Integrative Somatic Psychotherapy Master Class: Step-by-step embodied healing with Abi Blakeslee and special guest Peter Levine by Abi Blakeslee & Peter Levine For Digital Download!

"When clients feel overwhelmed by trauma, talk alone isn't going to do very much. We have to go to the unspoken voice of our bodies."
— Peter Levine, developer of Somatic Experiencing®

Over the past several years, our field's leading trauma experts have shown us how crucial it is for clinicians to work through the body to achieve full trauma relief.

But for many therapists, somatic therapy can seem baffling, requiring us to be able to track nearly unnoticeable shifts in posture, physiology, and micromovements — both in our clients' bodies and our own.

Renowned trauma healer and trainer Abi Blakeslee has spent her career honing the key somatic skills that lead to deep relief and repair. Mentored by Peter Levine and trained in the field's most widely used body-based approaches (including Somatic Experiencing®, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Hakomi, Integral Somatic Psychology, and Polyvagal-Informed Therapy)...

...she's developed an integrative approach that combines the most effective somatic interventions into a framework that any therapist can learn and apply in practice.

Now in this unique Master Class, you can join Abi in the therapy room and experience somatic healing in action with real trauma clients.

Get a front-row seat to see Abi work with today's challenging forms of trauma, including generational trauma, survivor guilt, relational trauma within a couples therapy session, and trauma-informed work with a neurodiverse client.

Register today for this rare opportunity to join one of the premier healers from the next generation of somatic therapists!

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER IN THIS COURSE

Join Abi Blakeslee for six highly engaging modules, including an intimate conversation with Somatic Experiencing® developer Peter Levine.

Through real in-session videos, you'll discover first-hand how she achieves rapid connection and establishes a warm healing environment where both the client and therapist can safely explore opportunities for lasting trauma repair and recovery.

Then through therapist-to-therapist conversations, you'll get "behind-the-scenes" insight into the specific decisions Abi makes, including:

• How to notice subtle somatic gestures that become turning points in sessions
• How to track multiple sensations and make determinations of which ones are worth exploring to shift the physiological imprint of trauma
• When to engage emotion, movement, the nervous system, and other important healing resources
• And much more!

Be part of a unique program that's specially designed for you to feel confident applying somatic interventions right away with your clients.

Module 1. Introduction to Somatic Psychology

In this first module, Abi shares foundational insights and real-world somatic exercises to offer clients full repair and relief from various forms of trauma. You'll be introduced to her integrative approach that combines healing interventions from today's most powerful somatic approaches, including Somatic Experiencing®, Polyvagal Theory, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Relationship Repair, Body-Mind Centering, Implicit Psychotherapy, Integral Somatic Psychology, Hakomi, and Trauma Solutions.

You'll also get an introduction to the powerful session videos in the upcoming modules, as you learn from a master healer exactly what to do and say to transform trauma for even your most challenging cases.

Skill-building opportunities in this module:

• How to set goals from the very first session with your trauma clients
• How to know which types of somatic psychotherapy will be most helpful for your clients
• How to leverage somatic interventions as the key elements to getting trauma clients unstuck
• How to use your own somatic responses to inform therapy and fast-track healing
• How to apply real-world somatic exercises to work with attachment wounds

Module 2. Bringing the Body into Psychotherapy: In Conversation with Peter Levine

Abi Blakeslee is joined by the founder of Somatic Experiencing®, Peter Levine, for a unique and in-depth discussion on the most vital components of successful trauma healing.

Important insights from this module:

• How body-based healing has served as the cornerstone of a five-decade trauma healing career
• How to apply Levine's go-to somatic exercises for moving trauma through the body
• Peter Levine's advice for the next generation of psychotherapists

Module 3. Supporting Neurodivergent Clients in Trauma Recovery using Somatic Interventions

Meet Stefi, a young mother with autism who experienced medical trauma during the pandemic that resulted in traumatic dissociation. Discover how Abi is able to quickly build a connection with Stefi and guide her toward healing by applying somatic interventions that are adapted to the client's unique processing style and inherent strengths.

Skill-building opportunities in this module:

• Learn to "read" a client's nervous system and find inherent strengths, from the very first session
• Apply effective methods to quickly improve physiological distress
• Resource ancestral power to counteract helplessness and terror
• Work through a near-death experience of medication abreaction through present-centered somatic interventions
• Track the flow of trauma as it moves through the body and be able to determine when it has been released

Module 4. Releasing Generational and Medical Trauma using Somatic Interventions

In this module, you'll meet Rosa, an Asian-American woman who immigrated to the United States from Korea as a child and is now a mother of two. Listen in as she processes the traumatic birth of her second daughter and experience how Abi's somatic interventions help Rosa find relief from transgenerational and medical traumas. Rosa also achieves her goal to feel more connected to her body's emotional wisdom.

Skill-building opportunities in this module:

• How to effectively work with more than one goal at one time
• How to work with explicit and implicit memory
• How to integrate Polyvagal Theory in your practice in order to facilitate healing
• How to support a deeper connection to embodied emotional states
• How to access transgenerational wisdom through image repair

Module 5. Using Somatic Psychotherapy to Heal Trauma in Couples Therapy

Discover how somatic psychology can be used to strengthen couples therapy. Here, we meet Christine and Cliff, a couple working through the trauma of Christine's life-threatening car accident and near-death experience and Cliff's secondary trauma from seeing her nearly die in front of him and his children. Experience how Abi is able to facilitate somatic healing for both individuals, as well as in their relationship.

Skill-building opportunities in this module:

• How to use body movement and social engagement to work through the threat response cycle and address past unresolved emotions
• How to heal secondary trauma in the context of a couple
• See how strength-based somatic interventions help repair a couple's sense of reconnection
• How to move and guide attention to facilitate healing

Module 6. Somatic Work for Medical Trauma and Survivor Guilt

Meet Ruth, a therapist working for a rape crisis center and the primary caretaker for her husband who is being treated for pancreatic cancer. Discover specific body-based healing methods that Abi uses to help Ruth find sanctuary from her exhaustion and work through survivor guilt.

Skill-building opportunities in this module:

• Understand the neuroscience of mirror neurons as both help and hindrance for caretakers
• Work through scattered thinking and collapse tied to feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm through potent restorative up-regulation of the nervous system
• Learn to apply the most powerful somatic intervention to reduce survivor guilt and improve the well-being of caretakers

 When you register today, you'll receive 3 FREE bonuses
 
1. The Body as Healer: Working from the Bottom Up with Peter Levine
Recorded at the very beginning of the pandemic, this CE workshop provides specific Somatic Experiencing® tools to help clients move beyond trauma into empowerment and mastery. Learn to read clients' physical and emotional cues as crucial resources that you and your client can access as they move toward healing.
 
2. Somatic Interventions in Couples Therapy with Deborah Fox
In this CE workshop, you'll discover strategies to enable couples to settle their nervous systems, so that constructive solutions can emerge. You'll learn to identify subtle physical signs that one or both partners are feeling threatened or distressed and be able to intervene with effective somatic interventions. Where words alone often fail, these interventions can lead to a deeper exploration of what underlies their unhappiness.
 
3. Bonus Networker Article and In-depth Interview with Peter Levine
Get access to this exclusive Psychotherapy Networker magazine article, "From Margin to Mainstream," featuring SE® developer Peter Levine. You'll get an insider's perspective into Levine's 50+ years of trauma healing work.

Meet Your Somatic Therapy Instructors

Abi Blakeslee, PhD, MFT, CMT, SEP — Dr. Abi Blakeslee, SEP, CMT, MFT, Ph.D., integrates Somatic Experiencing® with clinical research, the psychobiological principles of attachment, psychodynamic therapy, and somatic bodywork in her practice and teaching. She has conducted original research on the role of implicit memory in Somatic Experiencing with a committee that included Dr. Daniel Siegel.

Dr. Blakeslee holds a Master of Arts in Counseling and Depth Psychology and a Ph.D. in Clinical and Somatic Psychology. She is interested in the intersection between neuroscience, current trauma research, and the psychobiological principles of Somatic Experiencing.

She works with individuals, couples, children, and families and treats a broad base of issues.

Dr. Blakeslee provides faculty-level individual and group consultations to all levels of Somatic Experiencing® students, teaching SE® trainings and somatic workshops, and presenting at professional conferences. 

Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., holds doctorates in both medical biophysics and psychology. The developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a body-awareness approach to healing trauma, and founder of the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, which conducts trainings in this work throughout the world and in various indigenous cultures, with 26 faculty members and over five thousand students. Dr. Levine was a stress consultant for NASA on the development of the space shuttle project and was a member of the Institute of World Affairs Task Force of Psychologists for Social Responsibility in developing responses to large-scale disasters and ethnopolitical warfare. Levine's international best seller, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, has been translated into 22 languages. His recent interests include the prevention of trauma in children, and he has co-written two books, with Maggie Kline, in this area: Trauma Through a Child's Eyes and Trauma-Proofing Your Kids. His most recent book: Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past, was recently released to rave reviews. Levine's original contribution to the field of body psychotherapy was honored in 2010 when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP). Levine was also honored as the recipient of the 2020 Psychotherapy Networker Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Deborah Fox, MSW, is a Certified Imago Relationship therapist and Certified Sex Therapist in private practice in Washington, DC. She offers individual, couples, and group psychotherapy, as well as clinical consultation. Deborah conducts seminars and consultation groups on couples therapy and sex therapy. She has studied Somatic Experiencing® and wrote the chapter, "The Mind-Body Connection: Sex, Couples and Somatic Therapy" in Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy, by Tammy Nelson, PhD. She is passionate about taking couples therapy to a deeper emotional level and enabling greater intimacy and satisfaction.