Studies in Somatic Psychology – Introductory Somatic Psychotherapy Training and Case Consultation Group 

A training and case consultation group for therapists, health practitioners, and students in the health field who wish to incorporate an emotionally focused somatic approach into their work with their clients

October 2022 – May 2023

Facilitator: Daniel Schiff PhD

Course Description

As contemporary neuroscience confirms that the split between mind and body, psyche and soma is an artificial one and that effective psychotherapy must address and pay attention to all aspects of our total organism, there is an increasing desire among therapists to incorporate somatic approaches into their basic psychotherapeutic work. Yet what is missing for many therapists is a clear theoretical and technical understanding of how to understand their clients and the psychotherapeutic process from a somatic psychological perspective and how to incorporate such understanding into their therapeutic work.

Drawing upon the foundational work of Wilhelm Reich in his development of character analysis and vegetotherapy (Reich’s terminology at that time for what we would currently term as somatic psychotherapy), Gestalt therapy’s phenomenological and experimental approach to working with character defenses (contact-boundary disturbances), and including an integration of the more recent contributions from attachment and emotion theory and self-psychology, this course will provide the integrative and clear theoretical and technical understanding addressed above.

The theoretical and technical dimensions of somatic psychotherapy which this training will focus on will include: 

Theory:

•           The History and Scope of Somatic Psychotherapy

•           Overview of Somatic Approaches

•           Contemporary Reichian Therapy - Foundational Principles

•           Emotion, armor and the expressive language of the living

•           Contact - a Gestalt Perspective

•           Character Attitudes and Muscular Armor

•           Contemporary emotion and attachment theory as applied in therapy.

Therapeutic Practice:

•           Use of contact and emotional attunement in therapy

•           The functional approach to working with armor: characterological and                                                   somatic interventions

•           Working with transference and countertransference

•           Working with different presenting problems

•           Therapist’s use of self and finding his/her therapeutic style

Training will be offered within a small group and case consultation format, where therapists will be introduced to and learn how to apply these key theoretical and technical principles underlying somatic psychotherapy through lecture, dialogue, role-playing, demonstration, case consultation and discussion, and skill building via working with one another in the group setting. There will be a short article or book chapter (or parts of) to be read prior to each meeting.  

The group will meet twice a month for 8 months, 1½ hours per session, for a total of sixteen sessions (twenty-four hours).  Section 1 will meet on line via zoom.  Section 2 will meet in person in downtown Portland, Or.  Date and time of the first meeting in October 2021 and schedule of meetings to be determined. 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Within a small group training and case consultation format each participant will:

1. Develop an understanding of and ability to apply the key theoretical dimensions of a somatic psychological perspective within the context of individual therapy.
2. Develop an increased capacity to use contact and emotional attunement as a ground from which to engage clients in individual therapy.
3. Learn to apply characterological and somatic interventions with clients in individual therapy to help them address problems with estrangement from somatic experience and identify and lessen defenses against emotional contact, experience and expression.
4. Learn to identify and work with transference and countertransference reactions as they emerge in the therapeutic process.

Times/Dates:  Day and times yet to be chosen:  Daniel Schiff PhD instructor.

Fee: $1050/year; $875 for students enrolled full time in a graduate program who have financial constraints.  Payment options available.

Group size limited to 12 participants

Further information: contact me at my e-mail address:  dschiff@dschiffphd.com.