Somatic Therapy in Action: Navigating Boundaries & Boundary Ruptures

 $447 USD $99

This course presents four distinct somatic healing sessions demonstrating the transformative power of somatic approaches. Witness a participant process trauma and address people-pleasing through breathwork and imagery, connecting with inner strength and healthy boundaries. Observe Pat Ogden guide a participant through sensory motor psychotherapy, re-experiencing trauma by attending to bodily sensations and completing interrupted defensive responses. Explore one participants journey of identifying and releasing a protective holding pattern, fostering embodied communication and a greater sense of freedom. Finally, see how one can access and express suppressed emotions through mindful guidance, reconnecting with the authentic self and the body's innate wisdom for healing.

About this course

The Body Knows: Expert Demonstrations in Somatic Trauma Healing

The body holds what words cannot express—trauma encoded in tension patterns, defensive responses frozen mid-action, emotions suppressed for safety, and protective mechanisms that once saved us but now constrain us. This transformative demonstration package presents four distinct somatic healing sessions that illuminate how skilled practitioners work with the body's innate wisdom to facilitate profound healing and integration.

Witnessing Transformation:

Watch master clinicians guide clients through processing recent trauma, completing interrupted defensive responses, releasing protective holding patterns, and accessing suppressed emotions. From breathwork and imagery to sensory motor psychotherapy and somatic inquiry, these sessions demonstrate the diverse pathways through which the body can process, release, and reorganize what has been held. Each demonstration reveals not just technique, but the art of creating conditions where the body's natural healing capacity can emerge.

What You'll Learn:

Through four powerful demonstration modules, you'll discover how to:

Module 1: Somatic Therapy for Processing Recent Traumatic Experience with Dr. Peter Levine

Establishing Safety and Context:

• Begin sessions by acknowledging context and establishing safety
• Mention scope of practice appropriately
• Invite participants to share what's important while emphasizing their agency
• Create containing space for trauma processing
• Honor participant's right to indicate if anything feels wrong

Working with Recent Trauma:

• Process recent traumatic experience (conflict with friend)
• Address long-standing patterns (people-pleasing, self-doubt)
• Use breathwork, vocalization, and imagery for release
• Access inner strength and resilience through the body

Somatic Awareness Techniques:

• Guide noticing of bodily sensations (tension in stomach and throat)
• Direct tension into objects (pillow) to facilitate release
• Associate physical sensations with affirmations ("you are enough," "I'm alive")
• Connect tingling and other sensations with empowering statements

Resourcing and Empowerment:

• Help participants connect with internal supports (breath, visualizations)
• Access external supports (ancestral connections)
• Foster feelings of strength, love, and safety
• Build resources to draw upon in moments of stress or trigger
• Establish healthy boundaries through embodied experience
• Support self-acceptance and empowerment

Module 2: Using Sensory Motor Psychotherapy to Complete Interrupted Defensive Responses with Dr. Pat Ogden and Jacqui Compton

Present-Moment Somatic Processing:

• Guide re-experiencing of traumatic memory through bodily sensations
• Focus on present-moment awareness rather than narrative alone
• Track physiological responses (tightening in chest, shoulders squeezing inward)
• Use step-by-step approach through difficult memory (molestation)

Completing Defensive Responses:

• Facilitate completion of interrupted defensive responses
• Support body's spontaneous initiation of protective movements
• Allow emergence of shaking and running motions
• Guide verbal and physical expression of "no" in relation to past trauma
• Trust body's impulses toward resolution

Participant Collaboration:

• Consistently check in with participant throughout
• Ask for consent to continue at each stage
• Inquire about comfort level with emerging sensations
• Invite participant to notice their body's wisdom
• Honor participant's choice and agency
• Support following body's impulses
• Guide toward increased aliveness and groundedness

Module 3: Working With Protective Mechanisms to Help Clients Communicate Needs with Staci K. Haines

Exploring Protective Patterns:

• Help participants identify protective mechanisms (withholding, dissociation)
• Understand these as strategies for staying safe
• Work with desire to stay embodied while communicating needs
• Address patterns rooted in not feeling safe or accepted

Blending With Protection:

• Acknowledge and affirm protective strategies
• Recognize withholding and dissociation as self-protection
• Explore wisdom and function of protective mechanisms
• Gently inquire what these strategies take care of and for whom
• Help participants understand purpose (protecting heart and dreams)

Centering Practice:

• Incorporate dimensions of length, width, depth, and purpose
• Help participants ground themselves
• Increase body awareness before deeper work
• Create foundation for embodied communication

Release and Freedom:

• Facilitate appreciation of protective mechanisms for their role
• Support release of tension through acknowledgment
• Foster greater sense of freedom
• Enable fuller connection with self and others
• Transform protective mechanisms into conscious choices

Module 4: Processing and Expressing Suppressed Emotions with Jessica Montgomery

Mindful Guidance for Embodiment:

• Use simple directives ("Feel the room around you")
• Guide toward present moment awareness
• Encourage full expression ("Let it take up as much space as it really needs")
• Support reconnection with suppressed authentic self

Connecting Somatic Experience and Emotion:

• Facilitate connections between sensations, energy, vibrations, and emotions
• Link specific feelings to body locations (tearfulness to chest and throat)
• Explore how present feelings relate to past experiences
• Work with emotions related to suppressing true self

Following the Body's Process:

• Track body's natural self-organizing process
• Observe spontaneous movements and sensations (shaking, reverberations)
• Verbalize and encourage emergent phenomena
• Avoid imposing specific agenda or interpretation
• Allow amplification of what naturally emerges

Reconnection and Authenticity:

• Support access to stored tension and its release
• Help participants reconnect with passions
• Foster sense of empowerment and authenticity
• Honor body's innate wisdom and capacity for self-healing
• Trust the body's intelligence to guide the process

Core Competencies Developed Across All Modules:

Working with Trauma Somatically:

• Process trauma through body rather than narrative alone
• Support completion of interrupted defensive responses
• Release stored tension through breath, sound, and movement
• Trust the body's natural impulse toward healing

Creating Safety for Deep Work:

• Establish containing therapeutic space
• Honor participant agency and choice throughout
• Check in frequently and adjust based on responses
• Build consent into every step of the process

Protective Mechanisms:

• Recognize and honor protective patterns
• Blend with rather than fight against protection
• Understand the wisdom in what appears as resistance
• Transform outdated strategies into conscious choices

Somatic Tracking:

• Notice and follow bodily sensations moment-to-moment
• Track physiological shifts as indicators of processing
• Observe spontaneous movements and their meaning
• Trust the body's self-organizing capacity

Resourcing and Empowerment:

• Build internal and external resources
• Connect with ancestral support and inner strength
• Foster self-acceptance through embodied experience
• Support healthy boundaries from the inside out

Expression and Release:

• Facilitate vocal expression (saying "no," making sounds)
• Support physical movements (pushing, shaking, running)
• Allow emotions to move through the body
• Trust that completion brings relief and integration

Expert Faculty:

Learn from pioneers in somatic therapy: Dr. Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing®), Dr. Pat Ogden and Jacqui Compton (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy), Staci K. Haines (Generative Somatics), and Jessica Montgomery—each demonstrating unique approaches to body-based trauma healing.

The Demonstration Advantage:

Watching real sessions with actual trauma material reveals what theory cannot teach:

• How practitioners pace trauma work for safety
• When to slow down and when to follow the body's impulse
• How to track multiple levels simultaneously (words, sensations, movements)
• The art of supporting completion without forcing
• How to blend with protection rather than override it
• The subtle cues that indicate readiness for deeper work
• The moment when something shifts and releases

Common Threads Across Diverse Approaches:

While each demonstration showcases distinct methodology, powerful principles emerge:

• The body holds solutions beyond cognitive understanding
• Completion of defensive responses brings profound relief
• Protective mechanisms deserve appreciation, not elimination
• Present-moment sensation is more powerful than narrative
• The body knows how to heal when given safe conditions
• Participant agency and choice are essential throughout
• What appears spontaneous is actually the body's wisdom emerging

Transformation Through Body Wisdom:

This package supports professionals in helping clients:

• Process trauma through somatic channels rather than talk alone
• Complete defensive responses that were interrupted during traumatic events
• Release protective patterns that no longer serve
• Access and express emotions that have been suppressed
• Reconnect with authentic self beneath adaptive strategies
• Develop healthy boundaries through embodied experience
• Trust the body's innate capacity for self-healing

Who This Is For:

Essential training for:

• Therapists working with trauma survivors
• Somatic practitioners refining their skills
• Body workers integrating trauma-informed approaches
• Clinicians wanting to move beyond talk therapy
• Anyone working with protective patterns and defenses
• Practitioners seeking to deepen trust in the body's wisdom
• Students of Somatic Experiencing®, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, or other body-based modalities

What Makes This Package Unique:

These aren't staged demonstrations with hypothetical scenarios—these are real sessions with actual trauma material, protective patterns, and breakthrough moments. You'll witness:

• How spontaneous defensive responses emerge when given permission
• The profound relief that comes from completing what was interrupted
• How protective mechanisms soften when truly understood
• The body's natural intelligence in organizing its own healing
• Real moments of stuck-ness and the skillful navigation through them

These demonstrations illuminate a fundamental truth: the body doesn't just hold trauma—it holds the keys to healing. When we create the right conditions, provide skilled guidance, and trust the body's innate wisdom, profound transformation becomes possible. Watch these masters work, and discover what emerges when we truly listen to what the body knows.

Join our brilliant experts for the following sessions:

JACQUELINE COMPTON

Jacquie Compton (she/they) RP, RCAT, is a trauma therapist, teacher, clinical consultant, artist and poet. She is an art therapist, a certified advanced practitioner in sensorimotor psychotherapy, and an SPI-approved clinical consultant based in Tkaronto (Toronto).

Jacquie is a faculty member and clinical supervisor at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute, where she teaches courses on trauma-informed practice, embodiment, anti-oppressive practice and cultural humility in art therapy. She is also a trainer with the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.

With over 18 years of clinical experience, she continues developing a trauma-focused, decolonizing practice incorporating art-based and somatic-based approaches rooted in anti-oppressive praxis, embodiment, ancestral wisdom and creative arts.

Jacquie believes in the embodiment of practices beyond the therapeutic relationship and welcomes others to experience the beauty of being in a relationship with themselves, others and the world around them with and through the wisdom and magic of the body.

Website:  www.thegroundedheart.com/

JESSICA MONTGOMERY

Jessica Montgomery, MSW, Certified Hakomi Trainer has been a somatic counselor and catalyst for more than 30 years. Blending brain science with mindful experiential techniques and profound regard for the unbroken wisdom within, Jessica facilitates individuals, couples and communities toward greater wholeness. Her background includes work in community mental health, private practice, retreats and international pilgrimages, integrative medicine, counselor and bodyworker education and the use of ritual for personal growth. A graduate of Reed College and Portland State University, she is both thankful and critical of traditional academics and fiercely committed to anti-oppression practices in mental health. Jessica is a Trainer at the Hakomi Institute of the Pacific Northwest and has been on faculty at the National University of Natural Medicine, the META Institute, Sacred Journeys, the Pacific Center for Awareness and Bodywork, and served for five years as program director at Breitenbush Retreat and Conference Center. As co-developer of the Primary Attachment model, she supports practitioners in developing greater capacity for professional intimacy. A passionate communicator, Jessica is skilled at synthesizing key information across disciplines, inspiring embodied approaches to personal and social evolution. She lives in a small house on a tall hill in Portland Oregon where she practices aerial yoga, kitchen witching and the art of effing the ineffable.

Website: www.jessicamontgomerycounseling.com

DR. PAT OGDEN

Pat Ogden, PhD, (she/her), is a pioneer in somatic psychology, the creator of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy method, and founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (sensorimotor.org). Dr. Ogden is a clinician, consultant, international lecturer and the first author of two groundbreaking books in somatic psychology: Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (2015). Her third book, The Pocket Guide to Sensorimotor Psychotherapy in Context, advocates for an anti-racist perspective in psychotherapy practice. Her current interests include couple therapy, child and family therapy, social justice, diversity, inclusion, consciousness, and the philosophical/spiritual principles that underlie her work.

Website: www.sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org
Facebook: @SensorimotorPsychotherapyInstitute

DR. PETER LEVINE

Peter A Levine, Ph.D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma, which he has developed over the past 50 years. He holds a doctorate in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology from International University. He is the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute for Somatic Education, dedicated to Community Outreach and Post-Advanced Somatic Experiencing® Training, and the Founder and Advisor for Somatic Experiencing International. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley; Mills College; Antioch University; the California Institute of Integral Studies; and the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. His work has been taught to over 30,000 therapists in over 42 countries.

Dr. Levine is the author of several best-selling books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (published in over 29 languages); In an Unspoken Voice, How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness; and Trauma and Memory, Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past.

In recognition of his groundbreaking therapeutic works, Dr. Levine has received Lifetime Achievement awards from Psychotherapy Networker and from the US Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, an honorary award as the Reiss-Davis Chair in Los Angeles for his lifetime contribution to infant and child psychiatry, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Training on Trauma and Attachment in Children (ATTACh) for “his lifelong commitment to healing children through research, education, and outreach.” He served as a Stress consultant for NASA in the early space shuttle development and has served on the American Psychological Association task force for responding to the trauma of large-scale disasters and ethnopolitical warfare. He is currently a Senior Fellow and consultant at The Meadows Addiction and Trauma Treatment Center in Wickenburg, Arizona, and continues to teach trauma healing workshops internationally.

Websites: www.somaticexperiencing.com, www.traumahealing.org 

STACI K. HAINES

Staci K. Haines book, ""The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing and Social Justice" (North Atlantic Press 2019) is based on her work to transform the impact of individual and systemic trauma, and strengthen the interdependence of personal and social transformation. She has been in the field of somatics and engaged in social justice work for over 25 years. She leads programs in somatics, trauma, and resilience, and embodied leadership for healers, social justice leaders, and social innovators. Staci is the co-founder and former Director of generative somatics (gs), a multiracial social justice organization bringing somatics to social and climate justice movements. Staci also founded generationFIVE, whose mission is to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations, using transformative justice approaches. Lastly, Staci is also the author of Healing Sex: A Mind Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma (Cleis 1999, 2007).For more information visit: www.stacihaines.com

Instagram: @stacikhaines 

LinkedIn: @stacihaines

DR. SCOTT LYONS

Dr. Scott Lyons is a licensed holistic psychologist, educator and author of the book Addicted to Drama: Healing Dependency on Crisis and Chaos in Yourself and Others, with Hachette publishing. Scott is also the host of The Gently Used Human Podcast, a delightfully depthful and often hilarious exploration of what it is to be human, to have lived life, and come out gently used.

As a renowned body-based trauma expert, Doctor of Osteopathy (Spain) and Mind-Body Medicine specialist, Scott helps people to break free from cycles of pain, limited beliefs, and trauma. Scott is an innovator in transformative wellness and trauma therapy, teaching over half a million people internationally over the past twenty years how to relieve stress and restore vitality. Scott has worked with many of the country’s top leaders and CEOs as an executive coach and wellness consultant.

Scott is the creator of The Embody Lab—the largest online learning platform for body-based trauma therapies—and developer of Somatic Stress Release™, a holistic process of restoring biological resilience, taught in over 20 countries.

Scott is a Certified Body-Mind Centering™ Teacher and Practitioner, Cranio-Sacral Therapist, Visceral Manipulation Therapist, Neuro-Developmental Therapist, Infant Developmental Movement Educator, Registered Movement Therapist and Educator, Trauma Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Thai Massage Practitioner, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Mindfulness-based Executive Coach, Experiential Anatomy/ Developmental Movement and Yoga Practitioner, and a 500-hour registered yoga teacher. Additionally Scott holds a BFA in Theater/Psychology, MFA in Dance/Choreography, MS in Clinical Psychology, and a PhD in Clinical Psychology and Mind-Body Medicine.

Scott has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Forbes Women, Fast Company, The Telegraph, The Guardian, INC., CNBC Make It, Fortune, Bustle, Reader’s Digest and Goop. He has also appeared on The Mel Robbins Podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show, The We Can Do Hard Things Podcast, The Mental Illness Happy Hour, The Human Upgrade, The Genius Life, and The Chopra Well.

Websites: www.TheEmbodyLab.com, www.drscottlyons.com 

Instagram: @DrscottLyons

Book: https://www.drscottlyons.com/addicted-to-drama-book

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