Starting from a strong theoretical foundation developed both from neuroscience and existential phenomenology, the Body will be considered as the primary organiser and integrator of traumatic experience. A particular focus will be on experiential aspects of working with arousal, sensation and movement, and consideration will be given to trauma-based fears associated with connecting with the bodily self. Through experiential elements and case vignettes, the workshop helps us comprehend:

• Principles of neurobiology in trauma
• Somatic memory – implicit and procedural learning
• Embodied resonance and the therapist – reading the story
• Understanding phobias of bodily experience
• The ambiguous relationship many trauma victims have with pain
• Shame and the body
• Dissociation as disconnection from bodily experience
• Reconnecting with the lived body – the phenomenological method
• Self-harm and the body
• The embodied self: identity, fragmentation and integration

On the second evening, we will consider the relational body and how it conveys its wounds into the therapy setting and beyond. Many people live in or grow up in unsafe relationships which leaves an imprint on their sense of self and their way of being in the world. Such an imprint is primarily embodied. This impacts their ability to form a secure relationship with others, including their therapists. To this extent, it is helpful to think in terms of trauma being ‘relational’.

In this session we will be looking at some of the relational patterns that typically emerge in the therapeutic relationship. These can include some of the most challenging elements of our work as therapists, as well as the most rewarding. Firstly, we will make sense of some of the adaptations that reinforce relational difficulties into adulthood, and this thinking will be explored through the push and pull of attachment issues in the therapeutic relationship. To illuminate this, we will focus next on the therapist’s embodied countertransference. Finally, we will consider effective interventions to help clients transform their relational wounds.

Specifically, the workshop considers:

• Understanding the significance of the locus of control shift
• Attachment in the context of survival defences
• Understanding disorganised attachment
• Working with shame and shame avoidance
• Rupture and repair: a protocol for facilitating repair
• Recognising and working with therapeutic enactments: control, boundaries
• Developing therapist embodied awareness, presence and support
• The Window of Tolerance as a relational model
• Earned adult attachment