How to Embrace Somatic Wisdom

Daniel Leven

Too often our focus as therapists is on our client’s verbal narrative. What happened? Where? When? We tend to neglect another powerful storyteller: the client’s body. In fact, the body records our emotional experience as adeptly as our mind. Our viscera, muscles, and nervous systems record trauma, which expresses itself in the form of chronic tension, physical imbalance, depression, anxiety, and disease processes. This workshop will focus on how to help clients express their somatic experience in ways that go beyond traditional talk therapy. You’ll explore:

• How to incorporate body scans and body checks into your approach
• Right-brain exercises that access body feelings and emotions
• How to stay in your own body as you invite your clients to embrace the wisdom of their somatic experience more fully

Daniel Leven, MPC, RSMT, is founder and director of the Leven Institute for Expressive Movement and a faculty member at the Hartford Family Institute’s professional training program in In-Depth Body Psychotherapy.