Workshops

Action and Bodily States in the Treatment of Trauma | New Approaches to Dissociation
Trauma and the Body | Body as Resource | Boundaries and Relationship
Intimacy, Differentiation and Trauma | Somatic Resources and the Transformative Process
Vicarious Trauma | Working with Addiction and Trauma | Working with Anger

"As a clinical social worker, my professional training with the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute has proven to be the most useful additional training I've taken. It has refined my personal work, increased my self-confidence, and deepened my ability to be present with my clients."
                                                           – Melissa Miller, CSW-R, HSI Graduate

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute offers a variety of one- to five-day workshops. In addition to our certified trainers, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute often presents workshops taught by guest trainers, such as Bessel van der Kolk, Allan Shore, author of "Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self," and Fred Donaldson, author of "Playing by Heart."

Acceptance to a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Professional Training pends completion of at least one Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute workshop.

Working with Action & Bodily States in the Treatment of Trauma

A workshop for Psychotherapists, Marriage and Family Counselors, Social Workers, Psychologists, Body Therapists, and LPCs.

Trauma affects the total human organism; neurobiologically, psychologically, behaviorally and socially. Traditional psychotherapy has approached the resolution of trauma as something that needs to be understood, worked through and put into the larger perspective of one's life. However, there is a long tradition in many cultures of using dance, theatre, yoga, martial arts, meditation, and physical action to manage trauma states, most of which, until recently, have not been subject to Western methods of investigation. In the wake of emerging research on the neurobiological effects of trauma, the Trauma Center in Boston, and the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute in Boulder, CO, have started to explore the use of collaborative movement and action, both in the aftermath of trauma, and in the treatment of chronically traumatized individuals.

Dr. Van der Kolk and Dr. Ogden will demonstrate, with the help of experiential exercises, videotapes, and handouts, how body-centered centered approaches and improvisational and ritualized theater groups can help people regain a sense of mastery and communality. They will present research methodology for clinicians and researchers working with somatic methods and discuss research findings on yoga and theater groups that support the utility of such approaches.
This workshop will explore how experience itself, and controlled bodily action, individually and in groups, can help overcome traumatic repetitions and continued fight/flight/freeze responses.

Click here to download PDF with full description of workshop.

For directions to January 29, 2005 workshop, click here.

Putting the Pieces Together: New Approaches to the
Understanding and Treatment of Dissociation

A workshop for Psychotherapists, Marriage and Family Therapists and Body-Mind
Practitioners.

This workshop will introduce participants to an integrative model of dissociation drawn from the work of Pierre Janet, Ellert Nijenhuis, Onno van der Hart, Kathy Steele, and Richard Schwartz. In this model, dissociative disorders are conceptualized as post-traumatic disorders, and PTSD is understood as a dissociative disorder. Diagnosis becomes less important than understanding the ways in which dissociation contributed to the individual’s survival, as well as the ways in which it continues to manifest in the everyday lives of trauma survivors. The treatment attempts to capitalize on the client’s dissociative abilities in the service of cognitive, emotional and somatic re-association.

Beginning with an introduction to the neurobiology of trauma and dissociation, we will address the recognition and assessment of dissociative symptoms, defenses and disorders; how to use that information to make informed decisions about the appropriate treatment frame and therapeutic interventions; and how to integrate psychodynamic and body-centered approaches to treatment. Rooted in the assumption that working with both mind and body facilitates optimal reintegration of disconnected, disowned mental contents, this model attempts to integrate a psychobiological understanding of trauma and consequent structural dissociation with attachment theory, family systems approaches to internal ego state relationships, and techniques drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, and clinical hypnosis.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Recognize soft and hard signs of dissociative disorders and make appropriate diagnoses
• Develop a treatment plan combining cognitive, emotional and somatic interventions
• Manage traumatic transference and countertransference dynamics
• Enable the client to increase internal awareness, master autonomic hyper– and hypoarousal and expand affective and integrative capacity

Trauma and the Body: An Introduction to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

The "Trauma and the Body" Workshop is designed to give professional psychotherapists, social workers, addiction counselors, bodyworkers with counseling experience, and students of psychology, useful theory and skills to enhance their ability to work with traumatic injuries. Through videotaped sessions with traumatized clients, lecture, discussion, handouts and short exercises, workshop participants will be introduced to:

• Working with trauma that has no words
• Modulating hyperarousal
• Working with frozen states
• Differentiating between developmental and traumatic injury
• Interventions for effective re-association in the body
• Reorganizing defensive responses
• Re-instating somatic resources lost in the wake of trauma
  

See our calendar for current schedule.

Body As Resource: An Introduction to the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Training for Body Therapists

This workshop provides an overview to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute theories and skills, emphasizing developing the resources of the body. An introduction to traumatic and developmental injuries and how they affect the body will be addressed. Students will learn the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy principles, bodyreading skills, and beginning techniques that can help clients develop the physical resources necessary to mitigate trauma and developmental issues. Through hands-on experiential work, movement and lecture, this workshop provides an instructional journey of self-discovery as well as useful interventions that can be implemented into bodywork practice.

See our calendar for current schedule.

Boundaries and Relationship

Personal, family, and group boundaries affect us in everything we do. Healthy boundaries allow us to be more present in relationships with clients, family, friends and co-workers. Often boundary styles are learned as a survival strategy within the family system or as a response to perceived life threatening events or trauma. This workshop explores specific theories and techniques for developing healthy boundaries that can be used immediately in your personal life and professional practice. The following topics will be covered:

• Stages of Boundary Development
  
• Boundary Styles
  
• Boundaries in Relationship
  
• Boundaries and the Body
  
• Developing Healthy Boundaries
  
• Intimacy and Boundaries
  

See our calendar for current schedule.

Intimacy, Differentiation and Trauma: Exploring the Art of Love through Body-Centered Therapy

"True love is no game of the faint-hearted and weak,
It is born of strength and understanding."
– Meher Baba

Trauma leaves one in a shattered and reactive state that carries the defensive reactions of the traumatic past into current relationships. Intimacy necessitates the capacity to differentiate from one's past reactive patterns and get present in the here and now with a partner. How can these two realities be integrated? The body serves as the best barometer of both experiences: The reactive past and the capacity to be fully present in this moment with oneself and with a partner. The body allows the trauma survivor to process traumatic activation – which carries the memory of the traumatic event – and discover the ability to stay present with a lover. In this workshop we explore how sensorimotor (body) processing facilitates moving through trauma and towards differentiation and intimacy.

See our calendar for current schedule.

Somatic Resources and the Transformative Process

A 2-Day Workshop for Psychotherapists, Marriage and Family Counselors, Social Workers, Students of Psychology and Body Therapists with counseling experience.

Since transformation includes both mind and body, it is invaluable to understand how to integrate the physical body into the psychotherapeutic process. This workshop will focus on recognizing somatic resources that are both present and missing. You will learn how to introduce a client to new physical patterns that are specifically resourcing. The workshop will include:

• Assessment of existing and missing resources
• Building new physical based resources that support the psychotherapeutic process
• Physicalizing psycho/emotional issues
• Working with physical imprints, impulses and movement patterns
  

See our calendar for current schedule.

Vicarious Trauma

The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute"Vicarious Trauma" workshop is designed to give professional psychotherapists, social workers, addiction counselors, bodyworkers with counseling experience, and students of psychology, useful theory and skills to enhance their ability to work with vicarious trauma.

Violence and trauma affect many more people than those directly exposed. Symptoms of VT resemble those of trauma: high physiological arousal, fear, panic attacks, feeling insecure, intrusive images, nightmares, avoidance, numbing and even depression. At risk for VT are people who are close to trauma survivors, therapists and other professionals who work with trauma. Ironically, the more sensitive and openhearted we are for the person who suffered the trauma directly, the greater is the possibility that we become traumatized ourselves. In this workshop, we will discuss the origins and effects of VT, and explore ways of working with it. Our guiding question will be how to stay compassionate towards the traumatic experience of others while maintaining strength, resilience, and confidence.

Learning Goals:

• To understand the effects of vicarious trauma on the body, feelings, behaviors and relationships
• To recognize signs of vicarious trauma in ourselves and others
• To assess one's personal risk of vicarious trauma
  
• To practice body-based skills to resolve vicarious trauma symptoms
  
• To increase resiliency in the face of vicarious trauma

Twenty-one CEIYs are available from this workshop.

See our calendar for current schedule.

Working with Addiction and Trauma

Many of us have lived with the effects of trauma and addiction, personally or in relationships with those we love. This workshop studies the link between these two wounds with emphasis on understanding how healing may and can occur through sequencing of physiological impulse and its integration with emotions, cognition and spirit. Experiential in nature, grounded in lectures and hand-outs, this class welcomes addictions counselors, bodyworkers, therapists, students and related fields.

See our calendar for current schedule.

Working with Anger

We experience varying degrees of anger every day of our lives, yet few models exist for the appropriate expression of anger. In the "new age," we've often preferred to deny our anger, rather than approach it directly, honestly, and constructively. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute's approach is that healthy anger can strengthen our self-esteem and enhance our capacity for intimate relationship. This class is both didactic and experiential, allowing students to examine their own anger and develop skills for helping others. Video sessions of therapists working with anger will be shown.

See our calendar for current schedule.

Back to Top

© 2002 Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. All rights reserved.