Day 1: The Role of the Body in Therapy and Healing

Peter A. Levine, PhD: A Deeply Personal Account: The Ordinary Miracle of Healing

Pat Ogden, PhD: Bridging the Gap: Exploring the Healing Power of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Linda Thai, MSW, LMSW: Mapping the Nervous System: Understanding Survival Responses and the Path to Regulation

Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, MFT: The Whispers of the Soma: Slowing Down, Listening Deeply, and Honoring the Healing Process

Roger Kuhn, PhD: Somacultural Liberation: Reclaiming the Body Through Culture, Identity, and Compassion

Day 2: The Embodied Therapist and Listening to the Body

Ann Weiser Cornell, PhD: Focusing: Accessing the “Felt Sense” as a Powerful Catalyst of Transformation in Any Form of Psychotherapy

Deb Dana, MSW, LCSW: Integrating Polyvagal Theory into Psychotherapy for You and Your Clients (back by popular demand – replay from the 2022 Summit)

Staci Haines: Reclaiming the Soma: Embodied Healing Across Personal and Collective Trauma

Susan Aposhyan, MA, LPC: Somatic-Cognitive Approaches to Therapy

Dan Siegel, MD: Integration and the Mind: A Somatic View of Wholeness and Healing

Day 3: Somatic Tools in Action – Regulating, Resourcing, and Building Resilience

Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Licia Sky: Synchrony and Safety: Becoming an Anchor for Healing in Somatic Therapy

Chinwé Williams, PhD: Healing Attachment Wounds: A Somatic and EMDR-Informed Approach to Shame and Trauma

Shari Geller, PhD and Galia Tyano Ronen, MA, LCP: Grounding Psychotherapy in Presence and Self-Compassion

Susan McConnell, MA, CHT: Embodied Self Energy: Bringing the Wisdom of the Body Into Internal Family Systems Therapy

Raymond Rodriguez, Rev., MSW, LCSW: Begin with the Body: Cultivating Somatic Awareness in Therapy

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Embodied Self Energy: Bringing the Wisdom of the Body Into Internal Family Systems Therapy

Susan McConnell, MA, CHT

What you'll learn

Explore how Somatic IFS integrates awareness, breath, movement, resonance, and touch to help clients access deep healing beyond words
Learn how to work with blended parts and protective systems through embodied presence, co-regulation, and therapist self-energy
Discover how embodiment restores connection—not only within the client’s internal system, but with the earth, others, and the sacred

About the speakers

Susan McConnell, MA, CHT

Susan McConnell, MA, CHT, is the founder and developer of Somatic IFS. As a Senior Trainer with the IFS Institute since 1997, she has taught therapists, developed curriculum, and mentored trainers internationally. Somatic IFS integrates bodywork, movement, spiritual, and psychotherapeutic modalities with the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Model. This approach brings compassionate witnessing to the body’s implicit stories—personal and collective—by embodying both the internal parts and the Self. Susan is the author of Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy: Awareness, Breath, Movement and Touch in Practice and The Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy Workbook, both published by North Atlantic Books. She leads Somatic IFS retreats and trainings in the U.S. and internationally.