Embark on a transformative journey with our exclusive video resource, Healing the Mind and Body: Integrative Approaches to Trauma Recovery and Emotional Regulation. This comprehensive package brings together two expertly led workshops: Healing Dysregulated Defences: A Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Perspective on Embodying Trauma Recovery by Tony Buckley and Pat Ogden, and Applied Polyvagal Theory in Somatic Psychology: An Embodied Approach to Trauma Recovery by Dr. Arielle Schwartz.

In these intellectually enriching sessions, you will explore the intricate mechanisms of trauma and its impact on both the mind and body. The first workshop delves into sensorimotor psychotherapy, highlighting how attentional networks within the brain and body respond to trauma, and how these responses can lead to emotional dysregulation. You’ll learn to recognize and address trauma-related implicit processes that manifest through non-verbal behaviors, helping clients to reclaim their inner stability and transform traumatic memories into meaningful experiences.

The second workshop introduces applied polyvagal theory, offering a powerful framework for rebalancing the autonomic nervous system. Dr. Arielle Schwartz integrates somatic tools, yoga-based breath, movement, and awareness practices to swiftly reduce anxiety and stress. By incorporating these techniques into therapy, you will enhance your ability to support clients in achieving lasting physiological and psychological wellness.

Key learning points include:

• Understanding the neuroanatomy of trauma responses and emotional regulation.
• Employing sensorimotor psychotherapy techniques to address physiological distress and dissociation
• Applying polyvagal theory to fine-tune the nervous system and promote holistic healing
• Utilizing mindfulness and somatic interventions to support trauma recovery
• Educating clients on reclaiming their body’s survival wisdom and enhancing vagal tone for better health

This video resource is essential for therapists seeking to deepen their expertise in trauma recovery and for anyone committed to understanding and healing the profound effects of trauma on the mind and body. Join us to unlock the potential of these integrative approaches and provide your clients with the tools they need to achieve resilience and recovery.

This video resource pack contains two complete workshops (CPD hours: 6) that cover:

Part 1: Healing Dysregulated Defences: A Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Perspective on Embodying Trauma Recovery (Tony Buckley & Pat Ogden), CPD hours: 3 / CE credits: N/A

Threat-related attention bias involves three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct neural networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control. These attentional networks play a pivotal role in shaping the development of trauma/stress/danger responses within the body.

As therapists, we are aware how these neural pathways react to trauma/stress/danger:

• The interplay between voluntary and involuntary attention dynamically responding to the salience of internal and external stimuli;
• Processing of novel stimuli through dorsal and ventral pathways;
• Amygdala activation for novelty and threat detection;
• Activation of the hypo adrenal pituitary axis (HPA) in response to trauma/stress/danger

… is all part of this sophisticated embodied neural defence network. This highly adaptive threat-related attention bias is paramount for survival.

However, when emotional dysregulation results from traumatic experience(s); trauma-related implicit processes – visibly reflected in non-verbal behaviours of gesture, posture, prosody, facial expressions, eye gaze, and affect – persist in spite of attempts to regulate them with top-down executive control. Clients often feel at the mercy of an overwhelming cascade of dysregulated emotions, upsetting physical sensations, intrusive images, pains, smells, constriction and numbing. These, in turn, influence cognitive distortions.

This faulty neuroception thus perpetuates defensive subsystems in traumatised clients, leading to hyper and hypo-arousal. Clients may experience these as distressing embodied patterns of sensations in the heart, breath, muscles, state-specific tensions, impulse or movement patterns, and dissociative phenomena replaying in the body.

Sensorimotor psychotherapy emphasizes body awareness as an essential part of psychotherapy. This is especially beneficial in trauma therapy when symptoms involve physiological distress, affect dysregulation, or dissociation. Traditional approaches to therapy attend to the cognitive and emotional aspects of clients’ lives, while the somatic experience is often left out of the room.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy employs directed mindfulness and Embedded Relational Mindfulness (ERM)© interventions which entail carefully and mindfully directing the client’s attention towards the five building blocks of the therapeutic goals: Interoception, Movement, Five-sense Perception, Emotion and Cognition. The therapist, by example and encouragement, helps the client cultivate an attitude of curiosity, neutrality and receptivity towards internal experiences. For example, if an internal image of past trauma or an external traumatic reminder, such as the sound of a siren, causes hyperarousal, the therapist might direct the client to become mindful of the sensations in their legs to promote grounding, rather than to the internally generated image, because grounding supports the goal of stabilization.

In practical steps, this process of Sensorimotor Therapy involves:

• First establishing a stable therapeutic relationship with the client
• Recovering and remodelling traumatic memories into meaningful experiences
• Taking effective steps to transform learned helplessness and release outdated activations

As Sensorimotor Psychotherapy enables clients to discover and change habitual physical and psychological patterns that impede optimal functioning and well-being; this modality renders itself especially helpful in working with dysregulated activation and other effects of trauma, as well as the limiting belief systems of developmental issues.

By mindfully attending to where their attention is, clients gain insights into their own state-specific activations, creating space for further choices that allow for healing and transforming the original state of helplessness or hopelessness. This is backed by recent research, which shows that mindfulness may be the answer to learned helplessness. It increases active cognitive and behavioural coping, problem-focused coping and approach-coping while decreasing avoidant-coping. (ncbi.nih.nlm.gov June 2017)

The sensorimotor psychotherapist looks out for specific building blocks that point to implicit processes that reflect unresolved trauma, as well as those that reflect self-regulatory resources, positive affect, competence and mastery. Together, therapist and client interrupt the automaticity of these building blocks by becoming mindful of them. In this way, the client can identify and observe, rather than identify with, the effects of past trauma and discover more adaptive actions.

At this practically-oriented workshop, which will be beneficial to therapists across modalities, Tony Buckley (taking the lead on the presentation) and Pat Ogden (discussing video clips) explore the voluntary/involuntary interface of attention as a useful parallel for tailoring corresponding therapeutic experiments and attention to body interventions that promote trauma recovery. Utilizing video clips, clinical examples, and brief experiential exercises, participants in this workshop will delve into these areas of therapeutic interest and explore Sensorimotor Psychotherapy methods.

Attendees will gain awareness and skills related to:

• The significance of attending to attention within their own and clients’ bodies
• Insights into the attention networks that link various brain-body systems in trauma
• Psychoeducation for clients on reclaiming the survival wisdom of their bodies
• A variety of attention interventions to be used as somatic resourcing with clients
• Intervention skills that encourage safe exploration within limits, supporting clients in trusting their body’s trauma phenomenology towards releasing outdated activations

Overall, in this transformative workshop, therapists will discover the power of attending to attention and the profound impact it can have on trauma recovery, providing clients with the tools to reclaim their inner wisdom and find healing within their bodies.

Learning Objectives:

• Provide insights into the attention networks that link various brain-body systems in trauma
• Discuss a variety of attention interventions to be used as somatic resourcing with clients
• Apply intervention skills that encourage safe exploration within limits, supporting clients in trusting their body’s trauma phenomenology towards releasing outdated activations

Part 2: Applied Polyvagal Theory in Somatic Psychology: An Embodied Approach to Trauma Recovery (Dr Arielle Schwartz), CPD hours: 3 / CE credits: N/A
The mind alone cannot fully heal the symptoms of stress or trauma. For true healing to occur, the body must be an active participant in the process. Polyvagal theory, a transdiagnostic approach to therapy, offers a powerful framework for addressing the physiological roots that underlie a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. By compassionately understanding and treating imbalances within the autonomic nervous system, therapists and clients can find lasting relief from mood disorders, anxiety, and traumatic stress-related conditions.

While traditional talk therapy often focuses on narrating specific life events or losses, it may not be sufficient to facilitate the rebalancing of the autonomic nervous system. In contrast, research-based and time-tested somatic tools, along with yoga-based breath, movement, and awareness practices, can swiftly reduce anxiety, obsessive thinking, and feelings of hopelessness. When integrated with applied polyvagal theory in psychotherapy, these techniques lay a powerful foundation for lasting changes that promote physiological balance and psychological wellness.

Guided by Arielle Schwartz, PhD, CCTP-II, E-RYT, an internationally sought teacher, therapeutic yoga instructor, and a leading voice in PTSD and complex trauma healing, this programme empowers therapists to incorporate applied polyvagal theory into somatic therapies.

Throughout the programme, we will:

• Discover how to fine-tune the nervous system moment-by-moment, aiding clients in releasing chronic stress
• Address clients’ well-being through yogic-based breath, movement, and awareness practices, promoting a holistic healing approach
• Learn rapid stress-reduction techniques and effective nervous system regulation methods
• Equip clients with tools to safely release stress and trauma from their bodies, fostering embodied healing
• Teach clients natural ways to stimulate their vagus nerve, enhancing physical and emotional health

Applied Polyvagal Theory in Somatic Psychology provides a comprehensive and transformative approach to trauma recovery. By harnessing the power of somatic intelligence and integrating it with polyvagal theory, therapists can facilitate profound healing and foster resilience in their clients. Join us on this transformative journey and unlock the potential of an embodied approach to trauma recovery.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain how to fine-tune the nervous system moment-by-moment, aiding clients in releasing chronic stress
• Apply rapid stress-reduction techniques and effective nervous system regulation methods
• Teach clients natural ways to stimulate their vagus nerve, enhancing physical and emotional health