The 2020 Online Embodied Psychology Summit Schedule

DAY 2: Thursday, July 23rd, 2020

Michal Yarkoni

5am PDT (Los Angeles) / 8am EDT (New York) / 1pm GMT (London) / 2pm CET (Paris) / 10pm AEST (Sydney)

Feeling safe is an essential aspect of any growth or healing process. According to Steven Pordges and the Polyvagal Theory, when we feel safe, the ventral part of the vagus nerve is active. This is being expressed in our body through the quality of our breath, the rhythm of our hearts and in our ability to easily interact with others while being present to our feelings and sensations. We interact with others mostly through our facial gestures, through listening and vocalizing. This experiential embodied yoga class will explore how we can use the body, and in particular the practice of yoga to enhance a sense of safety. By using the breath, self- touch, yoga asana and guided somatization we will stimulate the ventral vagal branch and cultivate qualities of groundness and calm.

In this session, you will learn:

• Understand the concept of support precede movement and its relevance to therapeutic processes

• Learn to identify the physiological signs of safety and threat in their body

• How to stimulate the ventral vagal branch through movement, touch and breath
  

Sally Goddard Blythe

7am PDT (Los Angeles) / 10am EDT (New York) / 3pm GMT (London) / 4pm CET (Paris) / 12pm Friday AEST (Sydney)

Thought, learning and emotions do not only take place in the head, but are the product of the complex relationship between genetics, the brain, body and environment. In this relationship, physical development acquired through the dual processes of maturation and experience, plays a crucial role in laying the foundations for life, learning and living.

During the process of normal development, a series of primitive reflexes emerge, are inhibited by higher centres in the developing brain and are integrated into the service of more complex patterns of movement, including postural reactions. The presence or absence of primitive reflexes and postural reactions at key stages in development provide signposts of maturity in the functioning of the central nervous system. Retention of primitive reflexes beyond the first six months of life or under-developed postural reactions after 3½ years provide evidence of immaturity in neuromotor functioning which can affect not only coordination but specific aspects of learning and emotional experience.

This session will examine the impact of neuromotor immaturity on functioning including specific learning difficulties and under-achievement in children and emotional insecurity in adults.

Stephen W. Porges

9am PDT (Los Angeles) / 12pm EDT (New York) / 5pm GMT (London) / 6pm CET (Paris) / 2am Friday AEST (Sydney)

The Polyvagal Theory is a major scientifically validated advancement in neuroscience with clinical applications to a new brain-body medicine providing insights into the treatment of trauma-related mental and physical health challenges. The theory describes how, via evolution, a connection emerged in the brain between the nerves that control the heart and the face. This face-heart connection provided the structures for the “social engagement system” that links our bodily feelings with facial expression, vocal intonation, and gesture. The Polyvagal Theory provides a more informed understanding of the automatic reactions of our body to safety, danger and life threat. The theory transforms the human trauma narrative from a documentary (emphasizing events and objects) to a pragmatic quest for safety with an implicit bodily drive to survive (emphasizing feelings). This interview will explore the role of physiological state in facilitating either connectedness and intimacy or defense such as fight/flight, hypervigilance, dissociation, collapse, shutdown, and even syncope.

In this session, you will learn:

• To provide an overview of the Polyvagal Theory.

• To illustrate how a Polyvagal perspective provides insights into the clinical assessment and treatment of several clinical conditions.

• To describe a face-heart connection that defines a social engagement system that links our bodily feelings with facial expression, vocal intonation, and gesture.
  

Dr. Amber Elizabeth L Gray

11am PDT (Los Angeles) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 7pm GMT (London) / 8pm CET (Paris) / 4am Friday AEST (Sydney)

Our bodies are a sea change of movement; movement is our birthright and leading language. As the number of displaced people in the world far surpasses a previous all time high of 45 million in World War Two, people across the globe flee persecution and violence for the hope of safer places to establish home. Fellow humans and Mother earth and her inhabitants seek refuge from the daily violence of suffocated, burning land, isolating dis-ease, and years of enslavement to the oppressive dominant colonial culture. Political refugees survive periods of deeply unsettling, disorienting and colossally life changing experience, often to resettle in a hostile environment. Those oppressed by violence in daily life struggle due to lack of access to everything that provides refuge and safety. In these contexts, the body can feel like a minefield and even become the betrayer. Conversely, our body is the only place where we can foster a sense of predictability and self-reciprocity through neural and spirit pathways. The arts have long been a universal voice for all aspects of human experience. Dance and Movement Psychotherapies offer a holistic approach to healing with diverse and socio-centric communities for whom collective, integrative and healing processes are familiar. This workshop combines background information on refugee mental health made relevant to all survivors of human rights abuse, infused with polyvagal-informed soma-movement and dance therapy - the presenters own approach to integrating ancestral wisdom with current neuro-knowledge - in service of connection, restoration and belonging. Participants will experientially learn several eco-somatic approaches developed by the presenter specifically for work with survivors of human rights violence.

In this session, you will learn:

• Concepts and theories central to refugee and human rights mental health

• Two trauma-informed, embodied movement and dance based frameworks for healing and restoration for human rights trauma

• At least 3 state-shifting practices to promote neuro-predictability, enhanced interoception and self reciprocity.

Michaela Boehm

1pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 4pm EDT (New York) / 9pm GMT (London) / 10pm CET (Paris) / 6am Friday AEST (Sydney)

Intimacy starts with our connection to ourselves, via our feeling body. Our bodily genius holds the secrets of intimate perception and deep connection. As we become more sensitive to the signals of our body we become more aware of others and true connections can begin.

Embodiment has become a much used buzzword, but what does it actually mean to be embodied?

In this interactive talk we will explore:

• the 3 key principles of embodiment

• discover the common barriers to embodiment and how to overcome them

• and learn how to access pleasure, set boundaries and cultivate vitality.

Bernadette Pleasant

3pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 6pm EDT (New York) / 11pm GMT (London) / 12am Friday CET (Paris) / 8am Friday AEST (Sydney)

Everyone is feeling something -- Joy, Anger, Grief and much more. This 90-minute session set to live African Drums will help us get intimate, move and give sound to our emotions. We will learn to celebrate rather than shame our emotions. If you've ever been told or felt that you were "too much," welcome. We are your people!

Students will learn:

• Why they were shutdown.

• How to begin to exercise the muscles of emotional expression.

• How to celebrate being “too much.”

Don Hanlon Johnson

5pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 8pm EDT (New York) / 1am Friday GMT (London) / 2am Friday CET (Paris) / 10am Friday AEST (Sydney)

We are living through perhaps the most radical change in our communal lives that I have witnessed in my 86 years. It has felt important for me to pay close attention to the many currents of what is taking place so that that our work steps up to this challenge, not some past ones. The themes that seem most relevant to our work are these: diversity, the threats to our earthly environment, and the pandemic, questions of building community. The areas of embodiment work that seem particularly relevant to this situation are building sensory discrimination so that we can understand more deeply what is happening, building resilience and tonicity to support our health and courage, sensitivity of our being earthlings along with animals, plants, air, soil, water

In this session, you will learn:

• Resilience

• Modulation

• Inspiration

DAY 4: Saturday, July 25th, 2020

Our Host - Dr. Scott Lyons

3:30am PDT (Los Angeles) / 6:30am EDT (New York) / 11:30am GMT (London) / 12:30pm CET (Paris) / 8:30pm AEST (Sydney)

Dr. Scott Lyons

5am PDT (Los Angeles) / 8am EDT (New York) / 1pm GMT (London) / 2pm CET (Paris) / 10pm AEST (Sydney)

In the introduction to Somatic Stress Release™ we will examine the power of definitions and perceptions around stress, and how that impacts our physiology. Learn the foundational processes of restoring your biological stress response system- which includes enhancing your capacity to identify internal responses to stressors, and mobilize that energy towards restoration and ease.

Nancy J. Napier, LMFT

7am PDT (Los Angeles) / 10am EDT (New York) / 3pm GMT (London) / 4pm CET (Paris) / 12am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

My work with the optimal future self, which began in 1982, has demonstrated time and again that what the body learns, the psyche will follow. Through a process of blending the present-day body (and body-mind) with the body (and body-mind) of the optimal future self, we can access new perspectives, new body states, new capacities for accessing health and well-being, as well as move through blocks to growth.

In this workshop, we will explore several areas of embodiment that I have found useful over the years. One is to help clients find the underlying and ever-present steadiness that is always at the core of their body- mind being. Through an awareness of foreground/background dynamics and an emphasis on embracing wholeness, we can orient ourselves to this underlying steadiness even when we aren’t able to be consciously aware of it. When we notice our core presence and the qualities we radiate from our core into the environment, we support a more ongoing awareness of moving through the world in an embodied way.

Another focus is on the dynamics of accessing body states of aspects of self that have already healed or achieved what we seek. This process involves accessing the optimal future self and also applies to the notion of accessing alternate or probable selves. Through a process of blending and absorbing what we discover in these aspects of self, our present-day body-mind taps into new possibilities, new perspectives, new responses, and/or new options.

The workshop covers didactic as well as experiential material:

• To orient clients to a body-based experience, drawing on "future" possibilities;

• To work with foreground/background dynamics to promote a sense of wholeness;

• To work with optimal and/or alternate selves to access states and outcomes clients seek to achieve.

Dr. Sará King, Nkem Ndefo & Niralli D’Costa

9am PDT (Los Angeles) / 12pm EDT (New York) / 5pm GMT (London) / 6pm CET (Paris) / 2am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

Dr. Judith Blackstone

11am PDT (Los Angeles) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 7pm GMT (London) / 8pm CET (Paris) / 4am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

Judith will teach the main embodiment practices of the Realization Process. These gentle attunement practices can help you feel both more present and more receptive within your whole body. They cultivate internal depth and wholeness, sensory and emotional resilience, grounding, authenticity, and the ability to connect deeply with others without loss of inward contact with yourself. And they uncover a subtle, fundamental dimension of consciousness that you can experience pervading your own body and your whole environment, as a unity. Fundamental consciousness is experienced as the unified, unbreakable ground of our being. It is the basis of direct, unobstructed contact with ourselves, with other people, and with all of nature. Pervading our own form, it deepens and refines all of our human capacities: for physical sensation, emotional responsiveness, understanding, and perception. Pervading our own form and our environment as a unity, it is the basis of an actual experience of oneness with the world around us. Judith will also discuss the application of these practices to releasing chronic tensions and imbalances in the body, and healing from the effects of trauma.

In this session, you will:

• Feel more whole and alive within your body.

• Feel more connected with other people.

• Feel more grounded and resilient to sensory and emotional stimuli.

Dr. Pat Ogden

1pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 4pm EDT (New York) / 9pm GMT (London) / 10pm CET (Paris) / 6am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

This presentation will illustrate how with physical action helps to process traumatic experience and create new competencies. Simple actions, such as pushing away, reaching out and grounding, correspond to psychological functions. When clients experience and practice actions specifically related to a psychological symptom or issue, psychological functioning can be positively affected. For example, experiencing the physical capacity to define one's personal space or push away can strengthen the ability to secure boundaries and lessen helplessness; practicing reaching out can fortify confidence in the possibility of asking for help and increasing social contact. Drawing on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy concepts and interventions, including embedded relational mindfulness, interventions that mitigate dissociation and shame and foster a somatic sense of self will be illustrated through excerpts of consultation sessions. How people’s minds and bodies process and interpret traumatic experiences will be addressed, with a focus on how controlled action might help overcome traumatic repetitions and continued cry-for-help, flight /flight/freeze/and shut down responses.

In this session you will:

• Discuss the role of the body in trauma treatment.

• Explain how physical action can be used to help patients feel empowered and decrease PTSD symptoms.

• Describe the importance of embedded relational mindfulness in trauma therapy.

Susan Aposhyan

3pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 6pm EDT (New York) / 11pm GMT (London) / 12am Sunday CET (Paris) / 8am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

Humans are a funny species—pack animals that dream of the divine. We have spent the last couple hundred years learning to disconnect to our bodies. The good news is re connection is at our finger tips. In this workshop, we will work to clarify our understanding and definitions of embodiment and practice the simple, but profound Embodiment Practice that Susan has developed over the last 30 years.

We will check in with our bodies around the pandemic and our hopes and aspirations for this time using Body-Mind Psychotherapy tool, the Interaction Cycle. On the basis of this we will examine the issues of trauma, relational intimacy, and social justice that concern our culture so deeply. We will practice Core Flow, the basis of personal and relational presence and fundamental antidote to traumatic dissociation. Finally, we will conclude with a short period of guided Embodied Meditation.

Throughout this presentation, we will work with short, experiential practices to integrate these ideas:

• The Basics of Embodiment Practice

• The Interaction Cycle

• Embodied Meditation

Dr. Rae Johnson

5pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 8pm EDT (New York) / 1am Sunday GMT (London) / 2am Sunday CET (Paris) / 10am Sunday AEST (Sydney)

The emergence of neuroscience-based trauma models has underscored the importance of recognizing the embodied imprint of trauma in our lives. However, members of marginalized groups may not necessarily connect the symptoms of trauma with our everyday social experiences. In this presentation we will explore how sexism, racism, ableism, and other forms of oppression should rightly be understood as traumatic, and how to recognize the cumulative impact of everyday embodied microaggressions – those tiny relational papercuts that can undermine our sense of connection and belonging in the larger social world.

 Sessions Available Anytime

Nkem Ndefo, Dr. Kesha Fikes, Anouk Shambrook & Dr. Rae Johnson

The lived experience of the body – that is, our bodily sensations, perceptions and behaviors – is the essential ground of human identity.  Neuroscience suggests that even our thinking  and the way others interact with us is intrinsically bound up in the body.

This conversation introduces an embodied approach to understanding and transforming patterns of relating to ourselves and others based on inequitable social power dynamics.  

Dr. Peter Levine

Irene Lyon, MSc.

This 45-minute session is part experiential and part theory. It'll guide you through four elemental steps for reconnecting with our inner self and our external environmental.

• Learn how to follow their biological impulse and allow the breath to simply be.

• Connect with the environment and allow gravity be a positive experience.

• Tune in to our exploratory orienting senses to restore connection with the here and now.

Dr. Nicola Amadora

How do we call ourselves back from space into the body, unto this earth, toward each other in the here and now? How do we unite our human vulnerability and divine nature to relate in an embodied way with ourselves, and each other in this beautiful and messy world?

The greatest need of most humans is to be truly heard, seen, accepted and met. We want to connect. Yet, our deepest wounding has occurred in relationship. Therefore, we feel split, separate and more suffering ensues personally and collectively. In this session we explore how resonant relating provides a bridge across turbulent waters and offers the medicine many crave. We learn to understand the difference between an emerging expansion and when safety and ground must be established. We experience how trauma can become a gateway for awakening.

Especially in these troubled times we need an integrated approach that unites Psychology, Spirituality and Relating in a skilled and embodied way to help us navigate the challenges and usher in the great turning for our lives and this world.

In this session you will:

- Taste how the nectar of loving presence heals the deepest wounds.
- Discover the Integration of Hakomi Therapy and Embodied Spirituality.
- Experience the Resonance Relating Way to deepen your work and relationships.

Dr. Aline LaPierre

Touch is a powerful intervention that builds a vital bridge between our verbal and nonverbal selves to address early emotional and relational trauma and repair attachment and developmental deficits. There is now documented evidence for the critical role of touch in human psychology and biology. Touch is at the foundation of relational experience, a fundamental mode of interaction in the infant-caregiver relationship that is vital to the process of integrated, holistic development. This presentation refutes four major arguments that fuel the taboo on touch in psychotherapy. It outlines the neural basis of touch and introduces a psychobiological model that addresses clients’ missing nonverbal experiences of connection, support, attunement, and nurturing. Lastly, it touches on the importance of languaging nonverbal implicit states and developing an intrapsychic mind-body relationship that invites collaboration between the organic realm of the body and the mind’s analytic attunement―a communication bridge between biological intelligence and mindful self-reflection.

In this session, you will:

• Appreciate the vital role of the therapeutic use of touch in psychotherapy.

• Fine-tune somatic treatment intentions to work with the body-mind unity underlying the formation of identity.

• Understand how the language of the body connects us with an aspect of self where we have all received our first imprints.