Traumatic experience leaves behind not only a legacy of posttraumatic symptoms but also a burden of fear and mistrust that affects all future relationships, including the therapeutic one. Instead of experiencing therapy and the therapist as a haven of safety, the traumatized client will be driven by powerful wishes and fears of relationship that compromise therapeutic work by causing autonomic dysregulation and activating animal defensive responses.

Recent studies highlight the importance of early non-verbal, body-based, intersubjective communication between child and caregivers as determinants of affect regulation capacities and procedural memory, shaping the template for future relational interaction. This workshop will explore the influence of procedural learning on adult relationships, the impact of trauma and attachment failure on adult attachment behavior, and explore techniques that range from helping patients stabilize dysregulation to exploring the intense emotions associated with early attachment relationships.

Various attachment styles will be described, and interventions will be taught to address each one. Interventions and concepts will be discussed and illustrated through lecture, video excerpts of sessions with patients, experiential exercises, and handouts.

The Workshop Leader: Pat Ogden, Ph.D., Boulder Psychotherapy Institute Distinguished Guest Workshop Leader, is an internationally known author, lecturer and trauma trainer. She is a co-founder of the Hakomi Institute and served on the faculty of Naropa Somatic Psychology and Contemplative Psychology departments from 1985 to 2005. She is the founder and director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an internationally recognized school that specializes in training psychotherapists in somatic/cognitive approaches for the treatment of trauma, developmental issues and attachment. She is the first author of the groundbreaking book, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, which was published in the fall of 2006 in the interpersonal neurobiology series of W.W.Norton and is in its second printing. Pat is trained in a wide variety of somatic and psychotherapeutic approaches and has worked with a diversity of populations, including prison inmates, psychiatric inpatients and survivors of trauma. As a pioneer in somatic psychotherapy and the treatment of trauma, she has over 30 years experience working with individuals and groups. She is available for consultation with therapists and their clients on difficult cases involving trauma.