Somatic accompaniment + support

I work with organizational and community leaders who are looking for support, somatic exploration and change. Email sage@embodiedliberation.com to inquire.

SE Individual Case Consultations

SE Consultation is an integrative aspect of SE training.  The intention of a case consultation is to enhance and deepen your understanding and application of SE. Credit provided at all levels and signed form will be sent after consultation. Consultations are 1 hour at $130.

You can book here.

Small Group Case Consultations MENTORING

Group Case Consultations for groups of 6-8 SE students looking to deepen SE practice together.

  • If your group is interested in scheduling, please reach out to sage@embodiedliberation.com with best days/times.

  • 1 1/2 hour group consultation = .5 small group consultation credit, 3 hours = 1 consult credit for SE students at all levels

GROUP PARTICIPANTS SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE:

“Your steady presence and ability to join with each participant and the group as a whole. Ability to respond to the questions submitted ahead of time as well as the organic flow of the conversations. Super helpful coaching around ways to integrate SE effectively in social justice and group work contexts.”

“I liked how you made a point to make the information practical, easy to apply clinically. Also, it was a good combination of staying on point but allowing for some interesting tangents.”

“Your depth of experience, and the way you create a really safe space for beginners to explore SE skills - learning from others' experiences.”

Consultation focus areas are:

Sage Hayes, SEP, LMT
SE Assisting Team 2016, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

SE Assisting Team 2016, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

  • SE Basics - theory, tools and techniques

  • Embodied presence

  • Developmental trauma

  • Integration of bodywork and SE

  • Deepening therapeutic touch work

  • Creating conditions for transformation

  • Relational rhythm and coherence

  • Social justice dynamics

  • LGBTQ+

  • Adoption

Integrating SE Theory and principles at consultations

SE Consultation is an integrative aspect of your SE training.  The intention of a case consultation is to enhance and deepen your understanding and application of SE.

It will allow time for you to ask personalized questions as well as help you integrate SE work into your specific practice.  Together, we will focus on areas most helpful for your SE learning.   

Each consultation will start with a round of introductions of attendees, your primary practice, application of SE and any specific questions you are bringing to the consult.

You will then be invited to share a brief (and confidential) description of your client and their background (around 5-10 minutes depending on the complexity of their history and presentation).  We will then explore aspects of the case and dive deeper into assessment about what is working and where different aspects of SE application might be applied. 

We will have time for 1 case to be presented and also diving into various SE topics

Beginning year topics:

  • The physiological basis of trauma and identify how maladaptive physiological responses to threat, and their lack of resolution, may contribute to the formation of PTSD symptoms.

  • Tracking sensory and sensory-motor experience in clients and convert other elements of experience into sensory and sensory-motor experience.

  • Working through disorganized sensory and sensory-motor experience using the concepts of orientation, stabilization, containment, resourcing, titration, pendulation, and self-regulation to discharge un-discharged arousal in order to help organism return to homeostasis.

  • Identifying adaptive and maladaptive physiology of activation and deactivation in animals and human beings exposed to threat and its aftermath, such as incomplete orienting and defensive responses of fight, flight, and freeze.

  • Working with language that supports the tracking of sensation.

  • Understanding the function of the threat response cycle including: the preparatory and defensive orienting responses; the startle response, the protective/defensive survival responses, and the exploratory orienting response.

  • Identifying the function of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) in the threat response cycle.

  • Identifying symptoms of, evaluate, and restore ruptured boundaries.

  • Proficiency at tracking skills, titration of client's arousal levels, and establishing continuity through the felt sense.

  • The ability to empower clients to establish, complete and discharge defensive orienting responses, and fight, flight and freeze protective survival responses.

  • Understanding of, and skills in working with, the elements of internal experience as presented in SIBAM model: Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect and Meaning.

  • Basic knowledge and skills in working with coupling dynamics (under- and over-coupling). Begin to understand how coupling dynamics can relate to the elements of SIBAM.

  • Distinguishing between joining and merging with client experience. Identify the signs of merging and demonstrate the establishment of healthy joining/attunement with client.

  • Identifying different types of touch common in Somatic Experiencing® sessions.

  • Facilitating the re-regulation of the ANS by restoring gentle cycles of sympathetic and parasympathetic interplay.

  • Expanding a client’s tolerance of their bodily sensations; begin to uncouple the fear response to the traumatic event.

Intermediate topics:

  • Identify the hallmarks and common symptoms of a nervous system displaying Global High Intensity Activation (GHIA). 

  • Identify the key defensive impulses, symptoms and typical coping mechanisms of pre-and peri-natal trauma.

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, High Impact Accidents/Failure of Physical Defense (motor vehicle accidents, falls, etc).

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with inescapable attack (animal attack, rape, sexual abuse, escape inhibited).

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, High Impact Accidents/Failure of Physical Defense (motor vehicle accidents, falls, etc).

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, rape and sexual abuse.  

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, physical injury including: surgery, poisoning, and burns.

  • Demonstrate understanding of and skills in working with anesthesia trauma.

  • Identify ways to help prepare children and adults for surgery to minimize trauma.

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, Natural Disasters i.e. earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, floods, social dislocation from the natural world and community.

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, Horror i.e. seeing an accident (especially with blood, gore); watching someone else be abused, raped, killed or tortured; killing or hurting someone yourself.

  • Demonstrate how to work with survivor guilt and the conflicting impulses toward personal survival and helping others.

  • Demonstrate understanding of, and skills in working with, Torture and Ritual Abuse i.e. war torture, repeated rape in war, concentration camp, and systematic abuse (sometimes with the person drugged).

  • Identify the dynamics of symptom formation in, and demonstrate how to work with clients displaying symptoms of, emotional and/or developmental trauma.

Advanced topics:

  • SE™ concepts of coherence and containment and their importance in working with syndromal patterns.

  • Coherence

  • The role of the three key systems in the Polyvagal Theory: Dorsal Vagal System (DV), Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), Ventral Vagal System (VV).

  • Characteristics of the dysfunction found in the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) as per the SE™ definition of syndromes.

  • How titration is critical in working with SE™ syndromes.

  • Application of the Energy Wells model of working with syndromes

  • The ability to apply titrated stimulations to ANS responses within the category of SE™ defined as syndromes.

  • Ability to track coherence via touch

  • SE™ model of working with joints

  • Identify at least 3 of the body diaphragms

  • SE™ model of working with diaphragms as containers of affect

  • Order of focus for touch work as used in the SE™ model, and identify clinical reasons that the usual order may be varied in particular situations.

  • Visceral work allows direct intervention with the dorsal vagal system and its feedback loop.

  • Ethical standards for the use of touch which are applicable to each trainee’s scope of practice, depending on type of professional licensure and training.