Monica Blum – Trauma Treatment Using Nonverbal, Play and Somatic Techniques: Resolving Therapeutic “Stuckness

Outline

The Impasse and “Stuckness” in Trauma Treatment

• We know what stuckness looks and feels like, but what do we do with it?
• Reframe assumptions about therapeutic stuckness and impasses:
  • Enactments as invitations
  • Co-created stuckness
• Follow the client into the world of the right brain
• Review the role of the right brain in trauma treatment

Primary Process Communication

• The language of attachment – create security and safety
• Practice using primary process communication

“Body Language” – Somatic Interventions

• How attachment security is reflected in the language of the body
• Practice identifying and using attachment body language
• Practice body-centered listening
• Use the body to ground/become present

The Language of Play

• What are play communications?
• How to use play with adult clients
• Ball play – case example and practice

Mindfulness: Shifting from Reacting to Mindfulness and the brain

• Practice mindfulness:
  • grounding, breath work
  • refocusing

Mirroring: “Self” Development, Attunement, & Affect Regulation

• Mirror neurons: empathy, interoception, client validation and connection
• Intentional mirroring practice
  • Increasing empathy
  • Repair misattunements
  • Regulate affect
• Embodied mirroring – a technique that capitalizes on therapeutic stuckness