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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Synchrony and Safety: Becoming an Anchor for Healing in Somatic Therapy

Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Licia Sky

What you'll learn

Explore how the therapist’s grounded presence and bodily rhythms can create a sense of physiological safety and connection for traumatized clients
Learn how to support clients in feeling what’s alive in their bodies now—not just the story of the past, but the embodied experience of the present
Reflect on your own healing and regulation as a therapist, and how embodied self-awareness supports deeper, more authentic therapeutic connection

About the speakers

Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, is a clinical psychiatrist whose work integrates mind, brain, body, and social connection in the understanding and treatment of trauma. An internationally recognized leader in the field of psychological trauma, he is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and several books, including Psychological Trauma, the first integrative text on the subject; Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society; and The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

Licia Sky

Licia Sky is the co-founder and Global Ambassador of the Trauma Research Foundation. She is a somatic educator, artist, singer-songwriter, and bodyworker who works with individuals recovering from trauma and trains mental health professionals to use mindful movement, theater exercises, writing, and voice as tools for attunement, healing, and connection. She is a regular instructor in trauma healing workshops throughout the U.S. and has spent the past decade teaching expanded awareness practices to clinicians and laypeople around the world.