Clinical Training Programs for Professionals, Students & Trainees
CEUs are Available including MFTs, MSWs, LCSWs
The Future of the Body: Clinical Practicum in Somatics, Mindfulness & Integrative Mind-Body Therapies
Psychosomatic symptoms are a direct gateway to the healing power of the creative unconscious. One can learn to see these symptoms as solutions for generating positive therapeutic outcomes and opening new healing pathways. This five module course will provide training for health professionals, educators, and consultants wanting to develop new clinical skills. It will be a balance of theory and practice, direct experience and clinical demonstration, personal growth and professional development. We will review the clinical skills of tracking, pacing and utilization of the symptom for accessing the unconscious and inner resources with somatics, mindfulness and trance.
Five Module Schedule
Module #1. Diagnosis and Assessment of Symptoms as defenses. This period will include a lecture and discussion on how to diagnosis and address the specific defense that a client is using to defend against their affect states. After lecture and discussion time throughout each of the day’s session will be spent role playing clients and gathering information and providing feedback to the client and to the group.
Module #2. Clinical skills for working more effectively with the False Self, Real Self and Core Self-advanced skills in how to read the character style (personality structure) for example, how to notice verbally and non verbal cues in both speaking and body language for assessment of anxiety, depression, fear of self activation etc. The function of pacing and leading for developing rapport and mirroring natural learning rhythms. Activating inner healing resources through the use of naturalistic trance.
Module #3. Clinical skills for utilizing healing metaphors for the rapid treatment of trauma, pain and transforming destructive emotions. Clinical skills for framing, reframing and de-framing old patterns and core beliefs for generating new learning’s for creating new neural pathways for brain-mind reeducation and brain plasticity. In this session clients will role-play and therapists will receive instruction on how to listen to unconscious material and decode symptoms leading to psychosomatic healing and reeducation. Theodore Reich’s notion of listening with the “Third Ear” and Bion’s concept of suspending inherit preconceptions will be addressed.
Module #4. This day will involve the teaching of advanced clinical skills for learning how to apply Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, Behavioral Meditation and Hypnotic treatment approaches for dealing with stress, psychological and psycho-physical disorders of the self. Each of this day’s session will include the direct skills in each of the above areas. For example in teaching how to utilize the skill of rapid and brief hypnotic trance induction a demonstration of a patient with anxiety and stress pains in front of the group will be included. Applying the skills of Ericksonian Hypnosis for trance induction would follow this, deep trance exploration and skillful re-integration will be taught in a step-by-step model. The importance of creating and utilizing safety and comfort for ego stabilization and cohesion of self-experience will be emphasized.
Module #5. Clinical skills for treating trauma, PTSD and the symptoms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, short and long term dynamic treatment modalities. This day would involve lectures and practice experience for facilitating hypnotic trance and teaching therapist how to utilize trance states for mind-body healing. For example, trance induction, pacing, deepening methods, hypnotic search, unconscious activation, working through and integration. Somatic styles for accessing and regulating flow state healing, peak performance and creative psychology for promoting optimal states of creativity and wellness will be both taught and demonstrated.
Teaching Methods
Lectures, discussions, presentation of case and clinical material as well as role playing and clinical skill development and group process.
Assessment Methods
Teacher and Peer evaluation of clinical applications and supervision. Self-evaluation.
Gestalt, Somatics and Mindfulness for the Treatment of Trauma: An Integrative Mind-Body Program
Recent advances in somatic and integral psychotherapy and neurobiology, along with the integration of Eastern wisdom traditions and Gestalt mind-body therapies into modern psychological practice, have revolutionized current thinking about the resolution of trauma, painful patterns of thought and destructive emotions. A new approach is emerging which views symptoms of suffering as the body’s wisdom pathways for creating communication between the unconscious and the aware self for promoting somatic re-learning, healing, and transformation. This cutting-edge program provides a rare opportunity for sustained education in Gestalt Psychology and Somatic Experiencing. It will be taught by psychotherapist Ronald Alexander, a clinical trainer who leads professional trainings and clinical supervision groups in Gestalt therapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Ericksonian integrated modalities throughout the world and is an expert in Mindfulness meditation and Buddhist psychology.
The training will include direct experience, clinical demonstrations, and practicum theory. It will use the modalities of Gestalt therapy, Somatic body-centered psychotherapy and relational dialogical approaches emphasizing mindfulness-based practices for accessing the somatic “core-self” to develop clinical skills and deepen the participant’s own healing process. Special emphasis will be placed on the treatment of trauma within the relational field with Gestalt and Somatic Experiencing approaches, which are highly effective techniques that understand the importance of the symptom as a pathway to inner healing.
Learning Objectives:
This workshop will provide clinical skills and advanced training in:
- Clinical skills to help practitioners become more creative and resourceful when treating trauma.
- Learning how to navigate complex issues, transference and counter transference that arise in the relational dialogue and the inter-subjective field.
- Framing, reframing, and de-framing old patterns and core beliefs to generate innovative learning’s for creating new neural pathways for brain-mind reeducation and brain plasticity.
- Gestalt-Relational process work, field theory, dialogue, experiment and the contact boundary disturbances, their function and purpose in integrating the body-mind.
- Learning how to use the symptom to access the unconscious and its healing inner resources with mindfulness and metaphors.
Mindfulness Based Integrative Mind-Body Therapies (Modules 1, 2, 3 & 4)
Recent advances in somatic and integral psychotherapy and neurobiology, and the integration of Eastern wisdom traditions and other mind-body healing therapies into modern psychological practice, have revolutionized current thinking about the resolution of trauma, painful patterns of thought and destructive emotions. A new perspective is emerging which views symptoms of suffering as the body’s wisdom pathways for creating communication between the unconscious and the aware self for promoting somatic re-learning, healing and transformation.
This cutting-edge program provides a rare opportunity for sustained education in somatic experiencing. It will be taught by psychotherapist Ronald Alexander, a renowned pioneer in mind-body therapies who leads professional trainings and clinical supervision groups in Gestalt therapy, Ericksonian hypnosis and other integrated modalities throughout the world and is a long-time teacher of meditation and Buddhist psychology.
The training will include direct experience, clinical demonstrations, practicum, theory and the teaching of clinical skills to support practitioners to become more creative and resourceful when treating body symptoms, trauma, pain, and mood and somatic disorders. Skills to help practitioners navigate complex issues, such as transference and counter transference will also be taught. The modalities we will use for developing clinical skills and deepening our own healing process will include: body-centered psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, relational psychoanalytic approaches, Buddhist psychology, mindfulness-based practices, non-dual meditation and other mind-body healing methods for accessing the somatic “core-self.”
This training program is open to all psychologists, psychotherapists and healthcare professionals as well as those individuals involved in education, the healing arts, holistic health, psychology and behavioral medical approaches. Ideally, the complete course would be scheduled over a period of one year in four three-day workshops (modules). Each of the modules can be a standalone workshop or as part of the whole program, ultimately leading to a certificate in Clinical Training in Mind-Body Healing Therapies.
The Four Modules Are as Follows:
Module #1. The Future of the Body: Somatic Experiencing; Ericksonian Hypnosis; The Skillful Intervention
Ericksonian mind-body and somatic therapeutic methods to activate creative unconscious healing; utilizing the symptom as solution to access the unconscious; the body as the vessel of awakened intelligence; using storytelling, healing metaphors, and rapid trance induction for the immediate reorganization of somatic-affective experience.
The science and study of Breath patterns from somatic experiencing, yogic and meditational disciplines will be instructional in this training.
Module #2. Mapping the Body-Mind: Contemporary Gestalt-Analytic Approaches
Handling psychotherapeutic resistance (Gestalt awareness work — the dialogical approach), field theory, attachment issues and the neurobiology of affect, trauma and healing. Developing an integral approach to the therapeutic process; Integral psychotherapy (the work of Ken Wilber); contemporary relational and inter-subjective psychoanalytic approaches; Dr. Ronald Alexander’s microanalysis and the micro-analytic method; contemporary Relational therapies, Gestalt therapy, Buddhist psychology and Ericksonian approaches to mapping the psyche.
Module #3. Transforming Emotions: Creative Psychology, Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy, and Somatic Flow States
Developing creative clinical skills for working through trauma, attachment, relational and self disorders; transforming somatic blocks, destructive emotions and painful affects; accessing the creative unconscious; using breath and awareness work; calming the mind; transforming mental/emotional patterns (antidote remedies for working with mental afflictions) and learning to promote optimal states of creativity, wellness and happiness (mindfulness training and the Buddhist/non-dual therapeutic approach).
Module #4. Navigating the Therapeutic Relationship: Transference, Counter-Transference, Contact, Presence and The Core Self Navigating the complex issues of transference, counter-transference as well as the importance of Contact and Presence in the healing relationship; boundaries and working with the body as a sacred vessel and healing space (a somatic relational perspective); experiencing spontaneity, trust, comfort, aliveness and joy as a core sense of well-being within the somatic core self; accessing the resources found in the somatic core self for the healing of pain, trauma and other forms of suffering; facilitating the creation of healthier pathways for new learning connected to living, loving, working and relating. Advanced clinical skills from the field’s of Somatic Experiencing and Ericksonian mind-body healing therapies will be taught to address trauma, dissociation, re-association, framing, de-framing, reframing and the use of shuttling between the trauma state and the healing state to contain, support and transform painful afflictive affects towards aliveness and well being.
Mindfulness, Trauma and Trance: Gestalt-Somatic Experiencing, and Ericksonian Mind-Body Approaches
This workshop and/or short course addresses the rapid treatment of trauma by utilizing both Mindfulness practice and Ericksonian orientations that understand the importance of the symptom as a pathway to inner healing. We will review the clinical skills of tracking, pacing and utilization of the symptom for accessing the unconscious and inner resources with mindfulness and trance. The course will highlight Milton Erickson’s use of storytelling, metaphor and rapid trance induction as well as the use of mindfulness practice for framing, re-framing and de-framing the immediate reorganization of transforming somatic-affective experience into new healing rhythms in the body. These methods allow the body to open healthier pathways for new somatic learnings. We will also emphasize the use of naturalistic hypnotic trance, guided mindfulness practice, and healing metaphors for generating new learnings in mind-body healing therapies.
Educational Objectives
- Participants will apply two styles of trance for rapid induction. Naturalistic and Guided Mindfulness – Outcome focused
- Participants will utilize new clinical skills for tracking, pacing and reframing trauma into new learnings for healing and resolution.
- Participants will study creative metaphors for moving from symptom to solution.
- Participants will apply the principle of Mindstrength to rapidly and quickly overcome trauma and shift the mind-body process.
Workshop/Course Summary
Resources for healing, such as spontaneity, curiosity, trust, creativity and joy live in the somatic core self. Accessing these resources facilitates the healing of painful affective experiences that are often stored in the brain-mind neural pathways of somatic experience. Recent advances in the fields of affect theory, neurobiology, neuroscience, mindfulness and mind-body healing position the current thinking for the treatment of trauma in a new context. This new neurobiological paradigm holds the view that trauma which is a neurobiological, brain-mind; mind-body experience causes the activation of arousal in the sympathetic nervous system leaving the patient in constant states of anxiety, fear, depression and pain. Advances in neurobiological thinking see the importance of utilizing the symptoms of trauma to directly access the core underlying affliction and with trance and mindfulness practice to re-regulate dys-regulated affective experience from repressed (constriction) pain to opening up (expansion) a somatic healing flow state.
For 2500 years, Buddhist meditation practices have developed what is referred to as “skillful methods” for study and transformation of the mind-body process. These meditation and visualization practices help to cultivate self-regulation through awareness training-developing concentration, releasing painful affects and applying the principles of Buddhist psychology to resolve afflictive factors of mind-body trauma.
Two essential keys for unlocking the dys-regulated flows of affective experiences that keep the sympathetic nervous system in hyper arousal is through the direct and rapid use of trance and guided mindfulness inductions. The field of trauma as seen through recent understandings in neurobiology now see the importance of utilizing direct methods of promoting and stimulating parasympathetic activity thereby enabling the brain/mind/body to rest, relax and heal. The work of Milton Erickson and his many creative contributions and collaborators brought new insights and methodologies to the field of hypnosis and mind-body healing. Erickson’s therapeutic use of rapid and deep induction that integrates storytelling, metaphors, confusion and other methods for deepening trance and engaging the patient’s unconscious towards healing were pioneering contributions to this new paradigm of thought. Therefore, within this new view affective experience has taken on an entirely new meaning, one in which symptoms are now seen as the body’s wisdom pathways for creating communication between the unconscious and the self for promoting healing.
This course will address brief solutions for treating trauma by utilizing Ericksonian and Buddhist Mindfulness orientations. We will review the clinical skills of tracking, pacing and utilization of the symptom as the pathway for accessing the creative unconscious with trance for the rapid treatment of trauma. The course will highlight Milton Erickson’s use of storytelling, metaphor and rapid trance induction as well as the use of framing, re-framing and de-framing for the immediate reorganization of transforming somatic-affective experience into new healing rhythms in the body. These methods allow the body to open healthier pathways for new somatic learnings.
Two questions for True/False CEU
a) Is story telling a brief therapeutic method used by Milton Erickson for treating trauma? T / F
b) The use of metaphor in hypnotic induction is considered to be a permissive or naturalistic style in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy. T / F
From Symptom to Solution: The Skillful Intervention A Clinical Practicum
“Symptoms are unique forms of communication….” Milton Erickson
Milton Erickson the creator of the Ericksonian approach for mind-body healing held the view that psychosomatic symptoms were a direct gateway to the healing power of the creative unconscious. Through the wisdom of this novel approach to mind-body healing, one can learn to see these symptoms as solutions or psychological and spiritual learning’s for generating positive therapeutic outcomes for unusual and difficult cases. This course will provide training in both Erickson’s revolutionary approach as well as leading edge skills in the field of somatic experiencing for the rapid treatment of trauma, pain and other somatic imbalances. By utilizing the mind-body method for reframing trauma, painful somatic affective experiences can be transformed into new healing rhythms in the body — oftentimes with dramatic and immediate results.
Learning Objectives:
This workshop will provide clinical skills and advanced training:
- The function of pacing and leading for developing rapport and mirroring natural learning rhythms
- Activating inner healing resources through the use of naturalistic trance
- Utilizing healing metaphors for the rapid treatment of trauma, pain and transforming destructive emotions
- Framing, reframing, and de-framing old patterns and core beliefs for generating new learning’s for creating new neural pathways for brain-mind reeducation and brain plasticity
- Somatic styles for accessing and regulating flow state healing, peak performance and creative psychology for promoting optimal states of creativity and wellness
- Gestalt-Relational process work, field theory, dialogue, experiment and the contact boundary disturbances, their function and purpose in integrating the body-mind
- Using the frame drum and double induction for accelerated shifts in the mind-body through trance and state dependent learning
This workshop will provide training for all health professionals, educators, and consultants who want new clinical skills for changing the way they think and feel and creating opportunities for personal and/or systemic transformation. The workshop will include teaching Somatic Experiencing breathing styles, Ericksonian hypnotic methods, Gestalt-Relational process work, Mindfulness Meditation Training and Buddhist Psychology, communication and leadership skills. Regardless of background, this training program will give the participants a solid base of understanding for how to effectively facilitate the healing of the body-mind, both in themselves, organizations, and the group field and with clients.
The workshop will be a balance of theory and practice, direct experience and clinical demonstration, personal growth and professional development. Anyone seeking to develop skills in handling the treatment of emotional or physical trauma, pain, mood and other somatic disorders and how they create conflict in the group field as well as systems change should benefit from the program.
Recommended Reading for all Workshops/Courses:
Ronald Alexander, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss and Change (New Harbinger Publications).
Additional recommendations are:
- Goleman, D. (1997), Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health Boston: Shambhala.
- Goleman, D. 2003, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, Bantam Books
- Gilligan, Stephen, Therapeutic Trances: The Cooperation Principle in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, 1987, Brunner/Mazel, NY.
- Levine, Peter, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, 1997, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley
- Rossi, Ernest, The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing, 1986, W.W. Norton, NY.
- Fryba, Mirko, The Art Of Happiness: The Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, Shambhala, 1989.
Optional Reading:
Murphy, Michael, and Jeremy Tarcher, The Future of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature, 1992, Los Angeles.