This month's newsletter reminds you of the April 8 teleseminar with Peter Levine on How to Resolve Dissociation, Freeze States and Depression. We also include our calendar of upcoming training events. Finally, News From the Pain Front, emphasizes the importance of skills that can interrupt dissociation, freeze states, and depression.

Please be well and stay well,

Peter and I are looking forward to presenting new material on the healing of dissociative, freeze, and depressive states. During my recent trip to China, I found that work with freeze states led to the most rapid and complete recovery from various types of physical and emotional distress. Peter and I will be sharing our top strategies for success. Please go now to register at www.maggiephillipsphd.com/courses_teleseminars_pl.html. We also welcome your topics and questions at www.maggiephillipsphd.com/courses_interactive.html.

Please act now. The deadline for live participation is Monday, April 6, at 11:59 pm Pacific time.Your $50 registration includes live and unlimited anytime audio replay of the 90 minute seminar. You can choose telephone or web access and will receive detailed access instructions and a study guide on Tuesday, April 7, to help organize your learning. Don't forget to check your spam files to make sure you receive this information on time.

In addition to the April teleseminar, I want to encourage you to consider enrollment in my online class Advances in Energy Psychology. It is beginning on May 3 - June 28. This 8 week class will provide you with all the tools you need to add Energy Psychology to your toolbox for personal healing as well as in your work with others. Sponsored by NICABM (the National Institute of Clinical and Behavioral Medicine), the course offers 24 CEUs and an outstanding learning experience. For more information and to enroll, visit http://www.nicabm.com/?course=ene. If you've been waiting for the right opportunity to break into the energy field, or you want to expand your skills, now is the time!

To complete your studies in Energy Psychology, please consider participating in the 11th Annual International Energy Psychology Conference in Orlando, Florida from May 28-31st. Please don't miss this dynamic event including plenaries by Jean Houston and Larry Dossey (among others). Go now to view the brochure and register at http://energypsych.org/displayconvention.cfm?conventionnbr=6148. Also check out my one-day preconference seminar on Thursday, May 28 called Healing the Heart of Pain. Go to: http://energypsych.org/displayconvworkspecific.cfm?rquery=listworkshops&convnbr=6148&workshopnbr=28112&startrec=1&maxrowset=All&filtrack=&filtype=.

If you missed out on my March ecourse: How to Create Lasting Change in Body Experience: 3 Integrative Strategies, there's still time to enroll through April 15 at www.maggiephillipsphd.com/ecourse_spring.html. The audio replay will be available very soon and all materials will be available through April 30.

Recent research indicates significant links between trauma, stress and the emotional pain of depression. Two typical features of depression include intrusive thoughts and memory disturbance similar to posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Findings also suggest a close relationship between posttraumatic dissociation and epileptic-like symptoms in depressed individuals. Other studies show a high correlation between the severity of childhood trauma and leading causes of death: Heart disease, cancer, COPD, liver disease, obesity, alcoholism, and suicide.

Although there are many methods used to treat depression, there is a distinct lack of methodology designed to treat depression as an outgrowth of trauma. Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, works with both poles of trauma- symptoms of hyperactivation related to the fight and flight response, as well as symptoms of underactivation and passivity linked to the freeze/immobility response-as well as with the states of resiliency that are essential for healing. We will be featuring the SE method (as well as others mentioned below) in this week's teleseminar with Peter Levine (see above). If you haven't yet registered, please visit www.maggiephillipsphd.com/courses_teleseminars_pl.html and follow the instructions given there.

The freeze response, of course, is turned on when the other defensive systems (ventral vagal social system, sympathetic/adrenal fight/flight response) do not match the energy of the threat. There is then a cascade of biochemical reactions. There is a profound numbing through the release of endorphins that prepares the organism for a relatively painless death. The dorsal vagal shutdown creates a vegetative state that conserves energy, and depression can be part of what occurs if the dorsal vagal freeze response is not discharged and its energy released.

Allan Schore, Daniel Siegel and others have emphasized the role of face-to-face attunement in early bonding between parent and child to facilitate development of the right orbito-frontal cortex, which promotes self-regulation and resiliency to later stress and trauma. As Dr. Bob Scaer says, "Once you freeze, you tend to freeze again!"

When we discuss treating the freeze response, we are considering two types of freeze reactions: The freeze caused by shock trauma from overwhelming events that can happen at any age or stage, and developmental trauma which begins with early parental attachment problems which create abuse, loss, and neglect.

When there is chronic posttraumatic stress from either of these sources, and the parasympathetic system response is dominant, the clinical conditions that result include depression, dissociation, the disregulation of emotional feeling states, and social withdrawal and isolation, which are all linked to the emergence of dorsal vagal freeze.

Fortunately, there are some relatively easy to learn techniques to help release the freeze response. These include specific types of breathing techniques, body awareness skills, the use of focused attention to bridge back and forth between body areas that are "resourced" and those that are constricted, numb, or uncomfortable, and pendulating or bridging between two somatic resource areas for strengthening and two traumatized areas of the body for diffusion.

It is often very helpful to include additional techniques such as the practice of mindfulness, which involves bringing a clear, kind attention to the sensations in the body related to depression, dissociation and freeze states. When we do this, the energies involved in numbing, collapse, and depression, rather than getting trapped in the body, are released and are "de-repressed" vs. depressed. We can then reclaim our spirit and full life again.

All of these techniques will be included in Wednesday's 4/8 teleseminar. Remember that your enrollment includes anytime audio replay for an entire month through May 8.

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter and to pass along any information that would be appropriate to family, friends, and clients.

Yours in health,
Maggie Phillips

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