In working with trauma, effective therapy often involves

In the Little Prince, by St. Exupéry, the innocent child is portrayed in a central role in healing from trauma.

identifying dissociative "parts" and working with the body.   During this work, as a safe, relational environment is created, spiritual resources may emerge spontaneously.  As painful trauma memories are processed, these spiritual forces and helpers can assist in holding and nurturing deeply wounded child parts.  Skilled trauma therapy can involve facilitating and utilizing these life-affirming allies to aid in healing, rather than in bypassing the healing process.

Therapists working with body-based trauma approaches, such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, or in parts-based psychotherapies, like Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, learn to anticipate and recognize the appearance of spirit in dreams and in imagery.  How do we work safely with such spontaneous spiritual emergences, and hold them within a larger, body-informed model of care?  This talk will introduce core qualities of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and of the IFS model and discuss safely working with the psycho-spiritual dimensions of these approaches.  It will also emphasize the ability of body-based therapies to restore life-sustaining basic physiologic rhythms and animal defenses, which are not addressed in purely "talk therapies" or in wholly transpersonal approaches.

After this talk, there will be a guided imagery involving identifying the larger Self, whose qualities include compassion, curiosity and wisdom.  From this place, participants will have an opportunity to hold a child part and to sense the innate healing capacities held within Self.