Generative Somatics 2012: Somatics & Trauma Seattle!

See below for the 2012 programming announcement from generative somatics. We are excited to announce that the full Somatics and Trauma Course will be held in Seattle this year, starting in May. See below for more info. This is the first time that the full course will be held outside of the Bay Area!

Our work at The Capacity Project has been building toward bringing this course here, and we're so excited that our communities will get this access.

We've attached the application. The application process for this course will be run by generative somatics and all applications should be returned to them directly at info@somaticsandtrauma.org. The application deadline is March 16th. 

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Our Mission and Vision
The mission of generative somatics is to grow a transformative social and environmental justice movement.  One that integrates personal and social transformation, creates compelling alternatives and  embodies the creativity, rigor and life affirming actions we need to forward systemic change.  We envision a movement guided by cultivated wisdom and clear action.  We are committed to bringing transformation to the center of how we create lasting, systemic change.

Launching our new website!
You can find us at our new website as of January 15 at www.generativesomatics.org.  You'll find course descriptions, gs papers and theory, movement partners and more.

Somatics & Trauma Course 2012: Politicized Healers and Practitioners
SF/Bay Area and Seattle Courses
This year-long training will support participants in learning to transform trauma through the body with somatic awareness and embodiment processes, somatic skills building and specialized somatic bodywork. Both the historical roots of this work as well as its modern grounding in neuroscience will be included in the course of study. Individual experiences of trauma are inseparable from the social context in which trauma occurs. Participants will learn to work effectively to address the impact of both personal and social trauma, creating change, healing, and the ability to take new actions in oneself and with clients.

The S&T training is designed for practitioners who are committed to addressing the intersections of personal and social trauma and the role of healing in broader social change work. We also want to support practitioners who are committed to offering access and healing to communities facing both individual trauma and institutional oppression. Licensed mental health practitioners, community-based healers, therapists, coaches, and community organizers on a healing path will benefit from this course. (Full description below)

2012 Dates: Please note some sessions are Friday thru Sunday, some Thursday thru Sunday.

 SF/Bay Area
April 27-29
June 7-10
July 27-29
September 27–30
November 2-4

Seattle
May 18-20
July 5-8
August 17-19
September 27-30
November 9-11 

Applications can be found at www.generativesomatics.org as of Jan. 15, 2012. If you want an application now please email info@somaticsandtrauma.org.

Somatics & Social Justice Intensives
Stand alone, 4 day Intensives
Transformative process and practice is moving rapidly into the social justice movement. generative somatics is committed to spreading somatics well and leveraging its full power toward systemic change and liberation. Our Somatics & Social Justice (SSJ) work is geared towards organizers, activists, and movement builders who want to get exposed to transformative work, focus on their own change and leadership development, and explore what somatics has to offer to the social justice movement in terms of strategy, vision, building power, and sustainable transformation. We will run multiple four-day SSJ Intensives throughout 2012. Intensives offer a taste of somatic practice, somatic awareness and the intersection of personal and systemic transformation. They take “transformation” from a good idea to a felt and lived experience that can deeply inform our social and environmental justice work, and offers a first step on a somatic path.

Check our website for dates, locations and applications.

gs Teacher Training
This is a multi-year cadre of social justice trainers and organizers who are committed to integrating a politicized somatic theory and practice into their organizing and movement building, and simultaneously working deeply on their own development.  This is an invitation only process and most participants have completed 2 years of gs somatic training.  Feel free to connect with us for more information.
“Being a part of gs Teacher Training has fundamentally shifted how I think about and approach the social change work and organizing I am a part of.  It gave me incredible, truly life changing skills to heal and transform myself, personally.  But it did not stop there.  It then showed me the deep connections between how I grow and change, heal and transform, and how the communities and organizations I am a part of can and will.  I have been an organizer for more than 15 years and have seen many trends and new ideas come and go.  Somatics as taught by gs is not a trend -- it is a deeply thoughtful, studied, proven methodology that will have a profound impact on the social movements of this country.”
Xochitl Bervera, Program Coordinator, Social Justice Leadership
 
Movement Partnerships
This year we will be partnering with a number of powerful movement projects.  In partnership with the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and Social Justice Leadership (sjl), we have embarked on supporting and developing over 80 national workers leaders in transformative organizing and gs somatics.  We are focusing on embodied leadership development, base building and transformative organizing skills, work with trauma and healing and more.  Check out www.generativesomatics.org for more. 

Somatics and Trauma: Politicized Healers and Practitioners (detail)
In 2012, generative somatic’s Somatics and Trauma training will support you in learning to transform trauma through the body with somatic awareness and embodiment processes, somatic skills building and specialized somatic bodywork. Both the historical roots of this work as well as its modern grounding in neuroscience will be included in the course of study. Individual experiences of trauma are inseparable from the social context in which trauma occurs. You will learn to work effectively to address the impact of both personal and social trauma, creating change, healing, and the ability to take new actions in yourself and those you work with.

The mind and body are as inseparable in people’s experiences as the social context in which we live. The Somatics and Trauma training integrates this understanding in the work. The course will enhance your ability to work with multiple forms of trauma and the impact on an individual’s mind and body (or psycho-biology), relationships and actions. Somatics and Trauma explores how trauma “shapes” us, from our identity and reactions, to our worldview; and how we “re-shape” ourselves by working through the body, de-armoring, supporting resilience, and developing new practices.

From the Somatics and Trauma orientation, the aim of healing is to create more choice, more well being and the ability to take more powerful and effective action in our lives and in the world. We don’t see healing as separate from our participation in our communities, the world, and social change, but rather as an essential part of it. Somatic healing and practices support flexibility and boundaries, deepen resilience, increase trust and connection, and inspire meaningful action toward justice in our
own lives and our broader world.

The 2012 training is designed for practitioners who are committed to addressing the intersections of personal and social trauma and the role of healing in broader social change work. We also want to support practitioners who are committed to offering access and healing to communities facing both individual trauma and institutional oppression. Licensed mental health practitioners, community-based healers, therapists and coaches will benefit from this course. It is important for participants to have an awareness and understanding of systemic oppression and a commitment toward social, racial, and environmental justice.

“Finally, an approach to healing which gets to the multiple sources of and impact of violence. Somatics and Trauma has the power to identify the deep, intimate spaces where personal and political experiences have shaped our bodies, minds and spirits. More importantly, it offers us a pathway towards new liberatory ways of experiencing and changing our lives.”
                    -- Mimi Kim, Creative Interventions

Course Details
•  The training will consist of five, 3-4 day intensive sessions, each building upon the last. Participants are expected to attend all sessions.
•  There will be a course in the SF/Bay Area and Seattle in 2012.
•  The course will be taught though presentation, modeling somatic interventions and processes, experiential exercises and ongoing somatic practices. As a participant, you will learn theory, practice somatic interventions, receive ongoing feedback, and engage in your own healing process.
•  Between sessions we ask you to commit to daily somatic practices, reading, writing and partner discussions.
•  You will have access to a practice circle with your peers to debrief your work and deepen your own practices.
•  Senior students (usually second year students) will be partnered with a community-based organization during the course where staff and/or constituents will serve as practice clients. By working 1:1 with a practice client you get the opportunity to apply the skills you are learning and social justice organizations get access to support and exposure to somatic work. Participant organizations include local groups that serve youth, survivors of sexual and domestic violence, people with HIV/AIDS, and those working for social change in environmental, racial justice and violence prevention work. The practice client sessions are guided by session outlines and goals.

Learning Goals
• Learn to recognize and work with symptoms of trauma including dissociation, numbing, hyper vigilance, lack of boundaries, control, physiological “armoring”, as intelligent
responses to trauma.
• Learn somatic processes for redeveloping safety, protection and alliance.
• Learn the somatic processes of releasing how the body holds trauma, and processing the emotional and traumatic response.
• Integrate specialized somatic touch as an essential aspect of healing from trauma.
• Develop a somatic understanding of the overall process of recovery from trauma and the ability to guide another through the process.
• Learn the somatic processes of relearning connection, boundaries, mutuality, empowerment, contradiction, intimacy and being present in the unknown.
• Develop a somatic understanding of the impact of trauma including both personal trauma as well as traumas caused by social oppression.
• Develop an understanding of the individual and social context of trauma and its relevance to the healing process.
• Learn to look at yourself and others from a somatic vantage point. This will offer new interpretations of people’s behavior, of the change process and create different opportunities for transformation.
• Develop your capacity to be present amidst deep emotion and transformation.
• Discover and support the resilience in your client and yourself.
• Work with your own history of trauma, if that is your experience, and develop it as a resource in your own work.
• Learn to take care of and resource yourself as a practitioner who interacts with personal and social trauma intimately.

generative somatics S&T goals
• Develop trained somatic practitioners with the skills and understanding of a somatic change process, healing individual and social trauma, and the importance of both personal and social change.
• Form a cadre of expert somatic practitioners that are able to work in diverse, community- based settings and within the social and environmental justice movements.
• Increase the reach of somatics in the mental health field and serve clients in more holistic and effective ways.
• Bring innovative somatic healing work to diverse communities, communities without access, and people and organizations that are committed to social and environmental justice work. Build community-based organizational capacity to heal.

About the Teachers
The 2012 Somatics and Trauma: Practitioners Training will be taught by Liu Hoi Man, Elizabeth Ross, Vassilisa Johri, Lisa Thomas-Adeyamo, and Jennifer Ianniello.  Nathan Shara and Briana Herman-Brand have been laying the groundwork in Seattle, and we are happy that they will be assisting in the Seattle S&T course.

The training is a course of study designed by Staci K. Haines, a national leader in the field of Somatics, specializing in healing trauma and applying somatics to movement building. Her work emerges from the Somatics tradition of Richard Strozzi-Heckler and Strozzi Institute, integrating Polarity Therapy, Gestalt, meditation and Aikido. Staci also includes extensive study in personal and social change, trauma and recovery and Neuro-Linguistic Programming in the course work. Staci is the founder of generationFIVE, an organization whose mission is to end child sexual abuse within five generations.

Course Cost
$3450 first year students
$2950 senior students
• Scholarships and work trades are available.
• Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) are available through the Board of Behavioral Sciences.
Donations to the gs Solidarity Fund accepted.

2012 Training Session Dates: Please note some sessions are Friday thru Sunday, some Thursday thru Sunday.

SF/Bay Area:
April 27-29
June 7-10
July 27-29
September 27–30
November 2-4

Seattle:
May 18-20
July 5-8
August 17-19
September 27-30
November 9-11

All sessions meet from 9am–5pm.

Applications can be found at www.generativesomatics.org as of Jan. 15, 2012.
For an S&T application before January 15, or if you have any questions, please contact us at info@somaticsandtrauma.org.
Thank you!  We hope to see you in 2012!