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By Rich Simon It seems astonishing that even just two or three decades ago, parents not only pretty much knew what was expected of them to turn their offspring into civilized adults, but they could actually count on society to back them up. Even more astounding, kids seemed to understand this, too. Even if they rebelled against, yelled about, or sullenly resented how “unfair” adults were, they seemed to acknowledge adult authority and realize that they would just have to wait until they turned 18 to get for themselves the keys to the kingdom of grown-up independence. Although insight and interpretation inform therapy, they don’t, by themselves, develop the new neural tracks needed to permanently change the brain and “wire in” more positive experiences. In this workshop, we’ll explore techniques and skills drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy--a body-centered talk therapy--that, with practice and repetition, can help us change how we feel by changing the way the brain actually works. You’ll learn how to help clients track the ways they experience their symptoms somatically, reframe their attitudes toward them, experiment with different responses, and practice experiential exercises that develop new neural capacities and inhibit old ones. This approach--which can literally retrain clients’ nervous systems--is easily integrated into most traditional psychotherapy models. (This session will continue with Workshop 309.)
Janina Fisher, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and instructor at the Trauma Center in Boston, a faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former instructor at Harvard Medical School. She frequently lectures and writes about integrating neuroscience research and body-centered approaches into traditional psychotherapy.