26 Nov BSE Workshop for Professionals – Portland, ME 2013
Becoming Safely Embodied
A Mindfulness-Skill Based Approach to Working With
Trauma and Attachment
2-day Workshop in Portland, Maine / March 1-2, 2013
It’s so simple to say, “Be in your body.” Yet, being in a body that’s been through any kind of trauma is not a simple proposition at all.
Years ago, after living and teaching at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, I remembered teaching simple yoga asanas to people who had trauma symptoms. I realized it wasn’t so simple. I started to find component pieces that gave people baby steps to help them enter their bodies, safely.
The Becoming Safely Embodied Skills are just that: simple, concrete, practical skills people can practice on their own between therapy sessions to help them free themselves from physiological distress.
Using mindfulness and concentration as the foundation the BSE approach is dedicated to helping clients with a traumatic or disorganized experience of life gain control over their internal world by giving structured practices they can use between therapy sessions.
To hear Deirdre interviewed by Dr. Anne Hallward’s on Safe Space Radio click here
As a therapist you’ll learn skills such as:
- skillfully adapt concentration and mindfulness practices
- separate facts from feelings / interpretations
- using different moralities to work in the body (art therapy, movement, etc) to support your client in getting in touch with cultivating satisfying experiences
- cultivating mindfulness in the face of feeling triggered
- manage overwhelming feelings by learning how to stand at the crossroads of experience and choose which way you want to go
- creating choice points which support emotional freedom
- learn to clear the traumatic schemas and find new invigorating stories of life
Based on the current theories of trauma, attachment, mindfulness/compassion practices, this workshop is put together in an easy to understand way using uncomplicated language. The workshop will be experiential which allows you to learn how to use these practical, concrete skills with your clients the Monday after the workshop.
To watch a video of Chicago therapist Michelle Rieff talk about her experience using the BSE skills click here and here
Here’s what different clients have said about the BSE skills:
- I could arrest uncomfortable body sensations when I realized what was on my mind
- I could connect with my body; notice sensations before they escalated to
- Distinguishing between thoughts, feelings, and body sensations was most helpful and is something that I need to work on more. I”m glad to now know what to do
- Learning to watch rather than react; learning to slow down my body so it’s not completely at the mercy of my “head”; learning to say, “hold on! it’s my body’s turn now!”
- [Regarding using art] I didn’t know I had so many “nice” things I’d want to _______. I didn’t know the negative stuff could be visualized and “contained”.
- Learning to hold the polarities was extremely helpful. All the work with “holding” and two realities was very useful.
- Art therapy exercises surprised me because I really was able to make realizations about the way I think and feel through them.
- The most helpful exercises were ones where we wrote things down or did dictation with partners and then pushed our assumptions to the limit.
- I came to realize that the move from my body to my mind when I am afraid or anxious is so quick I can usually not even detect it.
- The images I created tended to have some type of hope in them that materialized without my realizing it. I don’t think I lack hope, but I forget that is why I continue to work on these issues and seek out groups….
- I was surprised that I would always gain some type of small insight even though I felt very uncomfortable participating.
Want to read more about what participants say? Click here
To read Janina Fisher, PhD’s foreword to the Becoming Safely Embodied Skills Manual click here
Click here to read about using BSE skills with fear
I hope this feel’s “right” to you and that you’ll come join us in Portland, Maine. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to email me or Deb Dana.
Workshop Fee:
Early Registration is $250 before February 15, 2013. Deadline after February 15, 2013 is $300. Registration can be made with Deb Dana at her email: deborahadanalcsw [at] gmail.com
Becoming Safely Embodied Maine Registration
Deirdre Fay, MSW, has a private practice in Arlington, MA, traditionally trained in theoretical approaches at Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Center where she was both a clinician and a supervisor. A frequent speaker and workshop leader Deirdre has integrated her thirty plus years of meditation with traditional approaches. The Becoming Safely Embodied Skills are now used individually and with groups throughout the world.