Workshops
“Affect Regulation and Somatic Attachment” (Introductory Class)
This course will offer students a basic grasp of nervous system regulation which has been well-documented as the basis to resolving trauma and to ensuring client safety in therapy and life. Didactic material based on the works of interpersonal neurobiologists will address the basics of infant brain development in terms of attachment security. Emphasis will be placed on attending to somatic and limbic experience in clinical work. Students will identify the various attachment strategies, how these strategies manifest in the therapeutic dyad, and effective clinical interventions.
Videos and a demonstration illustrating somatic skills to track present-moment experience with attention to regulation and core beliefs underlying attachment are included. In addition, experiential exercises will provide students a visceral and personal experience of the material.
“Attachment Through a Somatic Lens” (Intermediate Class)
This course is intended for students who already have a basic grasp of nervous system regulation. Material will be recommended for students to read to make sure they have that essential understanding prior to class. The class itself will explore didactically and experientially the fundamental neurobiology of attachment as co-regulation, the manifestations of attachment insecurity in the therapy room and in the client’s life, and the activation of unresolved insecurity in the therapist while working with clients’ attachment insecurity.
We will start with a fundamental look at the three key brain-structure circuit — amygdala - hippocampus - neocortex, and then move into the physiological basis of attachment and its neurological, somatic and emotional expression in the infant and growing child. The instructor will pull from the works of Steven Porges, Bonnie Badenoch, Laurence Heller, and other interpersonal neurobiology therapists and theorists. We will address more in-depth understanding of infant brain development as it relates to attachment trauma and insecurity, including right-brain/left-brain factors and co-regulation of overwhelm and dissociation through resourcing and the path to safety.
This class intends to highly integrate didactic material with experiential work — demos, exercises, and practice dyads. By the end of this class, students will feel more comfortable identifying attachment strategies being used in the moment, and have a grasp on the key concepts for working effectively as these strategies manifest. My intention is that students understand how to utilize the concept of the Attachment Bubble that will enable them to find a place of security within themselves capable of managing a given client’s attachment dysregulation. Students will have an opportunity to view a demonstration working with attachment and also to practice in triads with a specific focus on their own attachment regulation/dysregulation.