Full Course Description

Integrative Somatic Psychotherapy Master Class: Step-by-step embodied trauma healing with Abi Blakeslee and special guest Peter Levine

Program Information

Objectives

Articulate what is unique about Somatic Psychology from Cognitive Based Therapy.
Formulate questions that invite conscious awareness of bodily sensation.
Identify the Threat Response Cycle with traumatized clients and learn interventions to shift survival physiology.
Observe biological markers and interoceptive experiences of the Sympathetic, transitional states, and parasympathetic nervous system.
Develop observational skills of transitional states and polyvagal states in the ANS.
Assess how building impulses increases agency toward action potential which can aid a traumatized client’s completion of a survival and defensive response.
Identify ways to work with attachment and transgenerational trauma patterns in the body and ANS.
Develop skills to support clients embodied affect.
Develop some understanding about somatic approaches to working with Near Death Experiences and the embodied emotion of terror.
Use strategies to help traumatized clients connect the physiological changes in their body to new non-traumatic experiences.
Identify trauma-focused strategies of how to use the relational field through social engagement and ventral vagal intervention.
Describe how to use the Emotional Motor System and the body’s physiology to improve interpersonal dynamics.
Implement tools to increase your clients ability to safely experience a wide range of emotion following a trauma.
Articulate the difference between implicit and explicit timelines related to traumatic events and the therapeutic impact.
Demonstrate how to use imagery to help a client effectively respond in traumatic situations.
Gain Interventions that engage and support your client’s felt sense and neuroception of safety.

Outline

Module 1: Introduction to Somatic Psychology (overview)
In this introductory module, Abi Blakeslee shares with you the core concepts of somatic psychotherapy and reveals why body-based approaches can lead to deep healing. You will discover:

The types of somatic psychotherapy and how to know which to ones will be most helpful in your practice
Why clients get stuck in their trauma response and how here-and-now somatic interventions are the key to getting unstuck
How to use your own somatic responses to inform therapy and fast-track healing

Module 2: Bringing the Body into Psychotherapy: In Conversation with Peter Levine
Abi Blakeslee is joined by the founder of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine. Listen in as they discuss the most vital components of successful trauma healing. Peter also shares:

What led him to somatic psychology and how it has shaped his life
His favorite somatic exercises for moving trauma through the body
His advice for the next generation of psychotherapists

Module 3: Supporting Neurodivergent Clients in Trauma Recovery using Somatic Interventions
Meet Stefi, a young, neurodivergent mother who experienced a medical trauma during the pandemic. Discover how Abi adapts somatic interventions to fit Stefi’s processing style and inherent strengths. You will also learn how to:

“Read” a client’s nervous system and what you can do to improve their physiological distress right away
Resource ancestral power to counteract helplessness and terror
Track the flow of trauma as it moves through the body and how to tell when it has been released

Module 4: Releasing Generational and Medical Trauma using Somatic Interventions
Meet Rosa, a Korean woman who immigrated to the United States as a child and is now a mother of two. Listen in as she processes the traumatic birth of her second daughter and discover the unexpected connection between Rosa’s transgenerational and medical traumas. Here, you will learn:

How to work with explicit and implicit memory
How to integrate polyvagal theory in your practice in order to facilitate healing
How to access transgenerational wisdom through image repair

Module 5: Using Somatic Psychotherapy to Heal Trauma in Couples Therapy
Discover how somatic psychology can be used to strength couples therapy. Here, we meet Christine and Cliff, a couple working through the trauma of Christine’s life-threatening car accident and medical crisis. Find out how Abi targets somatic healing for both individuals as well as for the couple. You will also learn:

How to use body movement and social engagement to work through the threat response cycle and address past unresolved emotions
How to heal secondary trauma in the context of a couple
How to move and guide attention to facilitate healing

Module 6: Somatic Work for Medical Trauma and Survivor Guilt
Meet Ruth, the primary caretaker for her husband who is being treated for pancreatic cancer. Watch as Abi helps Ruth find sanctuary from her exhaustion as she works through survival guilt: You will also discover:

How mirror neurons both help and hinder the physiology of caretakers
The most powerful intervention you can use to reduce survivor guilt and improve wellbeing for caretakers

Target Audience

Counselors
Therapists
Psychologists
Addiction counselors
Marriage and Family Therapists
Social Workers

Copyright : 02/15/2023

Consultation Call with Abi Blakeslee

Copyright : 11/14/2023

The Body as Healer: Working from the Bottom Up

One of the keys to helping clients move beyond trauma into empowerment and mastery is to help them learn how to access safety and positive embodied resource states. This contrasts with reliving traumas and repeatedly experiencing threats that no longer exist. Learn specific tools from Somatic Experiencing for reading clients’ physical and emotional cues, while using their natural instincts to rebalance their physiology and inner feelings. You’ll discover how to:

Integrate clients’ awareness of their internal experience and your observations of their nonverbal behaviors, including involuntary gestures, posture changes, and external indications of shifts in the autonomic nervous system
Develop your capacity to read your own somatic cues as a means of resonating and connecting with the client’s experience
Assess the often-fleeting physical cues of clients’ internal states that indicate crucial resources they can access as they move toward healing

Program Information

Objectives

Integrate the clients’ awareness of their internal experience and your observations of their nonverbal behaviors, including involuntary gestures, posture changes, and external indications of shifts in their autonomic nervous system.
Develop your capacity to read your own somatic cues as a means of resonating and connecting with the client’s experience.
Assess the often-fleeting physical cues of their internal states that indicate crucial resources clients can access as they move toward healing.

Outline

From Trauma to Awakening & Flow

Trauma Vortex & Counter Vortex
Emotions & Touch

Core Regulation: Working from the Bottom Up

The Roots of Traumatization
Terror & the Freeze Response
Neuroception & the Activation of Arousal
Unsafe Touch

Target Audience

Psychologists
Physicians
Addiction Counselors
Counselors
Social Workers
Marriage & Family Therapists
Nurses
Other Behavioral Health Professionals

Somatic Interventions in Couples Therapy

Somatic Intervention skills are an essential addition to every relationship therapist’s toolbox. There is no conversation worth having if the nervous system isn’t in a settled state. When couples become emotionally charged it’s because they’re feeling threatened. Their nervous systems become alert, ready to defend. This defense serves to keep vulnerable feelings buried and interferes with their ability to effectively engage with their partner. In this presentation, I will offer strategies to enable couples to settle their nervous systems in order to delve more deeply into the sources of distress so that constructive solutions can emerge.

The body “holds” so much emotional information that isn’t always accessible through words. Participants will learn to identify subtle physical signs that one or both partners are feeling threatened or distressed and be able to intervene on a somatic level. Where words alone often fail, these interventions can lead to a deeper exploration of what underlies their unhappiness.

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