Full Course Description

Somatic Trauma Therapy Crash Course: Core Skills and Interventions to Treat Trauma through the Body

Whether you’re new to Somatic Therapy or an experienced practitioner looking for a refresher, this training is for you.

Join in-demand trainer Stacy Ruse, LPC as she guides you through the core principles and techniques of Somatic Therapy.

In this course, Stacy will explain the why behind somatic healing in clear, accessible terms and better still, offer practical tools you can immediately implement with your clients.

When you enroll, you’ll learn:

Key strategies for effectively assessing and understanding your clients’ body awareness
Techniques to help clients release stored tension and trauma through body-focused interventions
How to work with emotional blocks and somatic defenses
Practical approaches for creating safety and trust in the therapeutic relationship
How to integrate somatic practices into your sessions for lasting transformation

Designed to be beginner-friendly, yet rich in actionable techniques and insights, this course will empower you to integrate somatic therapy into your practice with confidence.

Sign up today and start using somatic tools to transform you work with clients!

Program Information

Objectives

Define how trauma disrupts natural adaptive processing.
Utilize Polyvagal Theory concepts to create a sense of safety and connection in therapy.
Examine foundational somatic techniques, including interoceptive awareness, titration, sequencing, and somatic repatterning.
Choose somatic interventions clients can use when they are in acute distress.
Develop emotional regulation in clients using body-based tools and mindfulness practices.
Arrange a safe therapeutic environment to prevent re-traumatization of clients.
Identify risks and potential limitations of somatic techniques in the treatment of trauma.

Outline

Foundations of Somatic Therapy and Trauma

Introduction to Somatic Therapy:
- Overview, goals, and importance in trauma treatment
Understanding Trauma Disruption:
- Pathology of maladaptive trauma storage
- Emotional, sensory, and belief manifestations
- Fragmentation and dissociation
- Neural network reinforcement in unprocessed trauma
Natural vs. Incomplete Stress Responses:
- Key concepts of adaptive resolution vs. frozen trauma states

The Neuroscience of Trauma

Polyvagal Theory Basics:
- Ventral vagal complex and its role in safety and connection
- Hyperarousal vs. hypoarousal in trauma
Head, heart, and gut “brains”
Psycho-neuro-endocrine-immune system interrelation
Neuroception: Recognize safety and danger
- Create safety in therapy
- Reduce hyperarousal and build trust
- Prevent re-traumatization
Emotional Regulation and Resilience:
- Techniques to buffer stress and traumatic memories
- Empower clients to take an active role in their healing journey
Interoceptive Awareness: Develop self-awareness through bodily sensations

The Somatic Practices and Techniques Toolbox

Heart Coherence Understanding and Practice
Core Somatic Practices:
- Two hand techniques
- Mind body awareness
- Breathing exercises, body scans, and paired muscle relaxation
- Gentle touch and heart-focused compassion practices
The Science of Embodiment Practices:
- Interoception, exteroception, and proprioception
- Body awareness and empowerment through movement
- William Reich’s body armor and belts of tension
Somatic Trauma Processing:
- Pendulation, titration, sequencing, and repatterning: Techniques for releasing stored trauma
- Somatic Questions
- Slow conscious movement and breathwork for release
- Lack of body awareness and other issues

Integration and Research

Tailor techniques to individual client needs
Integration in clinical practice and with other methodologies
Potential risks and limitations
Q&A and wrap-up: Recap and final questions

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Addiction Counsellors
Marriage and Family Therapists
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 12/08/2025

Attachment Style Repatterning with Somatic Therapy: Heal Core Wounds, Repair Relational Memories & Strength Boundaries

The client who pulls away just when things get real… the one who clings but never trusts… or the one who vanishes after a breakthrough.

It’s not that these clients won’t heal—it’s that their body doesn’t yet know how to feel safe enough to…

Somatic therapy meets them where words can’t—rewiring safety, trust, and connection at the nervous system level so change actually sticks.

Join Dr. Wanda Brothers, an expert in both Somatic Experiencing™ and Dynamic Attachment Repatterning experience, who’s been teaching, practicing therapy, and speaking for more than 20 years. Dr. Brother’s unique approach to trauma treatment focuses on teaching therapists how to work directly with clients’ attachment systems to bring forth rapid healing.

Dr. Brothers will teach you how to…

Identify your clients’ attachment style in less than 2 minutes
Develop individualized treatment plans for each insecure attachment style that target core wounds
Create “corrective emotional experiences” for clients with anxious, avoidant, and ambivalent/disorganized attachment styles that truly heal deep wounds
Use ordinary moments in therapy as pivots points for change and growth
Help clients set boundaries that respect their trauma narratives

PLUS, get training on crucial self-of-the-therapist areas – like addressing your own implicit memories, not getting ‘pulled in’ to clients’ narratives, and how to keep your own stress from impacting sessions.

Bypass the limits of talk therapy and start working in the present moment with somatic therapy techniques that work… rewire your clients’ attachment systems.

This is the training that shows you how – register now!

Program Information

Objectives

Present key Somatic Therapy principles in the treatment of attachment trauma.
Examine how both client and therapist attachment wounds influence the therapeutic relationship and outcomes.
Explain foundational Attachment Theory to better understand clients’ unconscious relational patterns.
Analyze the connection between attachment styles and boundary challenges.
Describe “difficult clients” as individuals shaped by attachment wounds and boundary issues.
Apply somatic strategies to reduce distress, shame, and resistance in challenging therapeutic dynamics.
Facilitate attachment-based exercises to support both client healing and therapist self-awareness.

Outline

Getting Started with Somatic Therapy for Attachment Trauma

Fundamental principles of Somatic Therapy
Attachment theory simplified
Assess your own attachment style to improve the therapeutic alliance
Create a safe first impression
Risks, limitations and ethical issues

Boundaries: The Often-Overlooked Foundation of Effective Therapy

The 4 key boundaries to know for every session
Using Mirror Neurons to understand the client's experience
Interoceptive awareness to distinguish the client's emotions from therapist's
Reframing “difficult” clients
How your own boundaries impact your work with clients

Assessment & Treatment Planning for Somatic Shame, Implicit & Explicit Memories

Brain regions and their relationship to attachment styles
Notice subtle cues in body language, eye movements and posture
Map your client’s underlying attachment wiring
Provide co-regulation for corrective emotional experiences
How developmental trauma shapes somatic shame identities
Create targeted treatment plans for unique attachment patterns
Risks, limitations and ethical issues

Anxious Attachment Style: Treating Relational Anxiety

Focus on deeply rooted beliefs like, “I’ll never get enough love”
Help clients transition from anxious toward secure attachment
Target memory rumination that reinforce anxious patterns
Redirect clients’ attention toward positive experiences
Help clients create internal and external boundaries
Simple exercises to repair the core attachment wound

Avoidant Attachment Style: Treating Relational Avoidance

Focus on beliefs such as: "Relationships aren't enjoyable", "I am all I need.”
Support clients to notice and experience goodness in relationships
Target implicit/explicit memories that reinforce disconnection & withdrawal
Effective boundaries for avoidantly attached clients
Provide simple somatic exercises to repair the avoidant wound

Disorganized Attachment Style: Treating Terror and Creating Safety

Focus on beliefs, such as: “I need you but relationships are dangerous.”
Enhance relational safety with distance, pacing and more
Target implicit and explicit memories that reinforce dissociation
Teach effective boundaries for disorganized attached clients
Simple somatic exercises to treat terror responses

Self-of-the-Therapist Work: Relational Impact and Self-awareness

How somatic and attachment dynamics influence session effectiveness
What to do when you need to work on your own attachment style
Avoid getting “pulled in” to clients’ attachment wounds
Identify your own implicit memories related to:
- emotional intimacy
- gender dynamics
- power relations
How the therapists’ stress and anxiety affect each session
“Grounded, present self” as a secure attachment to accelerate healing
Somatic transference and countertransference on alliance building

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Psychiatrists
Psychologists
Case Managers
Addiction Counsellors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Psych Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 13/08/2025

Embodying Emotions

Based on the work of leading trauma experts, we know that difficult emotions, trauma and suffering are stored in the body…

What hasn’t been so clear is how to release the pain that’s deeply entrenched in our clients’ body, mind and spirit.

Regardless of which therapy approaches you’re using, you need to be able to help your clients tolerate overwhelming and uncomfortable emotions come up…

…so you can help them with a wide range of clinical problems and diagnoses, including PTSD, complex trauma, substance abuse, attachment wounds and more.

Join Dr. Raja Selvam to learn critical somatic therapy skills every clinician should know to help their clients process trauma and more.

Drawing from research in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and body psychotherapy, Dr. Selvam shares with you a step-by-step framework so you can:

•   Help your clients stay curious in the face of overwhelming emotions
•   Build tolerance for tough emotions so you can do deep trauma and emotional processing
•   Improve your own capacity for emotional attunement with clients
•   Enhance mindfulness and spiritual practices by embodying emotions

…All while shortening treatment times with any other modalities you’re already using!

Program Information

Objectives

Describe the approach of embodying emotions and list its eight diverse clinical benefits.
Investigate the evidence base of embodying emotions.
Implement the four steps of embodying emotions in clinical practice to meet diverse clinical goals.
Implement the practice of embodying emotions in a simple seven-step protocol, of particular value in working with clients with complex traumas and psychophysiological (psychosomatic) symptoms.
Identify the three important determinants of affect tolerance in clients.
List the three categories of emotions with examples from each category.
Implement the three strategies for working with the face-and-throat physiology in the practice of embodying emotions.
Implement somatic strategies for working with existential themes (existential terror, fragmentation, rage, and shame) often encountered in working with severe traumatic experiences.

Outline

The Practice of Embodying Emotions

How it can help you in therapy now
The science behind improved outcomes
New research, clinical examples, and therapy implications
How to work with complex trauma and psychosomatic symptoms

The Four Steps of the Practice of Embodying Emotions

Get to know the uniqueness of emotion-focused work
Detailed guidance for what to do in each step
Innovate strategies to help clients regulate
Specific methods to integrate somatic work into other modalities
How to customize therapy for each clients, therapy situations & other complexities
Video Demonstration: Working with anxiety around taping an educational video for posting online

The Physiology of Emotions

Understand the somatic relationship between body and emotion
Compare and contrast theories on the physiology of emotions
The Social Engagement System from Porges’ Polyvagal Theory
The specialized role of the face and throat in emotion
Video Demonstration: The practice of embodying emotions with recurring anxiety in the workplace, a focus on the face and throat physiology

The Seven-Step Protocol for Embodying Emotions

Step-by-step instructions for each of the 7 phases
What to do when clients have low affect tolerance
How to work with highly dysregulated clients
Video Demonstration: How to implement the 7-step protocol

Inter-Personal Resonance and Embodied Emotional Attunement

What is embodied emotional attunement?
Why embodied emotional attunement is important
What is interpersonal resonance & how to use it in therapy
The scientific basis of inter-personal resonance
How to manage counter-transference with inter-personal resonance
Four steps to incorporating inter-personal resonance in clinical settings

Working with Shame with Different Types of Emotions

Different types of emotions
Sensorimotor emotions
Working with existential shame with different types of emotions
Video Demonstration: Working with existential shame

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Psychiatrists
Psychologists
Case Managers
Addiction Counsellors
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Psych Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals

Treating Collective Trauma with Hakomi

The Hakomi Method is a multidimensional somatic approach to deep healing rooted in an understanding of the silent language of the body. In the moment-by-moment unfolding of their somatic awareness, clients learn to access the unconscious core beliefs that shape their response to trauma, even when it’s woven within the larger context of collective trauma. Discover how the therapist’s own somatic awareness can help clients untangle the complex area where individual and collective trauma meet, and learn techniques to stay attuned and somatically grounded to effectively work with trauma. In this recording, you’ll explore:

The key Hakomi concepts of applied mindfulness and somatic awareness to help clients change rigid mental models
Attachment- and compassion-based skills that facilitate a gentle inquiry into the body’s messages
How to apply gentle interventions that can yield clients’ emotional defenses and trauma identities
How to stay self-regulated, somatically grounded, and open-hearted when working with trauma-sensitive processes

Program Information

Objectives

Use the key Hakomi concepts of applied mindfulness and somatic awareness to improve outcomes when treating trauma.
Apply attachment- and compassion-based skills that facilitate the experiential process into the body-mind.
Develop an experiential mindset to hold the multilayered complexity of trauma in sessions.
Demonstrate the essential Hakomi personhood skills that help therapists stay grounded and self-regulated while in therapeutic engagement.

Outline

Implement the key Hakomi concepts of applied mindfulness and somatic awareness to improve outcomes when treating trauma.
- Applied mindfulness is an integrated skills set by the Hakomi therapist to facilitate an in-depth process
- Learning to ask targeted questions to facilitate a safe somatic awareness for clients
- Not all somatic or mindfulness interventions are suitable for trauma clients, learning to differentiate what tool fits which client is essential for treatment success
Apply attachment- and compassion-based skills that facilitate the experiential process into the body-mind.
- Hakomi holds the value of loving presence of the therapist as essential to convey compassion to the clients traumatic experience
- Applying attachment theory informed interventions to regulate clients internal somatic states
Develop an experiential mindset to hold the multilayered complexity of trauma in sessions.
- Learn what it means to be an experiential therapist by trying out present moment and safe experiments that include play, breath and movement
- Recognize that trauma clients don’t fit one treatment approach size fits all
Explain the essential Hakomi personhood skills that help therapists stay grounded and self-regulated while in therapeutic engagement.
- The role of the therapist is not just about a skill set but how they embody themselves and stay curious about their own process
- Developing a somatic repertoire to stay grounded in the body when clients trauma feels overwhelming or triggering

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Addiction Counsellors
Case Managers
Physicians
Nurses
Other Mental Health Professionals