Active Pause

Dr. Sharon Stanley has educated thousands of psychotherapists in Canada, the USA and Israel in the principles and practices of somatic psychotherapy.  Sharon has served on graduate level faculties including the University of Victoria and the Foundation for Human Enrichment, developing curriculum and teaching mental health professionals.  Building on her doctoral research on empathy with traumatized youth, Sharon founded Somatic Transformation, a trauma model and educational curriculum guiding practitioners in treating physiological, psychological and spiritual dynamics of relational trauma. Sharon’s work with indigenous people, the study of Afro-Brazilian healing practices and  phenomenological research has led to a convergence of neuroscience, somatic therapy and cross cultural wisdom to heal “soul wounds”.   Sharon has a private clinical practice on Bainbridge Island, Washington. See: Somatic-Transformation.org.

February 2011. See: Printable PDF transcript

Greg Johanson, Ph.D. has a background in therapy as well as theology.  He is a member of both the American Psychological Association and American Association of Pastoral Counselors.  In the field of somatic psychotherapy he is a Founding Trainer of the Hakomi Institute and editor of the Hakomi Forum.  He has served on the Board of Directors of the USABP for many years, and on the editorial board of the Journal of the USABP.  Greg has been active in writing, publishing over 150 items in the field of pastoral theology and psychotherapy, including (with Ron Kurtz) Grace Unfolding:  Psychotherapy in the Spirit of the Tao-te ching. He has taught adjunct in a number of graduate schools, currently as Research Faculty of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. See: GregJohanson.net.

January 2011. See: Printable PDF transcript

Transcript of the above recording:

So, just human… Just human… So, for me that is in contrast to those times when we talk about something transcendent, something like religious ideas, ideologies, and something out there that gives meaning… Whereas — just human — we are at the center of meaning [as something essentially subjective].

So, just human… Just human… As we focus on the experience, this experience is also going to be something that’s going to affect our sensations, our felt sense, moment by moment. We slow down, we pause. We’re not just carried away by big things. We pause, we check inside. As we pause and check inside, we also notice the other person, or the other people, as people. And so again, from the place of just human, we communicate with each other as human beings, as opposed to obstacles in the way of something transcendent. When we are in that mode — paying attention to our experience — even when we are exploring big ideas or transcendent experiences…

When we pay attention to our own experience, we are away from the realm of the black and white, the simplistic, the “this is right” and “this is wrong”. We are in a much murkier zone, a grayer zone, where words don’t necessarily have simple meanings. This is the “hmm”, the pausing, paying attention to it… And so we’re very much in a Focusing mode. And Focusing is the attitude, the tool, the language that enables us to explore that area of “just human”… of human experience… In which we can touch upon the trivial, but also the sublime, in such a way that we can feel the richness and complexity of it. And we can build bridges to communicate, develop the richness and complexity of it with other people who do not necessarily come from the same point of view. That’s the beauty of being just human.

Barnaby B. Barratt, PhD, DHS, is a radical psychoanalyst, sexuality educator, sex therapist, somatic psychologist and facilitator of tantric meditation.  Raised in England and earning his first doctorate from Harvard University, he has taught at universities all over the country and chaired graduate programs in somatic and clinical psychology.  For a major portion of his career he was Professor Family Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University (Detroit).  His books include Psychoanalysis and the Postmodern Impulse (1993), Sexual Health and Erotic Freedom (2005), What is Tantric Practice? (2006), Liberating Eros (2009), and The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy (2010).  He is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Cape Town and has a private practice of psychodynamic bodymind therapy and psychoanalysis in Johannesburg (South Africa).

December 2010. See: Printable PDF transcript. See also other conversation with Barnaby Barratt, about male sexuality and his chapter for What Sustains Me.

J. Tyler Carpenter, Ph.D., FAACP, is a board certified clinical, and research, forensic, and academic psychologist, with over 25-years of experience treating seriously disturbed individuals, and teaching and consulting to the professionals who work with them, in assessment, treatment, institutional, and systems settings. He utilizes the full-spectrum of personal, group, educational, and internet-based tools, to treat and consult regarding both research and applied understanding and specialized knowledge. He has published, presented, served on boards and a commission, with respect to his expertise in the integration of treatment approaches, correctional, and disability populations. He works as a clinician and consultant in the Greater Boston area.

Published November 2010. See printable PDF transcript.

Christine Caldwell, Ph.D., LPC, ADTR – Founder and former director of the Somatic Counseling Psychology Department at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she currently teaches. Her work began twenty years ago with studies in anthropology, dance therapy, bodywork and Gestalt therapy, and has developed into innovations in the field of body-centered psychotherapy. She calls her work the Moving Cycle. This system goes beyond the limitations of therapy and emphasizes lifelong personal and social evolution through trusting and following body states. She has authored two books: Getting Our Bodies Back, and Getting In Touch. She offers trainings in somatic psychotherapy (the Moving Cycle), with specializations in addictions, play, movement sequencing, therapist training, scientific inquiry, and birth and death.

Ryan Kennedy, LPC, LMFT, RN, CACIII, BC-DMT, CLMA is the Chair of the Somatic Counseling Psychology Department at Naropa University and also serves as the Director of the Body Psychotherapy Program. In addition, he serves on the faculties of Prescott College, University of Colorado Denver, and Front Range Community College. His clinical background includes extensive work with chronic and persistent mental illness, trauma and dissociative disorders, addiction and recovery, domestic/family violence, and living with life-threatening illnesses. He use an integrative approach that draws from his expertise in trauma recovery, addiction treatment, couple and family therapy, human sexuality, domestic violence prevention/intervention, Gestalt psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, contemplative practice, existential psychotherapy, expressive arts therapies, and movement-oriented, body-based psychotherapy.

Tara Topper has a master’s degree in Somatic Counseling Psychology, with a concentration in Dance/Movement Therapy, from Naropa University and a BA in Psychology and Sociology from UCLA. She is a Registered Dance/Movement Therapist (R-DMT) and has a systemic, somatic (body-centered), and person-centered approach to counseling people. This means that she believes understanding your relationship to yourself and others, how you move or inhabit your body, and how you discover your innate wisdom will be essential to building the therapeutic relationship. Her specialties include trauma processing, individual and couples therapy, and experiential play therapy.

November 2010. See: Printable PDF transcript

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Instructor at the Trauma Center, an outpatient clinic and research center founded by Bessel van der Kolk.  Known for her expertise as both a clinician and a presenter, she is also Assistant Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an EMDR International Association Consultant, past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Fisher is the author of a number of articles on trauma treatment and lectures nationally and internationally on the integration of the neurobiological research and body-oriented psychotherapy into traditional therapeutic modalities.

October 2010. See: Printable PDF transcript. See other conversation with Janina Fisher.

Bill Bowen, MFA, LMT, is the founder of Psycho-Physical Therapy. His background combines an immersion in the life of the human body with a clinical practice informed by multiple trainings in somatic psychotherapies and bodywork. He is trained in Rolfing and Rolfing Movement work, Hakomi Body Centered Psychotherapy, Bodynamic Analysis, Somatic Experiencing, Biovalent Manual Therapy  and numerous other somatic and psychological disciplines.

His unique therapeutic method has evolved out of his 40 years of  experience working with the creative process, body therapy, somatic psychology, and spirituality. The active integration of the physical and psychological has been the continuing focus of his work. He has been a trainer in the Hakomi method and was co-founder, with Pat Ogden, of Hakomi Integrative Somatics. Bill has taught at colleges in both Europe and the United States and is currently on the faculty of the Somatic Psychology program at JFK University.

September 2010. See: Printable PDF transcript

Courtenay Young trained in Body-Psychotherapy about 30 years ago, with Gerda Boyesen, David Boadella, John Pierrakos, and later with Stan Grof and Arnold Mindell; he works transpersonally and within the UK NHS. He has been a significant member of the European Association for Body-Psychotherapy for many years and helped establish Body-Psychotherapy as a ‘scientifically-validated’ psychotherapy. He is also a founder member of USABP; compiles the EABP Bibliography of Body-Psychotherapy (on CD-ROM and now on-line); is an editor for the International Journal of Psychotherapy, the Journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy; and is the editor for the forthcoming American edition of the massive and seminal ‘Handbook of Body Psychotherapy’. He has written numerous published journal articles and several chapters in books about Body-Psychotherapy and about psychotherapy in general (all on his website). His first book: “Help Yourself Towards Mental Health” has been recently published by Karnac Books.

August 2010. See: Printable PDf transcript

Wolf E. Mehling is a medical doctor, trained in Germany (D) and the US, board certified in family medicine (D, US), manual medicine (D) and psychotherapy (D). He practiced 12 years in private practice in Germany before he moved with his wife and three children to the US where he completed a second residency. He completed a 2-year clinical research fellowship at the University of California San Francisco and is now on faculty at the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine where he sees patients and conducts NIH-funded research into the psychosomatics of pain and body awareness.

Published July 2010. See: Printable PDF transcript