Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™: A Certificate for Treating Trauma and Addiction

NOTE: If you took the initial PVI course Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model with Jan Winhall, please contact PVI for a discount on this course.

HARNESSING EMBODIED WISDOM

There’s no denying that there’s a powerful movement in the trauma field towards helping clients to connect with embodied wisdom.

Many trainings emphasize the importance of this connection but do not actually provide the specifics on how to help your clients feel into their bodies.

In order to assist our clients, we need to engage in our own felt sense experiencing. My training offers you a safe and powerful way to explore your own felt sense experience and to bring this process to your clients.

Whether you are a therapist, coach, or bodyworker, my Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™ is a foundational framework that can support any modality.

It will help you to help your clients harness the wisdom of their body as a powerful healing tool.

WHAT IS THE FELT SENSE POLYVAGAL MODEL™?

The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™ helps people transition from being stressed, overwhelmed, or addicted…to becoming more regulated, grounded, and calm in their bodies.

The model integrates Porges’ Polyvagal theory, and Gendlin’s Felt Sense Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy process, enabling us to appreciate trauma/addictive behaviors as adaptive responses to maladaptive environments. It shifts the current pathologizing paradigm to a strength based approach and provides a generic framework that can support any therapeutic modality. Therapists, coaches, bodyworkers are all welcomed here.

THE RISE OF ADDICTIONS AND OTHER TRAUMA RESPONSES: A NEW APPROACH NEEDED

Addictions and other trauma responses are increasing day by day. We desperately need a fresh approach that treats the trauma of addiction where it lives: in the body.

The fields of trauma and addiction have developed separately, and yet when we treat one, we are very often working with the other. The state of addiction is traumatic in and of itself and so, it’s important to work with both! In this workshop we will explore the intersection of trauma and addiction and how to address both with an embodied approach.

PARTNERSHIPS AND A GROWING COMMUNITY OF LIKE-MINDED THERAPISTS

Participants of this course will gain focusing partnerships and become part of a growing supportive community of like-minded therapists who understand the importance of a polyvagal lens in working with clients.

This new certificate course will include 120 minute live zoom classes, once a month. The first 75 minutes of the class will be spent with elaboration of the pre recorded material that students receive each month. This will include examining research in the area of polyvagal theory, experiential therapy, and trauma-informed practice.

In the final 45 minutes of the class you will break into small supportive groups where assistants help you to learn the embodied practices of mindfulness and focusing, so that you will be able to facilitate these processes with your clients in a therapeutic context.

Participants of this course will be assigned into focusing partnerships or 2 or 3 to practice focusing together in their own time. In order to receive the Focusing Proficiency Certificate you must provide documentation of 15 Partner sessions over the nine months. For partnerships of 2, allow at least 50 minutes per session, and at least 70 minutes for partnerships of 3. Each person gets 20 minutes of Focusing and your partner reflects back your felt sense. Those in a partnership of 3 can still focus in partnerships of 2, especially when one of you can’t make it.
In order to create a safe enough container, participants are expected to engage in a private, quiet setting, with their cameras “on”, as we will be working experientially.

Over the nine months duration of this course we will have time to really integrate all the material, get to know each other and form relationships that can endure over a lifetime.

APPLYING THE FELT SENSE POLYVAGAL MODEL™

Participants will be guided in the use of tools for applying the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™ to treat trauma and addiction.

The Felt Sense Polyvagal Dialogue is a tool that integrates Imago therapy with the model. This provides a methodology for working with couples and families that engages them in an embodied approach.

The course also includes a description of the theoretical framework, and an introduction to The Embodied Assessment and Treatment Tool™ (EATT) with in-depth training on how to use it. This tool reflects the experiential nature of a body based psychotherapy.

Instruction will be given on how to apply the model through live demonstrations, experiential exercises in how to teach mindfulness and focusing, and presentations of case examples.

WHAT YOU GET IN THIS COURSE:

– 9 x 120 minute live monthly zoom classes

– 9 hours of on-demand lectures by Jan Winhall

– Recorded conversations between Jan Winhall and Stephen Porges

– Focusing partnership and a supportive community of like-minded therapists

Upon passing a final course quiz, participants will receive:

– Partner Focusing Proficiency Award from the International Focusing Institute

– Certificate of Completion: Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Certificate Program, from the Polyvagal Institute (Level 2)

– 24 APA Approved CE’s

– Opportunity to continue further on your journey in our supportive community from here to Levels 3 and 4 coming soon!

DATES

Live Zoom sessions will be held on monthly on Thursdays from 12:00pm to 2:00pm ET (US & Canada) for 9 months.

ATTENDANCE

While specific course policies may vary, we typically allow one absence for a live or hybrid course and require watching the recording and sometimes submitting a reflection for the missed session. If a participant is absent for more than the permissible number of live sessions, they may not be eligible for a certificate.

PRE-COURSE READING

Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, by Jan Winhall, Routledge, 2021.

International Body Psychotherapy Journal Vol. 21, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2022:
Revolutionizing Addiction Treatment with The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™ by Jan Winhall and Stephen W. Porges.

Gendlin, E. T. Focusing. (1978/1981). New York: Bantamdell.

ADDITIONAL INFO

Students will have access to the course for 300 days from the registration date.