Working with the Brain, Body and Trauma
in the Therapeutic Relationship
with Michael J. Shea, PhD
June 11-12, 2015 | Thursday-Friday, 9:30am-5:30pm | 14 CE contact hours | $295
NOTE: This seminar is open to licensed massage and bodywork therapists, educators, mental health professionals and other health care professionals.
The therapeutic relationship is a two-person biology. It means that when we are in relationship with another person, our brains, our hearts and bodies begin to merge in order to sense and feel the other person. We build perceptions of our world and behave towards other people through these complex and often unconscious physiological processes that are constantly occurring. When our perception becomes distorted due to trauma, the felt sense of wholeness is lost.
This seminar applies all-new research from the fields of interpersonal neurobiology and the social nervous system for all practitioners working in the healthcare field and especially massage therapists. Educators will also benefit from the translation of this material into the classroom learning environment. Skills of heart awareness and the embodiment of mind, body and emotion will be taught.
We will explore two fundamental questions through lecture, demonstration, exercises and table work:
• How do our brains and bodies connect with one another to establish empathy?
• How do we develop safety, which is the key to the therapeutic relationship?
Participants will learn specific empathetic skills of attunement and resonance which repairs damaged neurological pathways due to trauma. Defensive physiology resulting from a lack of safety can be recognized and begin to be resolved with the practices that will be taught in class. This builds resilience by slowing down consciously so the brain and body can synchronize and the felt sense of wholeness recovered. Skills that build resilience will fit into any therapeutic modality as well as everyday life.
This seminar meets the ethics education requirement for license renewals with the NC Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy, as well as recertification with NCBTMB.
Michael J. Shea is one of the preeminent educators and authors in the fields of somatic psychology, myofascial release and craniosacral therapy. He presents seminars throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. He received his master’s degree in Buddhist Psychology at Naropa University, and a doctorate in Somatic Psychology at The Union Institute. Dr. Shea was certified in 1986 as one of the first Full Instructors of CranioSacral Therapy by the Upledger Institute and was an advanced Rolfer for 20 years. He is currently adjunct faculty and teaches human embryology in the pre and perinatal psychology doctoral programs at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute in California.
As a formal student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his teaching style is grounded in his spiritual practice of developing compassion with the use of manual therapy. For many years he has also apprenticed with a medicine man on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. From these traditions, he brings a unique cross-cultural perspective to teaching health and healing. Because of the influence of the Dalai Lama, his clinical focus is on treating infants and children with neurological problems and developmental delays. This also includes teaching clinical skills for adults that carry pre and perinatal trauma.
Dr. Shea is the author of a number of books, including Somatic Psychology and the five Volumes of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. He has been a Florida Licensed Massage Therapist since 1976. He is a founding member of the International Affiliation of Biodynamic Trainings and served on the Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge task force (MTBOK). He makes his home in South Florida with his wife, Cathy. You can get more information about Dr. Shea’s work from his website, www.michaelsheateaching.com.
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