Advanced Somatic Resolution Skills for Perinatal Trauma
Learn to Heal Birth Trauma
Video Recordings and Handouts
Originally recorded in Bozeman, MT November, 2022
Helping families heal from birth trauma sets them up to thrive and allows for human development to travel along an ideal trajectory of connection and health from the very start.
About the Videos
The workshop was held over four days in November 2022. There are 28 videos available (broken up into smaller 10-18 minute segments) covering all four days of the workshop. The slides presented live have been added to the videos, and the handouts are also available to follow along with. The breakout small group sessions were not recorded, but each is described for you to try on your own if you wish.
About the Course
Somatic trauma resolution practitioners are ideal professionals to be trained to specialize in helping to prevent and heal birth trauma. Healing from these early imprints can be a game changer for healthy human development. In this workshop you will learn advanced somatic resolution skills for treating perinatal trauma.
Treating birth trauma is more complex than shock trauma; it often brings up earlier and developmental traumas. It involves many people: the birthing parent, other parent or partner, the baby, and the birthing staff.
We now know that 1 in 3 women report their birth as traumatic. We also know that earlier trauma can show up at birth because of the prevalence of adverse experiences. Some studies reports that 1 in 4 women who give birth will express the symptoms of PTSD. Studies of birth reveal that some women use phrases, such as “barbaric,” “inhumane,” “intrusive,” “horrific,” and “degrading” to describe the mistreatment or miss-attunement they received from healthcare professionals. For every American woman who dies from childbirth, 70 nearly die. That adds up to more than 50,000 women who suffer "severe maternal morbidity" from childbirth each year. We will present the impact of birth interventions and different perinatal scenarios, and advanced somatic resolution skills that address them.
This workshop applies quintessential somatic skills to healing birth trauma:
- Medicalized Birth Trauma
- The Shock of Witnessing
- Working with a Birthing Timeline (single episode) in relationship to the body
- Restoring Primitive Survival Responses to Overwhelming Situations
- Attack and Assault
- Near Death
- Injury and Recovery
- Repairing Relationship to Essential Self, Supportive Other, and World
Recommended prerequisites: Professional Healing Practice, Intermediate 1 Somatic Experiencing® or Skills in somatic modalities, birthing, parenting coaching or relevant experience
Description of the Four Days:
Day One: Introductions and Understanding the Birth Sequence
- Overview presentation
- Skills: Getting a birth history: Working with the Layers of Experience
- Understanding Interventions
- Demo: Working with the stuck place, creating strength based work
- Recording of a session with a woman: The Water Cooler Moment
Day Two: The Impact of Interventions Part One
- Establishing a Felt Sense of Goodness: Demo and practice
- Restoring Intuition, just like in other trauma
- Slowing the Pace: Pausing and Allowing: Review of the Leading Edge
- Recording: NICU Experience
- Skills of ANS tracking
- Understanding Interventions: T Model and Birth Trauma, Inescapable Attack
- Demo and Practice
Day Three: The Impact of Interventions Part Two
- Assault, Medical Trauma, Horror and Near Death
- Restoring defensive Gestures
- Honoring the “no”
- Restoring after deep freeze
- Near death, touch strategies
- Vu and Push
- Recording: Freeze and C-Section and working with Vu, Growl and Push
- Demo and Practice
Day Four: Earliest Trauma and Our Spiritual Essence
- Tracking Birth Trauma is Complex: Our Truest Nature is Next to the Early Wounds
- Story: The Baby Told Me
- Working with Babies
- Recording: Working with a Baby with Cord Wrap
- Creating Messages of Repair and the Holding Healing Story
- Reparation for the Clinician
Your Instructor
Dr. Abi Blakeslee, SEP, CMT, MFT, Ph.D., integrates Somatic Experiencing with clinical research, the psychobiological principles of attachment, psychodynamic therapy, and somatic bodywork in her practice and teaching. She has conducted original research on the role of implicit memory in Somatic Experiencing with a committee that included Dr. Daniel Siegel.
Dr. Blakeslee holds a Masters of Arts in Counseling and Depth Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Clinical and Somatic Psychology. She is interested in the intersection between neuroscience, current trauma research, and the psychobiological principles of Somatic Experiencing.
She works with individuals, couples, children, and families and treats a broad base of issues.
Dr. Blakeslee currently resides in Bozeman, MT with her husband, two young boys, and a young daughter. She focuses on providing faculty-level individual and group consultations to all levels of Somatic Experiencing students, teaching SE trainings and somatic workshops, and presenting at professional conferences.
Kate White, MA, BCBMT, RCST®, CEIM, SEP, PPNE, PLC is an award-winning educator and an advanced bodyworker. She is trained in somatic therapies, prenatal and perinatal health, lactation, brain development, infant mental health, and has specialized in mother-baby dyad care using somatic prevention and trauma healing approaches for over 20 years. She is a mother of two children, holds a BA and MA in Communication, is a Registered Craniosacral Therapist in the Biodynamic Craniosacral method and a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner. Her work combines somatic therapy with brain development to help give families with babies and small children the best possible start. She teaches classes online and in person, and offers a training called Integrated Prenatal and Perinatal Dynamics. She has a private practice in Charlottesville, VA called Belvedere Integrated Healing Arts (belvederearts.com) and offers her own seminars through the Center for Prenatal and Perinatal Programs, ppncenter.com
Course Curriculum
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StartDay One: Introductions and Getting Started Working with Birth Trauma (200:04)
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StartDay Two: The Impact of Birth Interventions Part One (226:15)
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StartDay Three: The Impact of Birth Interventions Part Two (237:55)
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StartDay Four: Earliest Trauma and Our Spiritual Essence (196:08)
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StartHandout Birth Interventions Booklet