Brain-to-Brain: Mastering the NeurobiologicalWaltz

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Clients raised by neglectful and frightening caregivers may as adults find themselves living with an unconscious somatic legacy of early traumatic attachment, yearning for closeness but unable to tolerate or sustain intimacy. Even their nervous systems rebel against physical proximity to others, or can’t tolerate being without proximity. As a result, their relationships—even with therapists—are tumultuous. The necessary strategy for working with these clients is coregulation, an approach that doesn’t depend on words but rather on a brain-to-brain neurobiological waltz that relies on the therapist’s attunement to implicit emotional and somatic communication. You’ll explore how to:

• Recognize certain core issues in the therapeutic alliance—such as idealization and devaluing, stuckness, struggles for control, and abandonment fears—as manifestations of traumatic attachment
• Become skilled at “right brain to right brain” communication, or being able to “talk” without words
• Engage in a “dyadic dance” with your clients, mirroring their rhythms, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures

OUTLINE

• Therapeutic relationship as dance between attachment systems
• Impact of early childhood experiences on attachment and affect regulation
  • Arousal and self-regulation
  • Secure v. insecure context
• Brain structures and systems related to self-regulation of affect
  • Functions of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
  • Consequences of hypoarousal and hyperarousal
• Unconscious nature of early attachment experiences
  • Body memory/somatic learning
  • Approach v. avoidance
• Therapeutic relationship and managing sense of threat
  • Styles of attachment
  • Unconscious nature of body memory
  • Nonverbal cues and therapeutic communication
• Successful regulation of arousal
  • Optimal window of arousal
  • Sources of therapist dysregulation
  • Identifying somatic transference and countertransference
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
  • Impact of internal dialog, labeling
  • Mind/body integration
  • Integrating mindfulness practices
• Co-regulation in interpersonal psychotherapy
  • Effective methods of communication
  • Connecting and integrating sensory perceptions
  • Experimentation as technique
• Working brain to brain
  • Role of mirror neurons
  • Social engagement system
  • Flowing with resistance
• Summary

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OBJECTIVES

• Explore how to recognize certain core issues in the therapeutic alliance—such as idealization and devaluing, stuckness, struggles for control, and abandonment fears—as manifestations of traumatic attachment
• Explore how to become skilled at “right brain to right brain” communication, or being able to “talk” without words
• Explore how to engage in a “dyadic dance” with your clients, mirroring their rhythms, body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures