In this workshop, we go beyond the current global pandemic, and the overarching impact of months of trauma, to look at the impact of feeling isolated, abandoned, unprotected and/or out of control as we stitch new patterns in the fabric of our clients’ struggles. We explore the destabilizing effects of trauma on our clients’ sympathetic nervous system, highlighting non-threatening somatic interventions introduced in therapy--and often co-created in the moment--while consistently tracking the impact of these interventions on our clients.

Dr. Goldstein explores the particular challenges therapists face when working with our younger clients, adolescents and young adults, introducing ways that mental health professionals and clients can understand and use their use their own somatic intelligence in the therapeutic process as a guide for helping to heal the disconnection between mind and body. Illustrating the role of the body in changing patterned emotions, Dr. Goldstein weaves in applications of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy interventions with a teen whose family legacy of suicide was the shadow under which her teenage hopelessness manifested, and address her difficulty taking in the support of anybody—including her therapist.

Dr. Ogden offers a wider understanding of the issues of hopelessness, helplessness, and vulnerability with an adult population, with an emphasis on the body and its movement patterns, embedded relational mindfulness, and undercurrents of shame that contribute to despair. Dr. Ogden includes awareness of the influence of culture and context in the therapeutic encounter, and the import of a culturally sensitive therapeutic orientation.

Using an open, accepting and curious attitude in order to foster connection and create a sense of trust between therapist and client, this workshop explores ways to introduce psychoeducation in service of incorporating Sensorimotor Psychotherapy into the therapeutic milieu, building on client’s strengths while forging new experiences between client and therapist. 

Drs. Goldstein and Ogden illustrate applications of using the five Basic Developmental Movements highlighted in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy delineating a treatment overview illustrating the course of treatment with a series of clients vacillating between anger & despair and/or fear & anxiety, as they learn to:

• find a mobilizing “push”
  
• develop boundaries in response to overarching cultural and familial expectations
  
• come to understand how physical action can be used to help foster feelings of empowerment
  
• capitalize on burgeoning awareness of small changes as the foundation to bigger changes
  
• appreciate the body’s wisdom as a viable target of intervention, offering hope and the possibility that things can be different
  
• foster the ability do accuracy-checks on memories and their meanings
  
• explore the risks associated with “reaching out” to others in order to promote emotional and cognitive wellbeing.