This workshop will show how trauma affects the developing mind and brain, and how trauma affects self-awareness and self-regulation. We will look at the difference between disrupted attachment and traumatic stress In this context we will specifically explore the role of interpersonal attunement and rhythmicity in establishing & restoring a sense of self and community.

Since “the body keeps the score”, awareness of one’s own physical processes is a major component healing from trauma. Therefore, we will experientially explore the contents of our new book, “Come to your Senses”, that focuses on getting in touch with one’s physical self experience. As therapists, being aware of our own sensory systems is an important tool in attuning to needs of the people we work with. Hence, this workshop will present a variety of techniques to enhance embodied self-awareness.

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in experience with psychedelic agents for treating traumatic stress. Dr van der Kolk was the Principal investigator of the Boston site of the largest study of MDMA for treating traumatic stress. Both he and Ms Sky are trainers of psychedelic therapists and have extensive clinical experience guiding psychedelic experiences, which they will share during this workshop.

We will examine a spectrum of interventions:

• methods to enhance physiological arousal and shut-down (dissociation)
• helping to regulate attention, focus and serenity with neurofeedback
• learning to regulate one’s emotions
• processing traumatic memories
• reorganizing the brain to focus and filter out irrelevant experiences, and
• learning to be fully alive in the present.

This workshop will also discuss and demonstrate:

• specific affect regulation techniques
• examine ways to deal with fragmented self-experience
• teach the benefits of yoga, EMDR, meditation, neurofeedback, music and theater

Based on the (upcoming) The Body Keeps the Score Workbook, this program also offers an array of non-verbal, experiential exercises drawn from theater, guided focusing, dance, meditation, yoga, bodywork, and Embodied Voice.

Trauma and disruptions of secure attachment affect the development of mind, brain and self. We will examine a spectrum of interventions: finding words to describe and communicate what is going on, learning to regulate one’s emotions, learning to trust other human beings with shameful and horrific details of one’s life, processing traumatic memories, reorganizing the brain to focus and filter out irrelevant experiences, and learning to be fully alive in the present.

This workshop will discuss and demonstrate specific affect regulation techniques, examine ways to deal with fragmented self-experience, and teach the benefits of yoga, EMDR, meditation, neurofeedback, music and theater.

… is a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress. His work integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment.

Bessel van der Kolk MD has spent his career studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences, and has translated emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of potentially effective treatments for traumatic stress in children and adults.

He is founder and Medical Director of the Trauma Center; past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. He regularly teaches at universities and hospitals around the world.

His most recent 2014 New York Times Science best seller (with over 3 million copies sold worldwide), The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, somatically based therapies, EMDR, psychodrama, play, yoga, and other therapies.

Licia Sky, BFA, is a Boston based somatic therapist, writer, artist, singer-songwriter, and bodyworker who works with traumatized individuals and trains mental health professionals to use mindful meditation in movement, theater exercises, writing and voice as tools for attunement, healing and connection. She is a regular instructor in trauma healing workshops at Kripalu, and Esalen.

In the course of over 25 years of bodywork practice, she developed her methods of vocalizing for embodiment in physical and emotional healing when she began using her voice with her bodywork clients by vocalizing and toning – to help them release the constriction from repressed vocal expression. She found that breathing, toning and vocalizing led to profound beneficial changes of physical and emotional state. She has been teaching workshops on these subjects around the US, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Egypt, Israel, China, and New Zealand.