The training draws on the work of Dr. Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing founder & Trauma Expert), Dr. Gabor Mate (MD & Trauma Expert), Dr. Stephen Porges (Psychologist & Neuroscientist), and Betsy Polatin (MFA, Somatic, Breath & Movement Specialist). It will also include an in-depth 30+ page workbook that you can download to be used throughout the course. Recordings of each class will be made available to all participants the day following the class. Both health practitioners and lay people are invited to join in exploring the following:
Training Schedule
Week 1: Connecting with the Body and Breath to Release Stuckness + Invite Flow and Resilience
Week 2: What is Trauma, its Symptoms, Effects on the Nervous System, the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) + Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn (FFFF) and How to Work with them for Integration
Week 3: What is Somatic Experiencing, PolyVagal Theory, Interoception, and the Role of Memory in Trauma Resolution
Week 4: Working with Somatic Practices to Integrate the Emotions: Fear, Anger, Shame, Grief/Sadness, Anxiety + Related Physical Pain
Week 5: The Role of Attachment, Authenticity, Addiction and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) in Trauma + Identifying and Integrating Intergenerational Trauma
Week 6: Trauma as a Portal to Deepening Spirituality through the Body + How to Avoid Spiritual Bypassing
Overview of Training Content
- What is trauma, it’s symptoms and causes and how it affects the function of the Central Nervous System (CNS), the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which includes Sympathetic & Parasympathetic (Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze & Rest & Digest), the Somatic Nervous System, the Vagus Nerve
- Working with implicit body memory and tracking thwarted fight, flight and freeze (FFFF) responses through related sensations, etc. to help to discharge them and heal the stress physiology, while exploring the principles of Somatic Experiencing
- Bringing the Nervous System back to safety by enhancing capacity for self-regulation and strengthening interoception, to move beyond survival mode into greater connection with Self, others and our own creative self-expression
- Connecting with the breath to move out stuckness and rigidity in the diaphragms, muscles and tissues, using various breathing and somatic movement exercises (contained practices)
- Working with the somatic expression of emotion to help to move them through the body, and learning the benefits of practicing healthy aggression and/or boundary-setting
- Exploring the relationship between authenticity and attachment, the ACE Score, pain and addiction, and the personality traits of those with chronic pain
- Identifying intergenerational trauma and cultivating ancestral resources to support its integration
- Trauma as a portal to deepening spirituality through our bodies, and enhancing embodied presence; becoming familiar with meditations that include bodily sensations; also identifying spiritually disorganizing practices and characteristics of spiritual bypassing (dissociation) to help avoid them and their harm
Please note that this course is a training and not therapy. Learning this material will support your own trauma integration journey and you are encouraged to practice the techniques learned in class outside of class to support your own personal healing. It has been designed to provide an overview of how trauma lives in our nervous systems, bodies, emotional and mental bodies, and behavioural expressions; to understand how we’ve arrived there and how we can begin to integrate these patterns and related symptoms through somatic techniques. There will be brief check-ins throughout the training to hear how it is affecting participants, as well as Q & A periods for any particular issues or cases not addressed in course content.
