
COURSE INFORMATION

Presented by ISMETA, in partnership with Somatic Experiencing ® International, the new Trauma Informed Practice Course welcomes ISMETA professional members, somatic movement professionals who are eligible to join ISMETA, and students currently enrolled in a somatic movement training program who have completed a minimum of 250 hours of training.
The training addresses the need to be able to recognize, acknowledge, and work with unresolved trauma when working with clients and students, including the question of how a practitioner’s own unresolved traumatic material may support or inhibit their Somatic Movement practice. Participants will gain foundational skills to honor unresolved trauma when working with individual clients or groups of students. The training will introduce the current theoretical framework of the physiology of trauma through experiential learning, based on an amalgam of best practices from some of the leading approaches to trauma resolution.
Professional or student membership in ISMETA is required to join the training.
If you are interested in joining the training but not yet an ISMETA Members you may register now and submit your application for membership within two weeks time.
The training will prepare you to:
• Recognize the symptoms of unresolved trauma in the body, both in yourself and in your client.
• Distinguish the symptoms of unresolved trauma in behavioural and movement patterns.
• Cultivate self-regulation when meeting trauma in others.
• Understand how your own self-regulation supports co-regulation in others and in groups.
• Experience the embodied anatomy of the physiological responses to traumatic events or material.
• Understand and demonstrate the Polyvagal Theory from a Somatic Movement perspective.
• Develop, apply and facilitate trauma-informed theory, skills and information within your professional practice.

Debra Clydesdale
Debra practices Somatic Trauma Resolution and Somatic Movement. She integrates applications including Structural Bodywork, movement, and touch, specializing in early life trauma/attachment resolution, head injuries, medical trauma and chronic complex trauma patterns. After her traumatic material from four traumatic brain injuries surfaced in the 1980s she was guided to meet Peter Levine and Somatic Experiencing ® which profoundly shifted both her personal work and somatic movement/bodywork practice.
Debra’s decades of study and practice has included private-practice clinical work (SEP), assisting/coordinating SE trainings and Peter Levine in his Master Classes and ultimately becoming faculty of Somatic Experiencing International. Debra co-directs Coherence in Motion with Mark Taylor where they train Somatic students/practitioners to incorporate principles of human developmental movement into trauma healing. Debra studied with Emilie Conrad before her passing, profoundly influencing her somatic movement work and is currently exploring the Feldenkrais Method®. She has studied Qi Gong with several world-renowned Masters emphasizing synergy with this ancient healing practice and Somatic Movement and has taken many trainings/professional workshops throughout her 30+ year career.
Having completed certification training in Acupuncture/Oriental/Asian Medicine(MS) Hellerwork, Acupuncture Detoxification and Addiction (NADA), Debra has been recognized as a Qualified Medical Evaluator by the State of California with board specialization as a Diplomate in Acupuncture Orthopedics, NCCAOM Diplomate (National Certification Commission for Acupuncture Oriental Medicine), has specialized training in Neuro-Acupuncture with the Neuro-Acupuncture Institute (NEI), and has provided CEU training courses for healthcare professionals. She is published - Electro-acupuncture in the Medical Acupuncture journal, Acupuncture for Eating Disorders: has presented to physicians and clinicians at locations including UCLA Medical Center and has volunteered many hours in pain-management-facilities/addiction-treatment-centers.

Mark Taylor
Mark directs the Center for BodyMindMovement, with ISMETA-approved Somatic Movement Education trainings in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. The trainings prepare movement professionals, artists and people in the caring professions to facilitate physical, mental, and spiritual transformation in themselves and in others, through embodied anatomy and developmental movement. He is a past Board member and President of ISMETA.
He co-directs Coherence in Motion with Debra Clydesdale; co-directed the Embodied Early Developmental Movement and Attachment Therapy training with Margery Segal; is the author of “Embody the Skeleton: A guide for conscious movement”; and as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner assists trainings in Somatic Experiencing®. As U.S. Program Director for the School for Body-Mind Centering®, Taylor worked closely with somatic movement pioneer Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and taught in the school’s programs in the United States and Europe. He founded Mark Taylor & Friends in New York, directed Dance Alloy in Pittsburgh, PA, and was on the dance faculties of Princeton University and the University of Limerick (Ireland). His somatic movement practice has been influenced by his work as a dancer, choreographer, and dance company director, inspired by being the parent of a son with developmentally disabilities, and supported by forty-five years of meditation practice. He works extensively with pre- and perinatal, developmental, and relational imprints.

Jane Okondo
Jane is the co-program director faculty for the Diploma in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy an ISMETA Approved Training Program in the UK and Lithuania, teaching Experiential Anatomy and Movement Repatterning, Therapeutic Presence through Authentic Movement and Somatic Psychology. She teaches with the Somatische Akademie in Berlin and offers mentoring, groups and retreats in Continuum and the Discipline of Authentic Movement in the UK and Europe.
Jane’s background is in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy. After meeting and being mentored by Emilie Conrad, the originator of Continuum, she became the first Continuum teacher in the UK in 2007. She has a master’s degree in Dance and Somatic Wellbeing from the University of Central Lancaster, a Diploma in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley and has completed the Circles of Four program with Janet Adler in the Discipline of Authentic Movement. She is currently in mentoring to step into faculty in the spring of 2023. Jane has been integrating the work of somatic movement therapy and hands-on sessions for the last 10 years. She is qualified as a Somatic Experiencing ® Practitioner, assisting as a provider on the UK Somatic Experiencing ® trainings. Jane trained with Kathy Kain in Touch and Trauma and with Dr Aline La Pierre in NeuroAffective Touch® and assists on the European trainings. Jane has written a chapter about her work in the book, ‘The Fluid Nature of Being - Embodied practices for healing in wholeness.’ Edited by Linda Hartley.

Rich Sims
Rich is a Somatic, Embodiment & Mindfulness Educator, Body Awareness and Aikido Instructor who specializes in the areas of stress, fear, anxiety, trauma, depression, resilience, pain and empowerment. He serves on ISMETA’s Executive Committee and is informed by over forty years of study in various somatic, mindfulness and martial arts lineages. He combines the connection between our bodies, minds, emotions and distress responses with methods including Being In Movement® mindbody education, collaborating closely with its founder Paul Linden, MSME.
Other approaches he’s incorporated into his practice include body awareness, breathing, meditation, martial arts, embodiment and mindfulness practices including Trauma Informed Mindfulness and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Rich has practiced and taught the art of Aikido for over twenty-five years. His first instructors, Akira Tohei Shihan and Joanna Kiyoko Tohei Sensei were some of the earliest teachers sent by Aikido’s founder to bring Aikido from Japan to the world. Rich credits Andrew Sato Shihan, his current instructor, with showing how aikido’s principles can grow from its traditional forms into new creations on and off the mat. Currently Rich continues to explore and expand how various somatic expressions of the martial arts can be incorporated into trauma healing. Guided and inspired by his personal, familial and close relationships to those touched by illness, disease and abuse, Rich continues developing and expanding how somatic practices can be used individually or in a complimentary integrative whole person approach to healing. He works with MenHealing (a leading organization for sexual abuse survivors) along with leaders in the psychotherapeutic field. His clients include cancer patients and caregivers, those with physical and mental illness, incarcerated populations as well as being a state certified instructor of first responders.
Module I
August 11 - 13, 2023
9 am – 12 pm + 1 – 4 pm
(Eastern)
Introduction to trauma-informed practice and core principles of working with the nervous system
• Overview of the nervous system and recognizing shock and trauma bound in the body
• Embodied anatomy of the autonomic nervous system and the principle of pendulation
• Physiology of threat response cycle
• Practitioner skills
Module II
September 8 - 10, 2023
9 am – 12 pm + 1 – 4 pm
(Eastern)
Resourcing, self-regulation, and co-regulation
· Origins of unresolved trauma
· Developing presence as a fundamental element in a therapeutic relationship
· Embodied anatomy of the sensory pathways
· Five dimensions of experience: SIBAM
· Traumatic imprints on the fluid system
· Practitioner skills
Module III
October 20 - 22, 2023
9 am – 12 pm + 1 – 4 pm
(Eastern)
Coupling dynamics: over and under-coupling
· Embryonic and fetal movement patterns: recognizing shock held in tissues and movement
· Primitive defense reflexes: withdrawal, Moro, and startle
· Applications to personal practice
Module IV
November 17 - 19, 2023
9 am – 12 pm + 1 – 4 pm
(Eastern)
The Satisfaction Cycle (vertebral movement patterns in relationship to polyvagal theory)
· Secure attachment: rupture and repair
· Adult behavioral expressions of survival responses
· Post-traumatic and complex post-traumatic stress injuries
· Cycles of completion
· Case studies
· Developing skills and practice
All Modules
Recordings of sessions will be available to review by registered participants
ISMETA MEMBERS
Pre - registered NON MEMBERS
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