Therapists and clients routinely confront the insidious impact of shame on the client’s ability to find relief and perspective after trauma. Progress in the treatment or in life trigger shame and self-judgment rather than pride. Beliefs about worth and deserving interfere with receiving positive experiences or feedback. Increased ability for self-assertion or limit-setting gets undermined by cognitive distortions forbidding self-protection. Perfectionistic tendencies not only generate fear but also tend to confirm feelings of inadequacy and defectiveness. Despite the therapist’s best efforts, the shame and perfectionism can be entrenched and unshakeable, undermining the treatment and compromising the client’s quality of life.

This workshop will introduce participants to a model for understanding shame from a neurobiological perspective. In this view, shame and perfectionism are seen as survival strategies driving somatic responses of hypervigilance, automatic obedience, and “total submission.” Using lecture, videotape, experiential exercises, and demonstration, participants will be introduced to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a body-oriented talking therapy, as a treatment for trauma-related shame, self-loathing and perfectionism. This conceptual model and its related sensorimotor interventions are easily integrated into any treatment modality, allowing these issues become an avenue to transformation, rather than a cause of stuckness.

Learning Objectives: • Describe the role of shame and self-loathing in traumatic experience • Identify basic principles and techniques of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy • Describe the somatic effects of therapeutic mindfulness • Discuss the use of Sensorimotor techniques to treat distorted cognitions • Describe interventions for increasing positive affect tolerance

This workshop serves as an introduction to the Level One: Training for the Treatment of Trauma, coming to Berkeley, CA in January, 2011

15% Discount for groups of 3 or more To obtain this discount, your group must register individually. Click 'Register Now' below, and check the box marked 'Groups of 3 or more (15% Discount)'. Contact accounting@sensorimotor.org to register your group.

$100 off a Level One Training for attendance of this event.