Somatopia

presents

THE RELATIONAL SKILLS 

TRAUMA CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

 

 

 

INTRODUCING…

The Relational Skills

Trauma Certificate Program

With the Director of the Trauma Certificate Program

Dr. Albert Wong

and Guest Faculty

New 3 Month Live Video Training Starts
Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Can’t make it live? No problem.  After each class, video and audio recordings will be made available to watch anytime.

Trauma is held in the body, but revealed in relationships.

Trauma disrupts our natural ability to connect.


Trauma can create isolation and withdrawal.
Trauma can flood us with shame or make us persistently terrified of abandonment.
Experiences of relational rupture can become lodged in our physiology and our felt experience.
Even after years of talk therapy and medication,
the impact of trauma may still linger. 
IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.
Instead of trying to dig our way out of trauma through individual talk therapy alone, contemporary research on healing trauma invites us to rediscover:
the power of embodied connection, 
the felt experience of secure attachment,
the remembrance of what it is like to be truly seen and known.  
 
It invites us to become still, to listen,
and to rediscover what it feels like to connect.
The important moments of contact.
The possibility of resonance –
and "feeling felt."
The healing power of fully being with another human being
and allowing what was unfinished
to come to completion.

THE TRAINING WAS AMAZING! 

It was tremendously helpful to me as a survivor of trauma and also as a clinician. I wish more trainings like this would have been a part of my graduate school training and experience. The format was great and the pace was perfect in terms of being slow enough for it to really sink in. The information was also presented in a format that could be easily understood and applied. I highly recommend this training! 

ERIN PRUETT
LICENSED MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR

Register to watch

Meet the Faculty 
with Dr. Albert Wong and Guests 

Recorded Saturday, May 18, 2024

from 10AM - 11M Pacific Time 

If you register, we will send you a copy of the video recording so that you can watch it anytime.
SAVE MY SEAT

GROUNDED IN CONTEMPORARY NEUROSCIENCE,
BACKED BY ANCIENT WISDOM...

The Relational Skills Trauma Certificate training program incorporates interventions backed by leading-edge discoveries in the field of trauma, including embodied relational psychotherapy, trauma-informed group therapy, family constellation work, epigenetics, attachment theory, polyvagal theory, and interpersonal neurobiology.
More and more, we are discovering:
  • How to craft exact moments of healing through corrective relational experiences
  •  How the somatic experience of secure attachment can help us recover from rupture into repair.
  •  How to work safely with individuals and groups to heal relational, intergenerational, and collective trauma.
Instead of working strictly from an individualistic approach, a relational integrative trauma treatment model uses the power of connection — within oneself and with others — to help guide us out and through.  

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL AND HEALING COURSE! ❤️

I have found a deep sense of being ‘back in my own life’ after watching and practicing what is taught here. My awareness grows daily, and I am learning to find new resources of ‘self nourishment’! Enriching for myself and those around me!

CLAIRE ENNEW
MANDALA ARTIST

In this program you will...


 
-1-

Discover How Trauma Disrupts Our Ability to Connect to Others

You'll learn how the brain processes trauma, including revolutionary new discoveries in polyvagal theory, and the science of safety, love, and connection. 

-2-

Learn How to Overcome the Legacy of Trauma through Corrective Relational Experiences

You will learn how to use interpersonal contact, co-regulation and the "relational felt sense" to help stabilize, metabolize, and integrate experiences of trauma.

-3-

Gain Practical Skills for Working with Individuals and Groups to Help Those Suffering from Developmental and Attachment Trauma

Enhance your learning by practicing step-by-step individual and group skills, including tools you can use with your clients, yourself, and those you love.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

During the Certificate Program, you will…


Learn How to Work with Trauma

from Dedicated Teachers in the Field

Take 4 foundational Relational Skills courses: 

Foundations of Relational Trauma Therapy
Embodied Relational Skills for Healing Trauma
Trauma-Informed Group Work 
Healing Relational Trauma

Each Week…

Get 3 hours of online course instruction plus an additional, optional 1 hour per week of structured practice time

Hone your skills by practicing with classmates in your Student Community

Learn how to work with trauma – from a whole person perspective

Earn a Relational Skills Trauma Certificate from Somatopia after the completion of 10 core skills practice sessions

FIND OUT MORE

By the end of the program, you will have learned how to:

  • Use the key principles of relational trauma therapy to create a roadmap for healing

  • Use relational contact to resource and stabilize people when they are entering a flashback or other dissociative state

  • Identify and process trauma memories, through a range of somatic, relational, and group intervention approaches

  • Learn how to identify negative interpersonal cycles of behavior and interrupt these repetitive relational patterns when they show up in relationships

  • Develop the ability to experience interpersonal resonance as a vehicle for co-regulating clients and supporting trauma healing

  • Utilize syncretic interventions as a vehicle for creating relational contact and healing

  • Use the power of trauma-informed groups as a way of reconnecting people who have felt isolated and alone

  • Utilize relational interventions to help heal family, intergenerational, and collective trauma and restore coherence to the individual within the greater whole 

    All of this with the support of dedicated faculty
    who are lifelong educators in the field.

IN THE WORLD, THERE ARE FEW PEOPLE...

... who I label as "super co-regulators" – I view myself as good enough…. Albert, I think you could fit within the category of "super co-regulators"… Your presence and your voice… How you use your social engagement system… That's a healing property. It enables the body to become accessible.

STEPHEN PORGES
FOUNDER OF POLYVAGAL THEORY 

THE RELATIONAL SKILLS TRAUMA CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

THE CURRICULUM

Trauma 201

Foundations of Relational Trauma Therapy

Laying the Groundwork for Understanding

This course emphasizes the theoretical foundations of relational trauma therapy. It outlines the nature of relational trauma, how it happens, and how we might heal. Classic trauma concepts such as SIBAM, titration, polyvagal theory, the window of tolerance, and the interrupted arousal cycle are broadened into a relational framework. Interrupting negative interpersonal cycles, expanding the relational window of tolerance, finding the corrective relational experience, and using the practitioner-client relationship to complete the interrupted arousal cycle will be covered.

  • The Roadmap: What is relational trauma and how do we navigate through?
  • Relational Resourcing Techniques: Contact Statements and Embodied Resonance
  • Attachment Trauma and Relational Healing
  • Discovering the Corrective Relational Experience
  • Creating Exact Moments of Relational Healing
  • Restoring a Felt Experience of Secure Attachment
  • Working with Somatic Transference
  • Healing Inherited Family Trauma
  • Using Touch to Help Heal Trauma

Trauma 202

Embodied Relational Skills

Connecting with Our Somatic Experience with Ourselves and Others

This course will introduce participants to a variety of embodied relational skills that can be used to help heal trauma. We will learn how to use relational movement, breath, and the "felt sense" to support sensory integration, nervous system co-regulation, and the completion of interrupted cycles of experience. Particular attention will be paid to how we support our own physical process when working with others. This experiential class will introduce a variety of tools that the practitioner can use with clients who have acute, long term, developmental or attachment related trauma. Teaching methods include short lecture, large and small group discussions as well as multiple experiential activities.

  • Using Relational Embodiment to Support Safety, Contact, and Manage Pace
  • The "Relational Felt Sense" as a Vehicle of Connection 
  • Resolving Interrupted Cycles of Experience by Attending to Moment-to-Moment Sensation 
  • Discovering Unexpressed Movement Patterns through Relational Movement and the Interpersonal Field
  • Using Breath as a Tool for Grounding, Contact, Exchange, Trauma Release, and Discharge
  • Finding Self-Support and Using the Self as an Instrument
  • Using Syncretic Interventions to Enhance Relational Contact and Support Corrective Relational Experiences

Trauma 203

Healing Relational Trauma

Further Techniques and Applications

Trauma frequently arises from relationship, and therefore can often be healed through relationship. This course builds upon the Foundations course and introduces a range of specific techniques to help track, identify, and heal relational trauma. Topics covered will include how to help people learn to express healthy boundaries, connect with their inner selves, rediscover their natural impulses, and heal the legacy of ancestral trauma.  This class will also include live demonstrations of trauma therapy technique, as well as additional integrative sessions to help students consolidate their learnings and bring their work back into the world. 

  • Learning to Say Yes and Say No: Working with Boundaries and Desire
  • Transforming Negative Cycles of Interaction
  • Working with Relational Trauma and Shame
  • Becoming Securely Attached to Life:  Healing Our Inner Relationship
  • Healing Inherited Family Trauma: Transforming the Legacy of Generations
  • Identifying and Transforming Negative Cycles of Interaction
  • Using Finding Our Soft Belly: Trauma-Informed Communication
  • Healing Ancestral Trauma
  • Working with Trauma and Shame in Close Intimate Relationships
  • The Art of Repair: How to Mend Broken Connections through Rupture-Repair Conversations

Trauma 204

Trauma-Informed Group Work

Cultivating Embodied Presence and Essential Qualities for Healing Trauma

In this course, we will learn how to facilitate groups from a trauma-informed perspective. We will explore the nitty-gritty of group work, including how to conduct an intake, how to manage "challenging" group participants, and how to maintain your center and ground when things don't go according to plan. Students will learn how to create a safe and supportive group environment, how to bring a group back into regulation after it becomes activated, and how to structure group, as best as possible, so as to include people from a range of abilities and backgrounds. We will also cover some of the unique challenges that may arise when working with clients who have experienced trauma in a group setting. By the end of this course, you will be better prepared to work with groups in a trauma-informed way and to use group work to help support individuals who may have been impacted by trauma.

  • Creating a Safe Container for Group Work
  • Conducting an Intake for Group
  • Including Every Body: Helping Make All Persons Welcome
  • Titrating Relationship: Creating Openings for Interconnections within the Group
  • Using Resources to Seek and Find Safety
  • When Things Don't Go to Plan: Problem-Solving for Challenging Clients and Difficult Groups
  • Group Work as a Chrysalis of Change
  • When the Group Finds You: Working with Groups in the Aftermath of Community Trauma
  • Using Community to Support Integration and Learning
  • Bringing the Work into the World

OUR FACULTY

Bringing decades of experience, with over 1,000 students trained

PROGRAM DETAILS

OVERVIEW

The program will run from May 21st to August 20, 2024.

All live sessions will be recorded so that students who cannot attend the live sessions can watch or revisit the lesson at their own convenience.

Students are welcome to either attend the live sessions or participate in the certificate program through watching the video recordings.

In order to receive the Trauma Certificate, students must complete 10 practice sessions, as well as a self-evaluation, by October 20, 2024. 

THE CURRICULUM

The program is comprised of four separate, but interlocking courses:

  • Foundations of Relational Trauma Therapy
  • Embodied Relational Skills
  • Trauma-Informed Group Work
  • Healing Relational Trauma

Because this curriculum builds upon itself, these courses cannot be taken individually, but must be taken together as a unit as part of the integrated Relational Skills Trauma Certificate Program.

 

CLASS SCHEDULE

Classes will meet twice a week during the semester (May 21st to August 20, 2024).

All weekly classes are on:
Tuesdays & Thursdays from 1 PM-2:30 PM (Pacific Time)
+ optional after-class 30 minute practice session

Each 90-minute class will be followed by an optional 30 minute practice session for students so that they might develop and practice their skills learned during the class, as well as earn practice session credit towards their Relational Skills Trauma Certificate.

Please view the calendar listed above for an overview of the schedule, with particular attention to your local time zone. 

CLASSROOM FORMAT

COURSE CONTENT: Students may participate in the training either by attending the Live Sessions on Zoom or by watching the Class Recordings which will be housed via the online learning platform, Somatopia.

REFERENCE MATERIALS: The online learning platform at Somatopia will be the repository archive for all information about the course including:

  • Orientation information
  • Student Handbook
  • Detailed class schedule
  • Instructions on how to access the live classes via Zoom
  • Class recordings of live sessions – available within 24 hours of the end of the live event.

STUDENT ORIENTATION

Student orientation will occur on the first day of class, Tuesday, May 21, 2024 at 1 PM (Pacific Time). During this time students will be oriented to the parameters of the class, how to utilize the learning platform, community agreements, and the structure of the certificate program.

A recording will be made available for students who cannot attend live.

HOMEWORK

In order to earn the Core Skills Trauma Certificate, students must complete 10 core skills practice sessions and complete a self-evaluation. These are due by October 20, 2024.

Practice sessions may be completed either with members of the class cohort, or with willing volunteer "practice clients" outside of class.

Students are welcome to schedule the practice times as best fit their (and their practice partner's) individual schedule.

CLOSING CEREMONY

Closing Ceremony will occur on the last day of class, Thursday, August 20, 2024 at 1 PM (Pacific Time).

Students will be given an opportunity to share their experience in community. 

Family, friends, and loved ones are welcome and invited to attend.

CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION

In order to receive the Relational Skills Trauma Certificate, students must:

  • Attend the live sessions and/or watch the recordings
  • Complete 10 practice sessions implementing the Relational Skills techniques
  • Complete a Self-Evaluation

TUITION FEES

Our fees are sliding scale, and we make every effort to keep our trainings affordable for students.

Students may choose from one of the payment options – Full Fee or Payment Plan – which range from $987 in full to a 4-month payment plan option of $257 per month.

ALL ARE WELCOME
Camara Rajabari, LMFT

Associate Faculty

Sue Martin, MA, REAT

Associate Faculty 

Bill Say, MA

Associate Faculty 

Shirley Dvir, LMFT
Associate Faculty 
Sheila Rubin, LMFT, RDT/BCT

Associate Faculty

Pat Ogden, PhD

Associate Faculty

Maryasha Katz, LCSW

Core Faculty 

Michael Clemmens, PhD

Core Faculty 

DR. WONG WAS AN ABSOLUTE JOY TO WATCH...

Dr. Wong was an absolute joy to watch take us through journey of trauma healing. His voice was soothing and a authentic teacher. I’m a Family Physician who is focused on Mental Health in Men and Boy Children. My approach in therapy has always been around CBT and Positive Psychology. Referring my patients for Somatic Therapies. You gave me another technique to help my clients. The phase 3 connection part was beautiful. Somehow I found it connected to CBT. Loved it!!

DR. UNATI MAKIWANE
FAMILY PHYSICIAN 
YOUR HOST

Dr. Albert Wong

 

Former Director of Somatic Psychology 
John F. Kennedy University

 

BLENDING ANCIENT WISDOM 
WITH MODERN SCIENCE

Watch the Info Session
Recorded Live on
May 11th, 2024 

  with Dr. Albert Wong, Program Director

Register to Watch the Info Session  

No Spam.  Ever.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

  • Mental Health Professionals: Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Social Workers, Counselors, Marriage And Family Therapists, Expressive Arts Therapists, Psychiatrists, etc.

  • Coaches: Leadership Trainers, Executive Coaches, Relationship Coaches, Personal Coaches

  • Medical and Alternative Medicine Professionals: Medical Doctors, Nurses And Nurse Practitioners, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Chiropractors, Emergency Medical Workers, Midwives, Acupuncturists, Naturopathic Doctors, etc.

  • Educators: Teachers, Professors, Instructors

  • Wellness Professionals: Massage Therapists and Body Workers, Yoga Therapists, Meditation Teachers, Movement Therapists, etc.

  • Students in a Mental Health or Allied Profession: Trainees, Interns, Associates
  • Anyone interested in learning how to work with trauma from an integrative, holistic perspective 
ALL ARE WELCOME

THIS COURSE WAS UNBELIEVABLE. 

This course was unbelievable. I learned so much. This will be invaluable when working with my clients. I not only use this with my clients It has helped me to understand my own trauma.

LORRAINE ROSSITER
PSYCHOTHERAPIST 

Class Starts: May 21, 2024

 Registration is now closed

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Sign up below to be on a waitlist for the 2025 Relational Skills Trauma Certificate Program. 

I HAVE SUCH HEARTFELT GRATITUDE...

 ...for Dr. Wong and this course. I too like so many have suffered trauma in my life. And working through that trauma has led me to a career field in healing. I'm a structural integrator and I work directly with physical manifestations of trauma on a daily basis and I find this curriculum and what it can bring to my work valuable. I thoroughly enjoyed this course. And I thank you Dr. Wong, for your time and your genuine desire to share this gentle approach with all of us. I truly look forward to learning more from you in the future. Thank you so much. 

REGINA VISCONI
LICENSED MANUAL THERAPIST 

Frequently Asked Questions

Reflections from Former Students

 
 
 

 FACULTY BIOS

Maryasha Katz, LCSW
Core Faculty

Maryasha Katz is a Jewish Queer Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Dancer, and Life Coach. She is a member of the Adjunct Faculty in the Holistic Studies and Graduate Psychology Departments at JFK/National University and Palo Alto University. She has extensive experience working with trauma with a focus on sexual assault and domestic violence. In addition to her private practice, she provides supervision and consultation to other psychotherapists and organizations. Her skills in online course development have put her in high demand during these challenging times. She has also worked as the Counseling Department Supervisor and Sexual Assault Department Manager at Women’s Crisis Support~Defensa de Mujeres, as a Self-Defense Instructor, and as a Trainer.

Michael Clemmens, PhD
Core Faculty

Michael Craig Clemmens, PhD, is a psychologist and trainer in Pittsburgh. He is a lead faculty member of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and teaches at the Metanoia Institute in London and at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He is the author of Getting Beyond Sobriety: Clinical Approaches to Long Term Recovery (1997), Embodied Relational Gestalt: Theory and Applications (2019,) and numerous articles on Gestalt therapy, body process, and addiction. He travels extensively nationally and internationally teaching and offering experiential learning opportunities. He specializes in working with somatic process in clients and restoring "somatic intelligence" for clients who are dealing with historical trauma.

Shirley Dvir
Associate Faculty

Shirley is the founder and lead teacher of Relational Somatic Healing and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. For over 10 years, she taught as a Certified Hakomi Teacher at the Hakomi Institute of California, John F. Kennedy University, California Institute for Integral Studies, and Shiluv Center in Tivon, Israel. She has also supervised associates pursuing MFT licensure and currently mentors licensed practitioners. She has training in psychodynamic work, attachment, EMDR, Sensorimotor Trauma Therapy, the Enneagram, family therapy, CranioSacral Therapy, and Body Mind Centering (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen). Her main work today focuses on healing relational wounds with safe embodied touch. 

Sue Martin, MA, REAT 
Associate Faculty

Sue Martin, MA, REAT, has over 40 years experience working in the field of trauma. In 1977 she cofounded one of the first shelters for battered women in the country and then, Futures Without Violence in 1980. Sue has taught students, professionals and community agencies for many decades. Known for her dynamic and passionate teaching, She served on the faculty of John F. Kennedy University from 2007 to 2020, teaching courses on Working with Trauma and PTSD, the Psychobioimmunology of Stress and Embodied Expressive Movement. Sue has supported hundreds of students to learn to listen to their body’s wisdom and to follow the depth of knowledge discovered therein. She is a proponent of simple practices that support embodying our essential/highest nature. Sue has a private practice in Berkeley, California and is a longtime student of the Diamond Heart School for Spiritual Development, where she is currently in the teacher-training program.

Bill Say, MA
Associate Faculty

Bill Say holds an M.A. in psychology, and certification in Process Work and Core Energetics. He is an adjunct faculty member at the Wright Institute, California Institute of Integral Studies, JFK University and the Process Work Institute. He brings many years of experience to private therapeutic practice, diversity awareness training, conflict resolution and community building, with work in the US, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Bill is Japanese Korean American, cis and male and straight identified, middle-class, spiritually oriented, socially introverted, married to Linda and parent to Gabe. His website is: http://www.billsay.com

Sheila Rubin, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT
Associate Faculty

Sheila Rubin, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT is a leading authority on Healing Shame. She co-created the Healing Shame – Lyon/Rubin Method and has delivered talks, presentations and workshops across the country and around the world, at conferences from Canada to Romania. Sheila has been presenting Healing Shame workshops with her husband, Bret Lyon, for over 10 years; she has been presenting workshops for therapists about working with shame, eating disorders, and child and family trauma for over 25 years. With Bret Lyon, she is the co-author of the upcoming Sounds True book, Healing Shame: How to Work with This Powerful, Mysterious Emotion―and Transform It into an Ally.

 Camara Meri Rajabari, LMFT
Associate Faculty

Camara Meri Rajabari (she/her) is an arts-based, somatic, ancestral psychotherapist, professor, activist practicing and living in the unceded lands of the Chochenyo and Ramaytush Ohlone peoples called Oakland, California. Her private practice specializes in anxiety, depression and intergenerational trauma experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color. She is also trained psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist working offering psychotherapy for clients experiencing complex ptsd. Camara’s approach is person-centered, imaginal and inclusive. Her work focuses on intergenerational trauma, ancestral resiliency and the exploration/liberation of consciousness.

Pat Ogden, PhD
Associate Faculty

Pat Ogden, PhD is a pioneer in somatic psychology, the creator of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy method, and founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.  Dr. Ogden is trained in a wide variety of somatic and psychotherapeutic approaches, and has over 45 years of experience working with individuals and groups.  She is co-founder of the Hakomi Institute, past faculty of Naropa University (1985-2005), a clinician, consultant, and sought after international lecturer. Dr. Ogden is the first author of two groundbreaking books in somatic psychology: Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy  and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (2015) .

Albert Wong, PhD
Core Faculty, Program Director

Dr. Albert Wong is the former Director of Somatic Psychology at John F. Kennedy University and a leading clinician and educator in the field of somatics, healing trauma, and the body-mind connection. He served as residential staff at the Esalen Institute and as Core Faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he taught classes on Somatic Approaches to Trauma, Therapeutic Communication, and Theories and Techniques of Trauma Therapy. He has been featured on PBS, in Time Magazine, and his work has been published in titles ranging from the scientific journal Biological Cybernetics to the book anthology Radical Spirit. He is the founder of Somatopia, an online educational platform that is dedicated to creating an embodied world.

GIVE ME ACCESS TO THE RELATIONAL SKILLS
TRAUMA CERTIFICATE TRAINING
SIGN ME UP NOW

INFORMATION SESSION / MEET THE FACULTY

You are invited! 

We hope that you will take some time to review our program and to attend an Information Session where you can meet our faculty and learn more about our program.

INFO SESSIONS
Saturday, April 6: 10AM-11AM (Pacific Time) 

Saturday, May 11: 1PM - 2 PM (Pacific Time)

MEET THE FACULTY
Saturday, May 18: 10 AM - 11 AM (Pacific Time)

 

CLICK HERE to watch the recording of the Meet the Faculty and prior Info Session

 


If you're not able to attend the session live, we will send you a video recording of the session. :-)

 

Register for Our Free Info Session 

Connect with faculty. Learn about our program. :-)

No Spam. Ever.