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Full Course Description

Somatic Addiction Treatment Certification: Treat Trauma and Addiction with Polyvagal, Parts Work, Gestalt and More Embodied Approaches

For too long, talk therapy has overlooked a critical factor in addiction treatment - trauma stored in the body.

As a therapist, you’re not just treating “bad” habits – you’re helping clients break free from the patterns their bodies won’t let go of.

That’s where this Certification in Somatic Addiction treatment comes in.

By blending Somatic Therapy, Gestalt, Parts Work, Polyvagal and more, this training equips you to address addiction at its root, help clients regulate the nervous system, reconnect in the present moment, and finally move beyond addiction.

You’ll join Rafeal Cortina, LMFT, a Master Addictions counselor, Certified in both Trauma and Gestalt Therapy with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Therapists rave about his insightful and practical teaching style. In this training, you’ll learn how to:

Use somatic techniques to release trauma stored in the body
Apply Gestalt approaches to bring hidden emotions that drive addiction into awareness
Work with parts and inner conflicts to resolve deep-seated wounds that underlying addiction
Move clients from intellectual insight to behavior change
Create a powerful, integrative approach to change that teaches clients skills they can return to again and again,

Become a Certified Addictions Mental Health Professional who delivers breakthroughs when nothing else has worked…

Start using somatic and embodied approaches now to transform addiction and trauma recovery - because lasting change can’t wait.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Explore how addiction serves as an adaptive response to unresolved trauma, with reference to the limitations of traditional models (e.g., DSM) in addressing addiction.
  2. Apply Gestalt principles to addiction and trauma recovery, focusing on relational healing.
  3. Practice body-based interventions, including breathwork, movement, somatic tracking, and Gestalt techniques to support trauma processing and recovery.
  4. Explain the role of varied brain structures, neuroplasticity and polyvagal theory in recovery.
  5. Identify how compulsive behavior can function as creative adjustment and the impact on adult behavior and relationships.
  6. Create a safe, co-regulated therapeutic space that fosters vulnerability, meaningful contact, and compassion in recovery.
  7. Explain how to help clients access emotional states through body awareness.
  8. Practice meaningful witnessing, validating client experiences, and fostering relational healing for addiction and trauma treatment.
  9. Combine cognitive restructuring with somatic interventions to treat addiction and trauma while regulating the nervous system.
  10. Identify strategies for relapse prevention and maintaining long-term recovery, including fostering purpose and relational support.
  11. Explain the implementation of the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma Therapy as it applies to addiction treatment.
  12. Identify the ethical considerations, family involvement, and role of group therapy in embodied trauma and addiction recovery.

Outline

Part One: An Embodied Understanding of Addiction & Trauma

A Compassionate & Relational Approach to Addiction

  • How Gabor Mate’s work informs our practice
  • A relational understanding of human needs
  • The role of the therapist to…
    • Create a ‘safe enough’ space
    • Value vulnerability
    • Create Meaningful Contact
  • Addiction beyond substances

A “Functional” Understanding of Addiction

  • The medical model falls short & limitations of DSM-V-TR™
  • Gabor Mate’s definition applied
  • Hope as “embodied knowledge”
  • Shifting focus from behavior to emotional needs

The Role of Treating Trauma in Addiction Treatment

  • Trauma as an emotional and somatic imprint
  • Adaptation and survival through disconnect
  • Neuroscience of trauma, impact on the brain
  • Polyvagal theory: Understanding the nervous system in trauma
  • Trauma in adult experience
  • Trauma, addiction, and other co-occurring disorders

Essentials of Addiction Treatment

  • Neurobiology of addiction
  • Biopsychosocial aspects of substance use disorders: Nature vs Nurture
  • Substances & classifications
  • Behavioral/process addictions
  • Levels of treatment/inpatient/out/intensive
  • Behavioral Treatment
  • Medication Assisted Treatment
  • Incorporating the Harm Reduction Model

Part Two: A Relational Approach to Body-Based Assessment & Treatment Planning

Embodied Assessment: Somatic Awareness, Regulation & Stabilization Techniques

  • Mindfully assessing addiction history, screening tools, and intake questions
  • Making a diagnosis based on levels of use, biological and physiologic markers
  • Establishing a relational approach in the early stages of therapy
  • Sensitively exploring the story and trauma markers
  • The importance of safety and support in early recovery

Part Three: An Embodied Framework for Healing: Integrative Techniques from

Somatic, Polyvagal, Parts Work, & Gestalt Approaches Somatic & Body-Based Interventions

  • Somatic tracking and body awareness techniques
  • Movement and breathwork interventions
  • Body-based mindfulness and grounding exercises
  • Yoga and movement therapy for addiction recovery
  • Resourcing the body for emotional resilience
  • Polyvagal strategies for nervous system regulation and stabilization

Parts Works Interventions

  • Experiential skill building
  • Body contact and awareness exercises
  • Making space experiment
  • Developing self-functions for resilience
  • Trauma work: Undoing, redoing, and mourning
  • Reprocessing and recontextualization of trauma
  • Transforming and transcending trauma narratives

Compassionate/Relational Gestalt Trauma Model

  • Tri-phasic model of trauma treatment
  • Trauma work vs. Trauma processing
  • Exploring how trauma shapes relational fields
  • The role of compassion in holding trauma
  • The relational Gestalt framework for trauma recovery
  • Witnessing and validating
  • Supporting Ambivalence
  • The art of working with what is in front of you
  • Therapist's self-awareness and maintaining attunement
  • Addressing the client’s fears of facing trauma and letting go of addictive behaviors

Special Issues in Embodied Addiction Treatment

  • Ethical and legal considerations
  • The role of group therapy, support groups, and 12-step groups
  • Substance use among children and adolescents, prevention and treatment
  • Special Populations include LGBTQ clients and those in the Criminal Justice System

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychologists
  • Case Managers
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Therapists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Psych Nurses
  • Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 01/07/2025

Polyvagal for Addiction & Trauma Treatment: A 6-Step Framework for Lasting Recovery

Addiction isn’t just about behaviors, it’s the nervous system’s call for survival.

As a clinician, you know it doesn’t come down to willpower or “bad” choices.

It’s trauma, chronic stress, and a nervous system stuck in overdrive…

…leaving clients trapped in survival states of fight, flight, or freeze – bringing therapy to a halt.

That’s where Polyvagal Theory comes in – it’s the missing link to helping clients break through these barriers by addressing what lies beneath.

In this training with Jan Winhall, celebrated psychotherapist, author and prominent Polyvagal Theory expert, you will learn to help facilitate clients finding safety, connection and co-regulation. Through case studies, demonstrations and insightful commentary you’ll takeaway concrete skills to:

  • Find hidden pathways to safety and connection and put to rest ideas about “willpower”
  • Promote recovery with tailored interventions to help clients shift from nervous system arousal to more regulated states
  • Use “body cards” with clients to help pinpoint emotions trapped in the body and target the root causes of addiction and trauma
  • Do meaningful assessments with the Embodied Assessment & Treatment Tool™ that sensitively explores attachment and trauma history

Plus, you’ll develop an integrated perspective on how harm reduction and polyvagal strategies can work together.

With the right tools, you can become the expert clients need to navigate recovery from both addiction and trauma.

Discover how harnessing Polyvagal Theory can transform addiction treatment and foster lasting recovery through connection.

Register now!

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Name the seven autonomic nervous system states in the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model.
  2. Describe the Trauma Feedback Loop.
  3. Describe the ‘plastic paradox' in Lewis learning model of addiction.
  4. Explain the Four Circle Harm Reduction Practice.
  5. Name the five lessons in polyvagal theory.
  6. Explain addiction from a polyvagal perspective.
  7. Describe the paradigm shift from a pathologizing lens to a strength based lens.

Outline

The Shift from Addiction Pathology to Strengths-Based Healing

  • Pros and cons of DSM-TR-V™
  • Limitations of the Brain Disease Model
  • Addiction as ‘adaptive coping’ Inspiration from the early days of feminist therapy
  • Connecting the interpersonal with neurobiology

The “Plastic Paradox” of Addiction

  • Neuroplasticity and the changing brain
  • Brain regions relevant to addiction treatment
  • The “plastic paradox” of addiction
  • A new lens: addiction as a neurophysiological survival state

Getting Started with Polyvagal Therapy

  • 5 lessons of Polyvagal Theory
  • Porges’ Polyvagal Model and updates to the traditional ANS model
  • Honoring the mind-body connection through interoception
  • Neuroception and the 7 F’s Graphic Model
  • Simple language to use with clients
  • Co-regulation is the “cure”
  • Teaching interoception
    • Skill building: Using body cards with “Blended States”

Polyvagal-Informed Six Steps of Focusing

  • What is a Felt Sense? Integrating thoughts, feelings, memories and physical sensations
  • Using The Experiencing Scale
  • Guide to the structure of focusing dynamics in session
  • Tuning into the Felt Shift: the motor of change
    • Experiential practice with six steps of Focusing

The Intersection of Polyvagal, Trauma & Addiction

  • “I’m a trauma therapist, I don’t work with addiction”
  • The intimate connection between trauma and addiction
  • Clients living in dorsal and sympathetic states
  • “Triggers are our friends”
  • The role of attachment styles in addiction history
  • Experiential Exercise in Early Attachment Styles
  • Dan Siegel’s interpersonal neurobiology & the 9 domains of integration

Treating Addiction with the Felt-Sense Polyvagal Model (FSPM)

  • 5 foundational theories supporting the Felt-Sense Polyvagal Model
  • 4 core FSPM concepts
  • Skill Building:
    1. Neuroception: Teach clients to recognize and rewire nervous system states with 7 F’s 
    2. Interoception: Create emotional regulation with the 6 Steps of Focusing
  • Practice makes presence: The Felt Sense Ground Practice
  • FSPM Harm Reduction Practice: 4 Circles Method
    • Demonstration: FULL demonstration of the 4 Circle Harm Reduction Method

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychologists
  • Case Managers
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Therapists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Psych Nurses
  • Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 12/17/2024

On Being a Healer in a Traumatized World

Dr. Maté dives into a deeper conversation around the special role of therapists in the healing of trauma and addictions. Discover the essential tools and qualities of a clinician that go beyond techniques to the root causes of suffering, to connecting to your in-the-present self that allows you to become a deeply wise and effective clinician.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Evaluate the current state of trauma and addictions treatment in the field of psychotherapy and medical fields
  2. Assess the value of the “self of the therapist” in the treatment of trauma and addictions
  3. Develop three ways in which clinicians can more effectively approach the treatment of trauma and addictions by utilizing their own abilities to be present

Outline

Current State of Trauma and Addictions Treatment

  • Current psychotherapy and medical practices
  • Successes, challenges, and areas for improvement

Essential Role of the Therapist

  • Beyond techniques: addressing root causes of suffering
  • Importance of being present and connected with clients

Value of the "Self of the Therapist"

  • Self-awareness and reflection
  • Emotional regulation and empathy
  • Authenticity and vulnerability

Effective Approaches for Clinicians

  • Enhancing presence
  • Deep listening
  • Integrative therapeutic methods

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Social Workers
  • Physicians
  • Psychologists
  • Addiction Counselors

Copyright : 10/05/2024