Restoring Resilience:
Somatic Healing from Complex Trauma
Includes 5 client demonstration-based training sessions with Peter A. Levine, PhD and Dr. Diane Poole Heller
$297 | SAVE $100!
Course Description
Watch a Preview of the Training
Get a first-hand look at the approach, teaching style, and format you can expect in our on-demand learning sessions.
What’s included in the training?
Here is everything you get for just $297 $197!
Five On-Demand 90-Minute Demonstration-Based Session Recordings + Q&A, featuring client demo debriefs by Peter A. Levine, PhD and Dr. Diane Poole Heller.
Each session includes core teaching, real client demos (with thorough explanations of techniques by Dr. Levine), practice exercises, corrective techniques and additional resources you can apply to your own therapeutic sessions.
- Session 1––Resourcing the Inner Child: Releasing Terror and Grief
- Session 2––Less is More: Using Titrated Breathwork to Reduce Panic Attacks
- Session 3––Increasing Tolerance: Somatic Renegotiation
- Session 4––Using Visualization to Foster a Somatic Connection
- Session 5––Moving from Shutdown to Flow
Includes practice exercises, corrective techniques, and additional resources that reinforce concepts and help you apply somatic skills to therapy sessions.
Client Demos that help new and experienced practitioners become more proficient at applying somatic skills and techniques into therapeutic sessions with clients.
“Put Your Skills Into Practice Exercises:” Hands-on, practical exercises that help practitioners build secure attachment skills for personal and professional growth.
Private Course Portal with Lifetime Access to Course Materials including video recordings, audio, transcripts, demos, and slide handouts and additional resources for each session.
BONUS #1: Video Workshop: Basic Principles of Somatic Experiencing® (SE™)
This 2.5-hour, self-paced video workshop introduces key skills and terminology––including an overview of the human brain and nervous system and insights into the neurophysiology of stress and trauma.
A perfect refresher and resource for new and experienced clinicians looking to revisit core techniques applicable to both your personal and professional life.
BONUS #2: Understanding the Threat Response Infographic, from Dr. Diane Poole Heller
An easy-to-understand visual guide that shows you what happens to our brain and body when you experience trauma. It’s a great tool to use yourself—or share with clients to help them understand the symptoms and triggers of unresolved trauma.
BONUS #3: Trauma Symptoms Checklist + Resilience Checklist, from Dr. Diane Poole Heller
These practical tools help identify common trauma responses and track progress throughout the healing journey. Get insights into how trauma might be affecting you or your clients.
The Trauma Checklist is used to assess a client’s status at the beginning of therapy to set a reference point from which changes or progress can be measured.
Then, the Resilience Checklist gauges progress after therapy—and showcases the benefits of that treatment for health and well-being. You can also use it to streamline report creation and incorporate it into session notes.
Deepen healing, build resilience, and accelerate recovery. Now yours for just $297 $197!
Why take this course?
Learn powerful and effective somatic techniques directly from Dr. Levine…
A significant part of our work involves working with complex trauma—often originating from numerous, severe adverse early childhood experiences such as neglect, abuse, violence, or chronic instability.
Complex trauma is often difficult to address because it shapes an individual’s early development, affecting our perceptions, emotional responses, and ability to cope with stress or adversity.
This often leads to lasting challenges in forming healthy relationships, regulating emotions, and a disrupted sense of basic trust.
In therapy sessions, these deep-rooted issues frequently manifest as somatic symptoms, where emotional pain and trauma are expressed physically rather than verbally….
- Like the client with unexplained physical tension or discomfort… No matter how much they try to relax, they remain visibly stiff or uneasy, which can impede progress in sessions.
- Or the client with recurring headaches, stomachaches, excessive fatigue, or other physical symptoms that don’t have a clear medical cause, which could be linked to the body’s irregular regulation of energy in response to traumatic stress.
- Maybe it’s the client with unexpected emotional outbursts (like crying or anger) with little apparent provocation, which could suggest their body is holding onto emotional trauma.
- Or, in some cases, it’s the client who seems unmotivated and disinterested… where sessions become long silences that make it hard to find a therapeutic connection.
These examples demonstrate how complex trauma can present in diverse and often non-verbal ways. And why it’s so important to use a therapeutic approach that addresses both the mental and physical aspects of trauma.
This training gives you a powerful framework and practical strategies to guide clients in completing developmental tasks compassionately, releasing pain held in their body, and healing the past in the here and now.
What you’ll learn?
In this self-paced, on-demand training, you’ll learn how to…
- Assess when a client is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze response that keeps them from releasing trauma.
- Explore the primary attachment wound—and build a supportive, nurturing bridge between the adult self and the wounded child.
- Tackle both the psychological and physical symptoms of trauma by releasing trauma that’s stored in the body.
- Help clients move beyond “top-down” cognitive processing using “bottom-up” techniques and exercises that connect any emotion, image, behavior, movement or thought to its partner in sensation.
- Build your client’s confidence in tolerating uncomfortable feelings as they move through and dissipate them.
- Integrate clinical somatic tools and techniques with existing modalities to resolve fixated physiological states quickly and effectively.
- Deepen your client’s ability to receive contact in order to strengthen embodiment and presence.
- Transform the wounds of emotional and early developmental trauma into healing, fulfillment and connection.
- Support clients in their healing process, so they can feel a greater sense of connection, safety and bodily ease.
- Teach clients how to listen to the signals of their body (including pain, discomfort or imbalance) to calm the nervous system and access information about the ways they hold traumatic experiences in their body.
Here’s what’s in the training curriculum…
Session 1
Resourcing the Inner Child: Releasing Terror and Grief
In this demonstration session, Dr. Levine works with Jess, who presents with a chronic threat response due to various adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including birth trauma, domestic abuse, and bullying. Now an adult, Jess is learning to use supportive resources for grounding, helping her feel more present and make confident decisions instead of reacting from fear.
Dr. Levine guides us through various somatic techniques and interventions, including orienting exploration for grounding, Ung sound, and Voo sound (with jaw) to demonstrate how to engage sound and touch to release tension and help clients build their capacity and awareness of the body as its discharging sound and energy. He’ll also show you ways to integrate the wounded inner child with the empathetic, protective other.
- Discover how to differentiate and respond to exploratory versus defensive orienting, utilizing spontaneous movements as guides to unfold trauma.
- Learn how to address and manage clients’ trauma responses using relational resources to help them heal from (and process) fear associated with abuse.
- Learn movement, sound, and touch techniques to facilitate the body’s release of trauma energy—while improving their ability to recognize and manage these processes.
- Learn how to integrate and apply practical therapeutic strategies to help clients feel safe and aware of changes in their body.
Session 2
Less is More: Using Titrated Breathwork to Reduce Panic Attacks
During this session, watch as Dr. Levine works with Sammy, who presents with repeated, severe nightly panic attacks that trigger an asthmatic reaction. Her childhood and teen years were marked by a series of sexually abusive and violent events that led to panic attacks, teenage bulimia, drug addiction and multiple suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations. She struggles with multiple medical issues, some due to past drug use and a medical NDE with emergency interventions.
Using smovey rings for mobilization and the Voo sound to support spontaneous breathing, Dr. Levine shows us how to assess the physiology and breathing patterns that lead to panic attacks—and how to gain relief and freedom from constrictive patterns held in the body, chest, and throat.
Additionally, he’ll demonstrate several imagination-based support practices that facilitate an autonomic shift and release trauma energy.
- Learn how to recognize breathing patterns that cause panic attacks, so you can teach clients ways to improve breathing using body awareness.
- Discover how to use sound and rhythmic movement for grounding, safety, and releasing panic-related tension.
- Develop skills to reinterpret experiences positively with helpful strategies that improve awareness and increase feelings of safety in any environment.
- Learn which imaginative and movement-based techniques can help clients navigate changes in their emotional states, focusing on regular practice and step-by-step progress for healing.
Session 3
Increasing Tolerance: Somatic Renegotiation
In this session, Dr. Levine works with Marion, an extremely resilient woman who experienced repeated traumas during her developmental years including domestic violence, collective trauma, and a serious head injury, which now present as “syndromal”—or a group or set of symptoms that consistently occur together—in the form of acute sensitivity to certain foods and odors.
Having recently experienced a mild concussion from a fall and facing challenges with her family regarding her sexual orientation, Marion has sought therapy to gain insights, establish relational safety and emotional regulation, and find relief from pain.
Dr. Levine shows us various somatic exercises and tools, including the Voo Breath (to stimulate relaxation) and the Voo Jaw Rawr—as well as the Peter Cummings Stick to improve a sense of felt connection—to demonstrate how it’s possible to activate memory safely and effectively to work with current physiological responses.
- Learn how to use different sound tools to activate relaxation, create joy through rhythmic movement and a stick tool to deepen the feeling of safety and connection.
- Recognize how the body responds when releasing traumatic energy, so that you can integrate memories of threats and manage that energy effectively.
- Understand more fully how to track physiological responses to reshape past experiences—and support the healing of ruptured boundaries during clinical sessions.
- Learn which imaginative and movement-based techniques can help clients navigate changes in their emotional states, focusing on regular practice and step-by-step progress for healing.
Session 4
Using Visualization to Foster a Somatic Connection
Darius, a chaplain in palliative care at a large hospital, specializes in supporting patients during their transition at the end of life. And while he thrives at his job, he presents with claustrophobia, panic attacks, fear of loss, and challenges due to relational trauma and disorganized attachment.
His past experiences include a variety of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) including failure to thrive as an infant, repeated neglect and abandonment, being adopted into a strict religious family, divorce and racism. At 29, a motorcycle injury broke Darius’ pelvis and collarbone. After a year of recovery, he still has severe back pain—and a recent fall that resulted in bulging/ruptured discs has only exacerbated his extreme panic attacks.
During this session, Dr. Levine shows us how to use Voo Jaw Rawr for Healthy Aggression (which is especially important since anger is often a forbidden emotion for a person of color), as well as pendulation to release constriction in the body, followed by grounding through movement.
- Learn grounding and regulation techniques to create a balance between activation and release. Explore the use of play for connection.
- Discover which breathing methods are used for tension release. Explore healthy aggression to release the stigma associated with expressing anger.
- Gain a deeper understanding of how the body naturally fluctuates between states of tension and relaxation (pendulation)—and use rhythmic physical movements as a grounding method to support the healing process.
- Learn to use visualization to access and release emotions, overcome specific fears (e.g. the fear of flying), and develop more open and secure ways of interacting to reduce defensiveness.
Session 5
Moving from Shutdown to Flow
In this session, Dr. Levine works with Rona, a woman who suffered through an unsupportive environment in childhood—and at the age of 15, suffered a terrible and violent car accident that resulted in the loss of 3 of her peers. Rona presents with freeze, survivor’s guilt, depression and dissociation (especially from the accident).
She is driven to find success in healing and desires more connection with herself and with others; she feels stuck and would like a way to feel safe enough to be in a relationship and move forward with her life.
During this session, see Dr. Levine employ a variety of techniques and tools, including exploratory orienting, allowing tears to speak, the shame posture, smovey rings, affirmations and the “HA” sound—to help Rona feel safe enough to bring the traumatic memory to the surface, explore the ability to hold conflicting emotions, strengthen her resilience, and feel empowered to process the dissociation and move forward without overwhelm.
- Learn somatic techniques to process dissociation from traumatic experiences, and support them as they learn how to reconnect safely to themselves and others.
- Develop skills to help clients who feel numb or indifferent. and guide them from a state of collapse or shame to a more empowered and upright posture.
- Teach clients how to modify negative thought patterns (e.g. survivor’s guilt) and affirm “I’m alive, here, real and I choose life.”
- Learn how to calm our natural response to trauma, manage conflicting emotions, and assist highly traumatized individuals in envisioning a future that is very different from their past traumatic experiences.
Meet Your Instructors
When we do not resolve our traumas, we feel that we have failed or that we have been betrayed by those we chose to help us… the solution to the problem lies in increasing our knowledge about how to heal trauma.
Peter A. Levine, PhD is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma, which he has developed over the past 50 years.
He is the Founder of the Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute/Foundation for Human Enrichment and the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education™.
His work has been taught to over 50,000 therapists in over 45 countries.
Dr. Levine served as a stress consultant for NASA in the early space shuttle development and has served on the American Psychological Association task force for responding to the trauma of large-scale disasters and ethno-political warfare.
He holds doctorates in both Biophysics and Psychology and is the author of several best-selling books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, which is published in over 29 languages––and his new memoir, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey.
He is currently a Senior Fellow and consultant at The Meadows Addiction and Trauma Treatment Center in Wickenburg, Arizona as he continues to teach trauma healing workshops internationally.
As we heal and move toward secure attachment… our nervous system learns to be more regulated. And we open our capacity to love and experience greater compassion for ourselves and others.
Dr. Diane Poole Heller is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and teaching expert in the field of adult attachment theory and trauma resolution.
Her signature approach—DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience)—provides therapists and individuals with relevant skills and practical exercises that facilitate healing from attachment and trauma wounds.
Her work with adult attachment has forged a path for adults with childhood attachment injuries to develop Secure Attachment Skills (SAS) that lead to more connected and fulfilling adult relationships.
She has authored several books, including the widely acclaimed The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships. Her expertise in trauma healing has supported survivors, helpers, and families affected by events such as 9/11, Columbine, and other school shootings.
Through various training programs, books, lectures and her own work as a clinical therapist, Dr. Heller has helped a countless number of people in their healing journey towards experiencing greater intimacy, wholeness and more fulfilling relationships.
She believes that when we heal ourselves first, we heal our families, our communities and the world as a whole.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be a therapist to benefit from this training?
While most people who take this course are both new and experienced practitioners we do sometimes have non-therapists who join us.
Due to the sensitive nature of the material, however, we highly encourage non-therapists who choose to take this course to have therapeutic support in place should the material become activating. Note, the material in this course is not meant as a substitute for therapy.
How long can I access the course materials if I purchase this training today?
You’ll have lifetime access to ALL training materials, including videos, transcripts, worksheets, demos, resources and bonuses too. You may also download, print or save materials at any time to your professional reference library for personal use.
In the interest of privacy, client demo videos are not downloadable.
Are the class sessions live or recorded?
All sessions were recorded live, including the Q&A segments. This reissued training features recordings of all five 90-minute sessions, along with client demonstrations, audio recordings, written transcripts, complementary resources, and exclusive course bonuses.
All of the training is on-demand, so you can learn at your own pace, or revisit sessions more than once.
Are CE credits available for this course?
Continuing Education (CE) credits are not available for this training at this time.
Will taking this course qualify me as SE Trained?
This is a demonstration-based course suitable for both introductory students and those already trained in Somatic Experiencing® (SE).
Throughout the sessions, various common techniques are demonstrated and applied to different situations and cases. Please note that taking this program will not qualify you as ‘SE Trained,’ as it does not replace the 8-module training through Somatic Experiencing®.
However, it will ensure that you are ‘SE Informed.’
I’m having trouble completing the purchase. How can I get support?
If you have additional questions or need technical support, please contact our friendly Customer Support Team for help.
Is there a refund policy?
We’re confident this program will be a valuable investment in your education, personal growth and clinical practice.
Because this is a re-issue of previous of previous training (at a special promotional price) and course materials are downloadable, all sales are final.
If you have further questions, do not hesitate to reach out to our Customer Support Team for help.
What Our Students Say About This Training
I loved this class, I feel it will help me in observing clients subtle body language and as an EFT practitioner I can safely ask about what’s happening.
I do this now but this class gave me better skills. Peter is so amazing to see in action! Thank you both so much.
––Lisa
Deep gratitude for Peter and his exceptional work… and for Diane for her and her work.
This class has been terrific. What a gift for the world!
––Nga M.
The demos were really helpful in putting theory to practice. I have a client who is stuck and this is exactly what I needed to learn.
––Sameera H.
Enjoyed this training so much! I love the case studies and really enjoyed seeing the interactions.
––Brittany P.
This was great! There’s a lot of SE stuff out there and this one was particularly useful. Organized and focused on the work.
Lisa S.
Peter A. Levine, PhD,
Dr. Diane Poole Heller
Get immediate access…
- 5 Recorded, On-Demand Training Sessions
- Real Client Demos with debriefs to identify techniques and show you how to apply the work
- “Put Your Skills Into Practice Exercises”
- Private Course Portal with Lifetime Access to Video Recordings, Audio, Transcripts, and Resources
- PLUS, Exclusive Course Bonuses!
Save $100!
$197
$297 original price
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