Trauma Training
Somatic Experiencing and Trauma Therapy Training: Body-Based Healing, Polyvagal Theory, and the Threat Response Cycle
Supporting Healing Through the Body-Mind Connection
Trainer: Alison Leslie
On-Demand: Available with lifetime access for asynchronous learning. | This course was recorded on May 30-31st, 2024.
Trauma lives in the body. Most therapists know this. The harder question is what to do about it in an actual session with an actual client whose nervous system is stuck, whose words are disconnected from their body, and whose healing isn't moving the way talk-based approaches suggest it should.
This two-day somatic therapy training with Alison Leslie, LCSW and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, gives you a comprehensive, experiential framework for doing exactly that. Drawing on Somatic Experiencing, Polyvagal Theory, and the Threat Response Cycle, the course moves from the history and research foundations of somatic therapy through specific, hands-on clinical techniques: pendulation, titration, the Felt Sense, Language of Sensation, the Trauma Vortex and Counter Vortex, somatic boundary work, healthy touch, co-regulation, and the Neuroceptive Menu of Safety.
This is an experiential training. You will practice the techniques as you learn them, coming away with embodied knowledge of what these approaches feel like from the inside, not just a conceptual understanding of how they work. No EMDR training or somatic certification is required.
Practical Interventions You'll Learn
In this somatic experiencing and trauma therapy training, you'll learn how to:
- Apply the Threat Response Cycle to case conceptualization, identifying where a client's trauma is stuck in the body and what the nervous system needs to move toward completion
- Use the Trauma Vortex and Counter Vortex to help clients safely discharge lingering trauma responses and restore a sense of balance and agency in their bodies
- Work with the Felt Sense and Language of Sensation to help clients connect with internal somatic cues and develop a more embodied relationship with their own healing process
- Apply pendulation and titration to move clients safely between states of activation and relative ease without overwhelming the nervous system
- Use the Neuroceptive Menu of Safety to build capacity for ventral vagal access and create the internal conditions for healing
- Implement somatic boundary work to support new patterns within the client experience and strengthen the therapeutic container
- Apply healthy touch protocols and co-regulation skills to increase safety and nurture in the beginning phases of somatic trauma therapy
- Track internal experience and channels of processing across explicit and implicit memory networks to support a client's healing process
What You'll Learn
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
- Appraise pendulation, titration, and the Threat Response Cycle as somatic therapy techniques, and apply them to case conceptualization and clinical decision-making
- Identify how implicit memory, somatic cues, and survival patterns are held and experienced in the body, and use that understanding to inform where and how to intervene
- Evaluate the use of the Felt Sense and Language of Sensation to support clients in connecting with somatic markers and building interoceptive awareness
- Apply somatic boundary work to support new relational and bodily patterns within the client's experience
- Evaluate healthy strategies for self-touch with clients and understand when and how they support the healing process
- Apply tracking of the internal experience and channels of processing to support a client's healing journey across both days of treatment
- Appraise co-regulation skills and joining vs. merging dynamics, and use co-regulation to increase safety and nurture in early phases of therapy
- Include somatic strategies within the phases of trauma treatment, integrating them into a coherent phase-oriented approach
Who is this course for?
This course is designed for therapists and helping professionals who want to bring somatic approaches into their trauma work, whether they are new to body-based therapy or looking to deepen skills they have already started developing. It is a strong fit if you are:
- A trauma therapist whose clients are stuck in talk-based approaches, where the words are present but nothing seems to shift, and you want body-centered tools that can move the work forward at the level of the nervous system
- Wanting a foundational somatic framework built on Somatic Experiencing principles and taught by a credentialed SEP, rather than a general overview of body-based concepts
- An EMDR therapist looking for somatic preparation and stabilization tools to strengthen your Phase 2 work, or somatic interweaves to support Phase 4 when clients override or disconnect from bodily experience during processing
- Curious about the Threat Response Cycle, Trauma Vortex, and Felt Sense as clinical frameworks but wanting to actually practice them rather than just read about them
- Working with clients whose trauma presentations include chronic disconnection, dissociation, freeze responses, or physical symptoms that have not responded to cognitive or verbal interventions
- Seeking NBCC and ASWB/ACE continuing education in somatic experiencing and body-based trauma therapy in a comprehensive two-day on-demand format with 8 CEs
No prerequisites required. This is not an EMDR training.
About Your Trainer, Alison Leslie
Alison is a licensed clinical social worker who lives in Bloomington, IN and owns her own private practice, Empower Healing.
Alison approaches therapy through the lens of presence and attunement and believes in being a guide to help clients find their own internal healing powers. She has a background in animal-assisted services and includes the human-animal bond and nature in the therapeutic experience. Alison Leslie is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Transforming Touch Therapist as well as an EMDRIA-approved therapist and consultant, advanced trainer, Basic Training facilitator, and EMDR Basic Training trainer-in-training with Trauma Therapist Institute.
In consultation, Alison likes to meet the consultee where they are at and support helping the consultee become embodied in the work they are doing and lean into their own internal guide as she supports growth in EMDR skills and Somatic Therapy through openness, curiosity, and compassion.
Additional Information
Agenda
Learning Objectives
Prerequisites
Continuing Education
Course Completion
Cancellation Policy
Free resource from Alison Leslie
Designed to help you and your client explore the experience of internal sensations, grow the capacity to notice comfortable sensations, and become more experienced with them.
