Program Description
In surviving trauma, individuals are left with a host of easily re-activated somatic responses and an inadequate memory record. Traumatic reminders keep PTSD ‘alive’ by repetitively re-activating the body’s stress response system and survival defenses. Unaware that these too are memory, traumatized clients assume they are still in danger or at fault. In this presentation, participants will learn how to assess and make sense of trauma-based somatic symptoms and how to apply interventions drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a body-oriented talking therapy for trauma. Without the necessity for touch or other ethically hazardous techniques, these interventions can be easily integrated into talking therapies and used to address overwhelming emotions and sensations, intrusive images and memories, impulsivity, self-destructive behavior, as well as numbing and disconnection.

Learning Objectives
This workshop is designed to help participants:

1.Identify the autonomic, cognitive, affective, and somatic effects of PTSD

2.Educate clients on the role of the body in their PTSD symptoms

3.Describe procedural learning of post-traumatic responses

4.Assist clients in increasing curiosity and interest

5.Implement mindfulness-based techniques to challenge trauma responses

6.Identify three somatic interventions that regulate a traumatized nervous system

About the presenter
Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is the Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School. An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015), author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017), and the forthcoming book, Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (in press). She is best known for her work on integrating newer body-centered interventions into traditional psychotherapy approaches. More information can be found on her website: www.janinafisher.com. 

In order to receive CEs for this homestudy, the entire video must be viewed. There will be a quiz and an evaluation. Once those are completed a certificate will be distributed.
The VPA Psychological Association is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The VPA Psychological Association maintains responsibility for this program and its content.