Full Course Description
Coming to Your Senses: Recovering from Trauma by Learning to Safely Inhabit Your Body
Program Information
Objectives
- Investigate the impact of trauma on the various parts of the brain, body and nervous system.
- Articulate ways to restore proper balance between the rational and emotional brains, that can help clients re-establish ownership of their bodies and minds.
- Propose methods that re-establish connection and synchrony with others to overcome trauma.
Outline
The imprint of trauma on the brain, body and nervous system
The keys to overcoming trauma
Body-based clinical practices
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Physicians
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
The Emergence of a Polyvagal-Informed Therapy: Harnessing Neuroception of Safety in Clinical Treatment
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine how the autonomic nervous system is related to social and defensive behaviors.
- Appraise the clinical conditions necessary to promote feelings of safety in the client.
- Theorize why deficits in the Social Engagement System are core features of several psychiatric disorders.
Outline
Polyvagal Theory
- The role of autonomic state as an intervening variable mediating trust and calmness or reactivity to threat
- The importance of acknowledging and honoring the consequences of a neuroception of threat
- The effect of treat on autonomic state and neuroception
Strategies to mitigate threat
- Role of the social engagement system is therapy
- Harnessing the power of neuroception in therapy
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Body Oriented Therapy Techniques for Trauma and Attachment
Program Information
Outline
The Wisdom of the Body
- Why the movement and posture is important target of intervention
- How to use mindfulness to tap the wisdom of the body (embedded relational mindfulness)
- Discovering resources of the body to stabilize arousal
Legacies of Trauma and Attachment
- Use of movement to process traumatic memory
- Use of movement to support adaptive relationships
Objectives
- Choose three somatic resources to regulate arousal
- Determine “bottom up processing” to resolve traumatic memory
- Distinguish proximity-seeking actions and how they relate to the client experience
- Integrate embedded relational mindfulness within treatment planning for client sessions
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
A Mind-Body Approach to Race-Based Traumatic Stress Recovery
Program Information
Outline
- Race-Based Traumatic Stress: differentiation from PTSD
- High-effort coping
- The physiology of emotion
- Emotional regulation tools
- Restorative Yoga as a helpful tool for clients
Objectives
- Determine the difference between PTSD and race-based traumatic stress.
- Practice emotional regulation tools such as restorative yoga.
- Incorporate restorative yoga as a helpful aid in your treatment planning to help clients cope with race-based traumatic stress.
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
The Body as a Shared Whole: Using Visualization Techniques to Treat Dissociation
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine signs of disowned parts and their internal conflicts experienced by clients
- Employ visualization techniques that create a sense of closeness or attunement
- Practice somatic interventions that foster an increased sense of compassion for dissociated parts
Outline
Dissociation as a Survival Strategy
Visualization as a somatic strategy to foster a felt sense attunement
“Self-Compassion”: welcoming every part of the personality
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
Panel Discussion & Conference Closing - Day 1
Program Information
Objectives
- Distinguish among the various somatic interventions discussed by all presenters.
- Determine best approaches in working with race-based traumatic stress.
- Propose how to incorporate the various techniques presented into treatment planning.
Outline
- Review of the day’s content by host Janina Fisher, PhD
- The science of bringing the body into psychotherapy
- Somatic techniques
- Polyvagal Theory
- Working with race-based traumatic stress
- Treating dissociation
- Speakers discuss the key elements and unifying themes of the various presentations
- Questions and answers/discussion from the participants
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/24/2020
Energy Psychology: A Bodymind Approach for Rapidly Transforming Stress and Trauma
Energy psychology (EP) (e.g. Tapping) is an evidenced based approach (over 125 published studies) to treat trauma, anxiety, stress and other important clinical problems. This presentation will show you can use Emotional Freedom Techniques and other EP approaches to rapidly down regulate the body so that your clients can better process and respond to stressful and traumatic events. Learn how these approaches can be used within a trauma informed framework and integrated with other clinical skills. Discover how you can use these approaches both as an empowering tool for self care for both clients and therapists as well as a rich and flexible clinical tool that allows for deep healing of traumatic events without abreaction and re-traumatization.
Program Information
Objectives
- Propose at least 3 published studies demonstrating the effectiveness of energy psychology techniques
- Determine at least 2 body based mechanisms that may underlie the effectiveness of energy psychology to reduce the effects of trauma and stress
- Demonstrate the 4 main steps of emotional freedom techniques EFT)
Outline
Science and Research of energy psychology
- Brief Review of the outcome research supporting the effectiveness of Energy psychology
- Description of energy psychology used to treat trauma after genocide
- Discussion of body-based mechanisms that may underlie the effectiveness of EP
Description of the basic patterns of energy psychology tools
- Discussion how to use EP tools within a stage oriented, bottom-up trauma informed approach
- Brief review of some of the major EP schools of treatment
- Description of the basic protocols of emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and how they are used to process trauma while staying within the window of tolerance.
- Description of a simple EP protocol to help support healthy boundaries
Integrating EP in clinical practice
- How to use EP as a self-regulation tool including video resources for clients
- Differences between self-help versions and clinical versions of EP
- Simple techniques to invite clients to use deeper clinical techniques
- How to integrate one EP technique into treatment planning
- Ethical Guidelines and guidelines how clinicians can get appropriate training
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
Becoming Safely Embodied: Building a Solid, Steady Secure Self
Trauma imprints a legacy of hopeless, despair, and shame which prevents building a foundational sense of self and interrupts resolution. Using the Parallel Lives model, Becoming Safely Embodied helps clients discover how the past is intruding into their present. Using a mindfulness-based approach, they can learn to track triggers, slow down reactivity, and let internal experience rise, crest, and fall.
This presentation presents the Becoming Safely Embodied model and its integration of ancient traditions from the yoga and mindfulness world into attachment theory and psychotherapy. These practices help clients to build new pathways that remap their internal experience and facilitate a solid sense of self capable of holding whatever comes up. With greater internal capacity, client can contain and tolerate the emotional intensity that healing requires.
Program Information
Objectives
- Construct the Parallel Lives model for tracking traumatic intrusions
- Evaluate triggers and triggering by observing the client’s body experience
- Distinguish how fears, blocks, and resistances can be harnessed somatically and used for motivation
Outline
A step-by-step guide to building inner structure
Fears, blocks, and resistances transformed into motivation
The Parallel Lives Model: to create success in tracking traumatic intrusions
Re-pattern clients’ trauma-related states and experience well-being
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
From Disorganization to Organization: Working with Somatic Experiencing®
After years of doing body-based trauma resolution work, as a psychodynamic, relationally-oriented psychotherapist, I have arrived at the conviction that what lives in the body determines much of what we feel and how we perceive ourselves and the world. We think the body lives in the present, but it actually responds most vividly to unmetabolized trauma responses that are alive and well in the nervous system.
Somatic Experiencing® offers approaches that allow us to help clients move from the disorganization of unmetabolized trauma responses to the organization of a coherent, regulated system. We are, in a very real sense, bringing the body up to date when we invite clients to notice their physiological responses and help them to learn how to allow old responses that are “stuck” in the body to move through and complete themselves.
Because we each carry a blueprint for health at the core of our body-mind being, the natural tendency of the body to move toward health and wholeness becomes our constant companion in this healing journey. We also cultivate the benevolent observer, so that clients are supported to be able to move through unresolved trauma responses with awareness and a whole, integrated brain.
Program Information
Objectives
- Demonstrate to clients’ methods to track their body’s activation responses that help support both regulation and developing capacity for discomfort.
- Apply titration to the process of working with client’s trauma responses.
- Propose ways to clients that help normalize their responses as natural to trauma states.
Outline
The importance of embodied presence
- Orienting to the inherent blueprint for health and wholeness
- Reinforcing client wholeness
Cultivating a sense of benevolence in response to understanding trauma’s impact on the body and psyche
Moving from disorganization to organization
Increasing the capacity to be uncomfortable
Elements of Somatic Experiencing®
- Bringing the body into the present
- Orienting to the felt-sense
- Titration
- Slowed-down processing
- Pendulation
- Understanding the threat response cycle
- SIBAM and coupling dynamics
- Deactivation and reorganization
- A return to curiosity and orientation
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
Collective Trauma: Practical Strategies for Working Somatically in Times of Change
We live in a time of collective trauma. It is a shared experience that impacts the psychological and somatic health for both clients and therapist. The trauma therapist experiences the same systemic and societal forces as the clients they work with. The ongoing nature of the collective stress can feel groundless and can lead to overwhelm, hopelessness and bodily disconnect. This presentation will provide clinical tips on how to utilize somatic interventions for both client and therapist. We will examine the impact of collective trauma on the therapist-client work and how to apply a mindset towards resiliency. Through understanding the importance of somatic intelligence, a concrete pathway towards more compassionate capacity becomes available.
Program Information
Objectives
- Apply three essential somatic tools to apply in their existing practice.
- Compose a personal trauma narrative within the collective trauma context in order to better relate to clients’ narratives.
- Determine the larger role that collective trauma plays within our client’s lives.
Outline
The Interconnected Nature of Trauma
- Trauma is not just an individual story
- The therapist’s job as interconnected to the societal forces
- Seeing ones helping capacity as interdependent
Somatic Intelligence
- Key somatic techniques to reconnect with one’s innate somatic knowledge, through key practices
- Foster emotional resilience for both the clinician and client
- Enhance the capacity for emotional resilience
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
Trauma and The Moving Body
Those oppressed by violence in daily life struggle due to lack of access to everything that provides refuge and safety. This presentation will share embodied breath, somatic and movement practices that offer stabilization, grounding, and state-shifting for both client and therapist well-being.
Recognizing that the most essential ingredient for client co-regulation is therapist self-regulation, this presentation offers embodied approaches that equally serve the therapeutic alliance.
A mix of theoretical and scientific principles from Polyvagal-informed Dance/Movement therapy will buoy these practices, developed by the presenters 23 years working with survivors of complex, relational and historic trauma seeking refuge from war, violence and torture.
Program Information
Objectives
- Formulate a human rights framework for body-based therapies with survivors of trauma
- Appraise the theories that are central to polyvagal-informed dance/movement therapy.
- Practice 3 state-shifting practices to promote grounding, stabilization, enhanced interoception, self-and-co-regulation and self-reciprocity.
Outline
Landing in Our Bodies Practice
Restorative Movement Psychotherapy and Polyvagal-informed Dance/Movement Therapy
Practices for Regulation and Reciprocity
- Grounding and Stabilizing Practice
- Enhancing Interoception Practice
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
Panel Discussion & Conference Closing - Day 2
Join the day’s speakers as they come together to discuss the various approaches that were collectively discussed. Hear the key highlights each speaker learned from each of the presentations and how mental health clinicians can best integrate the science and skills offered during the day’s conference.
Program Information
Objectives
- Distinguish among the various interventions discussed by all presenters.
- Propose how to incorporate the various techniques presented into treatment planning.
- Evaluate the efficacy of working somatically via telehealth.
Outline
- Review of the day’s content by host Janina Fisher, PhD
- The research and use of Tapping as a modality for anxiety stress and trauma
- Somatic Experiencing and the work of Peter Levine
- Working with clients somatically via telehealth during the pandemic
- Speakers discuss the key elements and unifying themes of the various presentations
- Questions and answers/discussion from the participants
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
09/25/2020
Expressive Arts Therapy as Somatically-Based Interventions with Trauma: Using Rhythm, Movement, Sound, and Imagery for Embodied Awareness
Program Information
Objectives
- Determine why rhythm, movement, sound, and imagery are somatically-based approaches to trauma
- Apply at least three expressive interventions to support self-regulation and co-regulation in traumatized individuals
- Evaluate the roles of interoception, exteroception, and proprioception in expressive arts and traumatic stress
Outline
How Expressive Arts Therapy Addresses Trauma
- Why the body’s rhythm is a natural foundation for trauma repair
- Simple rhythm and sound interventions to support self-regulation and embodied safety
Interoception, Exteroception, and Propioception: Three Key Concepts in Restoring a Good Rhythm within the Body
- Using imagery and movement to tap interoception experiences
- How to combine imagery and movement to support attunement, entrainment, and synchrony
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
08/27/2020
Somatic Interventions in Couples Therapy
Program Information
Objectives
- Apply three techniques designed to engage the parasympathetic nervous system at the beginning of a session that facilitates establishing a safe atmosphere between partners.
- Distinguish three early signs of activation that indicate one or both partners are feeling threatened and be able to use strategies to intervene effectively such that the therapeutic work can continue.
- Integrate three interventions that utilize a focus on body sensations to further the therapeutic process when working with couples in session.
Outline
Somatic-focused couple’s therapy
- Polyvagal theory, implicit memory, neuroception and
- Applying these critical concepts in therapy sessions with couples
How to engage the parasympathetic nervous system at the beginning of a session
- Why this is critical for the efficacy of the therapeutic process
- Techniques for settling the nervous system
Once the conversation begins
- Structuring a conversation to facilitate maximum parasympathetic system engagement
- The value of mirroring in keeping the parasympathetic system engaged
- Tracking the body for subtle signs of nervous system activation – what to look for and strategies to employ
- Learning the language of body and how to use it as a resource for therapeutic inquiry
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
08/04/2020
Dreamwork as Contemplative Practice
Program Information
Objectives
- Formulate how to frame dreamwork as contemplative practice
- Determine why contemplative practices and dreamwork are helpful somatically-based approaches to facilitate psychospiritual wellness.
- Articulate the three phases of contemplative dreamwork
Outline
Introduction to the Contemplative Dreamwork
- Dreamwork and Contemplative Practice
- Rest and Deep Embodiment
- (Restful Activity: Reverence, Joy, Imagination)
Phases of Contemplative Dreamwork
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychotherapists
- Other Mental Health Processionals
Copyright :
08/12/2020
3-Day Experiential in Mindfulness, Yoga & Meditation: Applications for Mental Health Clinical Practice
Program Information
Objectives
- Articulate the psychological impact and long-term effects of emotional trauma on a client’s mental health.
- Analyze the effects of yoga and meditation on the triune brain and the applications for clinical practice.
- Distinguish between the default network, salience network and central executive network and utilize this information for client psychoeducation.
- Articulate the concept of negativity bias in the brain as it relates to clients who have experienced trauma.
- Explain the social brain and use of interpersonal neurobiology to activate the affiliation system of the brain.
- Utilize concentration, distancing, observation and distraction in treating depression producing thoughts.
- Apply breathing practices, simple body movement and self-compassion for emotional regulation.
- Describe how to incorporate an emotional freedom technique to help clients with emotional stabilization.
- Demonstrate components of mindful self-compassion for treating unworthiness and confronting the “inner critic”.
- Evaluate mindfulness techniques for helping clients address negative thoughts regarding chronic pain.
- Decide effective ways to incorporate chants, mantras, and songs as parts of the healing process for clients.
- Apply yogic interventions to assist clients in safely approaching distressing emotions.
- Explain how to teach clients to dis-identify from a narrative of unworthiness.
- Examine how to use yoga to heal the physiology of shame.
- Implement yoga poses applicable to the clinical setting for depression and for emotional trauma.
- Construct a life review/eulogy to help focus therapy on the client’s most important values.
- Evaluate a mindful communications process for conflict resolution and emotional bonding.
- Assess mindful eating for its usefulness as a therapeutic tool.
Outline
Reduce Anxiety, Depression, and Unworthiness
Neuroscience – Psychoeducation and Practices
- Neuroplasticity – your brain’s ability to organize and learn
- The triune brain
- Primary emotional motivators
- Negativity bias of your brain
- Savoring the good and affiliation system of the brain
- Social brain: causes and conditions
- Default mode network, salience network and central executive network of the brain
- Neuroscience exercises for clinical use
- Use of art expression to personalize learning
- Use of small group sharing (not therapy) for learning
- Exploration of emotional motivators, social brain and savoring the good to personalize learning and small group sharing
Reduce Feelings of Overwhelm, Dissociation and Shame
Lead Clients to Emotional Stabilization
- Emotional stabilization skills
- Body scan and sensory input for stabilization
- Mindful breathing practices
- Impact of yoga on nervous system
- Emotional Freedom Technique
- Mindful walking
- Clinical examples of emotional stabilization skills
- Practice emotional stabilization skills
Teach Clients to Observe and Choose Thoughts
Experience the Impact of Thoughts
- Nonjudgmental observing of thoughts
- Naming – write thoughts down
- Recognize, distance and dis-identify from narrative of self-identity
- Relate to the voice of the inner critic
- Address negative thoughts regarding chronic pain
- Store consciousness/mind consciousness and therapeutic implications
- Use of chants, mantras, songs for healing
- Nourishing wholesome thoughts – use of repetition and concentration
- Habit tendencies and neuronal pathways
- Accessing beneficial memories
- Clinical examples of relating to thoughts therapeutically
- Exploration of observing and choosing thoughts to personalize learning and small group sharing
Help Clients Approach and Alleviate Distressing Emotions While Cultivating Emotional Aliveness
Treat Distress with Mercy
- Be there for grief
- Comfort pose and self-love mantra
- Emotional Freedom Technique for client self-care
- Yoga for emotional trauma/anxiety
- Yoga for depression
- Clinical examples of treating distress with mercy
- Activity to personalize the client’s experience
- Exploration of approaching and alleviating emotions to personalize learning and small group sharing
Promote Self-Compassion and Increase Emotional Resilience and Self-Acceptance in Clients
Why Kindness to Self at Times Cause Distress
- Who has seen your goodness? – restoring trust
- Teachers of compassion
- The voice of the inner friend
- Three-part self-compassion note
- Offering loving kindness to any inner aspect that feels not deserving
- Compassion for the inner critic
- Tonglen practice – receiving suffering and sending compassion
- Clinical examples of utilizing self-compassion
- Exploration of compassion practices to personalize learning and small group sharing
Resources to Regulate Nervous System and Restore Self-Worth in Clients
Causes of Unworthiness and Shame
- Impact of shame on brain – default network and pain system
- The physiology of shame
- Differentiate among shame, defiance, and noble posture
- Simple yoga for healing the physiology of shame
- Narrative of unworthiness
- Create a new narrative of self
- Life review/eulogy to discover true values
- Clinical examples of treating unworthiness and shame
- Write eulogy to discover true values and small group sharing
Mindfulness Applications for Specific Clinical Use
Mindfulness Communications Process for Conflict Resolution and Emotional Bonding
- Mindful eating practice and research on mindfulness for overeating
- Learn and practice leading mindful exercises and yoga for emotional trauma/anxiety and depression
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Occupational Therapists
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Case Managers
- Psychotherapists
- Psychiatrists
- Nurses
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Copyright :
05/01/2019