Kursholdere: Janis Briedis

Arrangør: Norsk Forum for Skjematerapi i samarbeid med Norsk Forening for Kognitiv Terapi

Sted: Store auditorium, Gaustad sykehus i Oslo

Dato: 11. september – 13. september 2024

Kursavgift: 7 500,- (inkluderer lunsj alle dager)

Påmeldingsfrist: 10. juli 2024

The workshop is designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who have an understanding of schema therapy model who wish to expand their repertoire for working with trauma and the body by incorporating simple but powerful somatically-focused interventions.

Clients with a history of early trauma and neglect often present with fragmented narratives and struggles that do not lend themselves straightforwardly to traditional therapy techniques. From the outset, it can be enormously challenging forming an alliance with clients who are ‘at war’ with themselves and their bodies, and who endure continuous dysregulation of their autonomic nervous system. Such clients typically have a difficult relationship with their body, sometimes manifesting as an intense fear of the body alongside a re-experiencing of traumatic memories on a somatic level. Drawing together schema therapy principles and a number of body-focussed approaches, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, the Hakomi Method, somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory and somatic internal family systems, delegates will be guided to explore somatic aspects of working with their clients and integrating them within their schema therapy practice. The workshop will draw on the work of a variety of authors, including Pat Ogden, Janina Fisher, Dan Siegel, Bessel Van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, Peter Levine, Babette Rothschild, Richard Schwartz and Susan McConnell.

Topics covered at the workshop:

The three-day workshop is designed to help you:

• Understand the role of the body in trauma – the neurobiology underpinning complex trauma, fragmentation of self and its somatic manifestations
• Recognize and address barriers to working with the body – both for the client and the therapist
• Track the body to identify triggers, modes and schemas
• Understand the principles of working safely – helping clients stay within their Window of Tolerance while processing traumatic material
• Access client’s own and develop new somatic resources for stabilization
• Work on the therapist’s own body awareness to enhance self-regulation and to facilitate higher levels of attunement with and co-regulation of the clients in the therapeutic space
• Work with the critic and coping modes via the body
• Utilize body techniques in the work with dissociation
• Enhance healing of the traumatized child modes with the help of the body
• Working with non-verbal infant modes
• Enrich imagery, chair work and flashcard techniques with a somatic focus
• Develop body focused strategies for working with anger
• Apply somatic interventions for boundary setting and the development of a stronger sense of self
• Facilitate clients’ development of an embodied Healthy Adult and Playful Child modes

Methods of learning

The course is designed to give you an introduction to incorporating body-focussed strategies into schema therapy, and will provide you with the theoretical foundation as well as a wealth of practical strategies. It will be an intensive, interactive and stimulating course requiring active participation from delegates who will be asked to do exercises with their own bodies including imagery, movement and working in small groups/pairs/triads. Due to the content covered, participants may find some of the material emotive and personally relevant. The purpose of the course is not to train you as a schema or body therapist. Neither is the purpose self-therapy although it is highly likely that the course material will touch you personally. The techniques taught on the course do not necessitate the use of physical touch (other than self-touch), however this is left to the discretion of individual participant.

The following teaching methods will be used:

• Lectures with slides
• Large and small group discussions
• Discussion of clinical cases
• Video materials
• Live demonstrations with delegates
• Practical exercises in pairs

Reading

Participants may be interested in reading the following literature prior to attending the workshop:

• Briedis, J. & Startup, H. (2020). Somatic perspective in Schema Therapy: The role of the body in the awareness and transformation of modes and schemas. In Heath, G. & Startup, H. (Eds). Creative methods in schema therapy: Advances and innovations in schema therapy. Abington: Routledge.
• Dana, D. & Porges, S. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. New York, NY: Norton.
• Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
• Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
• Van der Kolk, B. A. (1994). The body keeps score: Memory and the evolving psychobiology of posttraumatic stress. New York: Penguin.

A further reading and resource list will be provided at the workshop.