. Integrate
Bring CEI-informed, trauma-responsive care into your practice with greater clarity and confidence.
What You Will Learn
Adena's training is designed to help clinicians move from uncertainty to a clearer, more integrated understanding of CEI and its clinical presentation.
- Define Covert Emotional Incest and distinguish it from related family-system dynamics.
- Recognize enmeshment, parentification, emotional triangulation, and substitute-spouse roles.
- Identify relational, somatic, emotional, and behavioral effects in adult survivors.
- Ask more informed screening and exploratory questions.
- Understand the importance of pacing, safety, stabilization, and client readiness.
- Explore experiential, somatic, and action-based approaches within appropriate scope of practice.
- Support reconnection, boundaries, self-compassion, and identity integration.
Your Instructor
Adena Bank Lees, LCSW, LISAC, BCETS, CP
Adena Bank Lees is an internationally recognized speaker, author, trainer, and consultant specializing in traumatic stress, addiction, complex trauma, and Covert Emotional Incest.
She is a Board Certified Expert® in Traumatic Stress, a Certified Psychodrama Practitioner, developer of the ABL® Trauma-Responsive Psychodrama Model, and author of Covert Emotional Incest: The Hidden Sexual Abuse—A Story of Hope and Healing.
Her teaching blends clinical depth with approachable, experiential learning that helps professionals move from theory into informed practice.
What Clinicians Are Saying
Real feedback from clinicians who attended the free CEI workshop.
"Beginning to understand and being able to define Covert Emotional Incest feels extremely important, and something that isn't spoken about enough in our field. Adena's webinar was informative and easy to digest. All of the content was focused and intentional, which kept me engaged throughout the time we spent as a group."
— Rachel Graber
Graber Wellness Collective
"I'm absolutely grateful. Learning about CEI has been such an eye opener. So many of my clients present the clinical markers and it's very important to know them, cause otherwise this remains unnamed and unseen. To know what questions to ask and what to look for is really meaningful."
— David Lorenzo Abellán
Workshop Attendee
"Adena Bank Lees is one of the most talented and knowledgeable clinicians that I have ever met. I am a therapist myself, and have been in consultation groups and trainings with Adena over many years. She is an invaluable asset to our profession, and I highly recommend her book, trainings, consultations, and therapy with her!"
— Nicoline Mayger
Licensed Therapist
"This training was illuminating, thoughtful, and non-pathologizing."
— Melissa
Workshop Attendee
"This training has given me a more nuanced vocabulary for understanding and describing what I have been observing in my patients, as well as a deeper understanding of the tools needed to help untangle their emotions while supporting greater autonomy. I am grateful for the framework and practical tools this workshop provides."
— Workshop Attendee
Psychiatrist
Guided by Foundational Leaders
Bessel van der Kolk, MD
The Body Keeps the Score
Emphasizes the importance of understanding trauma's effects on the brain and body.
Dr. Kenneth M. Adams
Silently Seduced
Advanced public and clinical understanding of covert incest and emotional enmeshment.
Judith Herman, MD
Trauma and Recovery
Established the influential phases of safety, trauma processing, and reconnection.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Covert Emotional Incest?
Covert Emotional Incest is a family dynamic in which a parent relies on a child for emotional support that should come from another adult. Although it does not involve direct sexual contact, it can create lasting relational trauma, enmeshment, shame, boundary difficulties, and identity confusion.
Why is CEI frequently missed in clinical practice?
CEI is rarely addressed in depth in graduate programs, licensure preparation, or general trauma training. Its effects may present as competence, compliance, perfectionism, caretaking, or people-pleasing rather than obvious distress.
Who is this training designed for?
The training is designed for therapists, psychologists, counselors, clinical social workers, trauma professionals, and other qualified helping professionals.
Do I need to have attended the free workshop before joining the cohort?
No. The free introductory workshop has already taken place and is no longer open for registration. The six-week cohort begins with a full review of the core CEI framework, so no prior attendance is needed to join.
Is the six-week cohort live or self-paced?
Modules are released weekly and include live cohort elements. Sessions are recorded, and enrolled participants receive lifetime access so they can review or catch up when needed.
Does the training offer continuing education credit?
Yes — the Six-Week Cohort has been approved by the NASW Arizona Chapter for 9 Continuing Education Units (CEUs), including 3 Ethics CEUs. CEU Pre-Approval Certification #4599, valid September 10, 2026 through September 10, 2027. Participants may not repeat the CE-eligible training within the same approval period. A certificate noting the approval number and CEU hours will be provided upon completion.
How is Adena's approach different from general trauma training?
Adena's approach centers the specific relational dynamics and adult effects of CEI while integrating cognitive, emotional, somatic, neurobiological, and experiential perspectives. Training is educational and should be applied within each participant's professional scope, licensure, and ethical requirements.
Continue Learning and Reflecting
Free CEIS Assessment
A trauma-informed reflection tool for exploring emotional parentification and Covert Emotional Incest dynamics.
Take the Free AssessmentFree Guided Meditation
A calming guided practice designed to support nervous-system regulation, inner safety, and emotional grounding.
Access the Free MeditationThe Clients Who Need You Most May Already Be in Your Practice
They may be high-functioning, articulate, accommodating, and deeply disconnected from their own needs. Learning to recognize Covert Emotional Incest can help you name the relational wound beneath the symptoms and offer a more informed path toward healing.
Explore the 6-Week Training