- 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
Synchrony and Safety: Becoming an Anchor for Healing in Somatic Therapy
Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Licia Sky
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What you'll learn
About the speakers
Bessel van der Kolk, MD
Licia Sky
Raymond Rodriguez, Rev., MSW, LCSW
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24 Responses
Very interesting and both speakers made perfect sense!!
Thank you for your sincerity and authenticity, this conversation is so much of the value!
Some things I found important that were emphasized by Bessel and Licia were:
The impotence of movement in helping us get in touch with ourselves.
The importance of spending a lot of time getting intuned inwardly to how we feel in our bodies.
Doing synchronistic activities with other people, such as dancing, music, etc.
Pleasure and having fun are ket indicators of one’s degree of healing. Or at least are important in finding our way towards healing.
IFS parts work is a great advance for therapy and Bessel feels is essential work.
I am grateful for the The insights of Licia and Bessel. Thank you!
I think you meant the importance. Yes, I agree! How important it is to get moving the body – at all ages!
Be humble about what you know, keep learning, do somatic/body sensing, exploration and connection work on yourself to be able to hold a truly embodied space for your clients. Maybe I will learn to tango dance. Thank you Licia and Bessel.
Ahh, humour as well, Yay! (Gorgeous.) 🌸
Trauma analysed with the clarity of mind that Bessel v d Kolk has acquired over decennier, and the deep knowledge of mind AND heart that Bessel brings into the interview, as well as the wonderful somatic help by Lydia – what an immense gift this lecture is! Thank you all so much!
Bessels knowledge is such a stabilizing kompass when exploring trauma landscape.
Thank you Lisa & Bessel. All I can say that I want to keep learning more about you two and your way of encouraging everybody but definitely me, to keep learning and not to forget…keep moving. Sometimes I feel that people think or even say: “why do you still want to learn something new or why do you still work” and I question myself in a way of “Yes why? Am I strange for wanting this at my 65 years? I had the answer and you just confirmed it today. I’m not strange! :-))
Ella,
I am 65 and love to use Tai Chi movements for Wellbeing in sessions in different ways …and have know that slowing down in this way allows for growth, and the ‘kettle moments’ integrating this into life s business it s possible am with you….any age this can expand methinks 🤔☺️
Thank you Bessel and Licia! We are always learning!
We are always learning! Thank you Bessel and Alicia.
Great interview, loved the practice.
Very, very sophisticated! I was impressed by both of you and could even feel my body’s music and movement! Thank you for the minutes of pleasure I enjoyed with your knowledge and clever words!
Great to have Licia and Bessel together reinforcing the presence and pace and prosody of therapists inviting experience. Loved the exercise and really felt touched deeply by the sense of not only giving touch and receiving it oneself, as well as respect and kindness …several client s came to mind ad I feel the exploration with them could take co regulation and witness consciousness to another level in self trust. Thank you too for Raymond pacing questions and mutuality 🤔🌻🫶
Loved the inner /outer body ,breath meditation with Licia.
Appreciate the teaching of : once we feel safe how important it is to experience pleasure and fun . As Bessel encourages us to go out and try new things …. In order to evolve we need new experiences. Talk on what does your body need in order to feels safe , and how we need movement in our healing and life – all interconnected and necessary….all essential practices and teachings , Thank you .
Thank you for a wonderful interview, as always with Bessel and Licia. The two of you are resonance in action.
Huge gratitude 🙏🙏🙏
PS as a dancer, psychotherapist, and tango dancer, I also think a study of the benefits from tango dancing would be awesome. I learnt things about myself in relationship to another through tango dancing, that wouldn’t have happened any other way.
Gosh, what an amazing time I had listening to you both. I have had Bessel’s book: The Body keeps the score next to my bedside for about 5 months now… and I feel read to head into it now. THANK YOU! You are in inspiration to us all.
I was frustrated from the low quality of the sound in the beginning of the conversation, preventing me from understanding many answers from Dr Van Der Kolk.
Amazing. Thank you, Bessel & Lucia????
Great questions by interviewer as well!!
With much warmth & gratitude,
Franca
Licia is the embodiment of presence and holding space for another. That guided practice was amazing. What Licia said about this being a practice and therefore no one perfect right way to do it really resonated with how I function. I struggle with a scripted process, and appreciate the permission and encouragement to simply practice and allow what arises to fit the moment. Having read “The Body Keeps the Score” my own practices with myself and with my patients has been informed by what Dr van der Kolk has written. His humility in acknowledging both our desire to feel in control, and the futility of that approach with the example of suicide echoes my own thinking and approach. I also very much appreciate his explicit acknowledgement that a lot of these sensory/somatic practices and their value in healing are not “new knowledge” but a re-learning and recognition of ancient practices that were informed by humans who had a profound understanding of what it means to go through this journey in a human body, and what it actually means in practice to be human. Thank you for a truly enlightening, thought provoking and safety invoking conversation.
This was a wonderful session. Thank you Bessel and Licia!
And, Bessel, there are still a few of us who do hypnosis to assist our clients in healing the trauma story. I have been doing this work for 3 decades and will continue as long as I am able…into my 80s? In 2014, my doctor introduced your book, The Body Keeps the Score, giving me incentive to do my own trauma healing and to learn more about somatic-held trauma and how to support my clients’ healing, making me a better hypnotherapist and trauma-informed movement coach. I love my work.
Always, thank you for your work. And Licia, I need to learn more from you!
A highly educational session, with the best I’ve taken in as a retired Counsellor. Therapists, if you want to become truly practiced, film your own faces! Lifelong learning is a common goal.
I have been hungry for more information and more dialogue since reading The Body Keeps the Score. I very much enjoyed this conversation. I’m taking away the concept of emotion is meant to drive the human to move and also that fun and physical activity are important to attend to when healing from trauma. I feel that as true in my bones. Many thanks! Looking forward to more.
Thank you very much! Your talk was amazing!