Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy: The Highlights of 2025

by Dec 29, 20250 comments

As the year comes to a close, we took the morning to reflect on 2025 in the BBP world. As we considered our year, we sat with such deep gratitude for the work we are so fortunate to do- to train amazing therapists from across Canada in an orientation that savours individual expression, creativity and relationality – more about that here😊

In ten years of training therapists across Canada, we have had the pleasure of working with and mentoring therapists who work with diverse populations and with a broad clinical scope. Common to them all, is the capacity for generosity of the heart and commitment to advancing their craft as psychotherapists.

So, here are some of the highlights from 2025.

Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy 2-year online training – 2025, graduated two cohorts. It’s always bittersweet to complete a training. The depth of learning, vulnerability, stretching, connection and integration is profound, and it is moving to witness and be a part of. We hear over and over again, “I knew this training would change my practice, I didn’t know it would change my life”. No exaggeration here – but really, how do you advertise this? Well, that’s what blogs are for – here are links to what some alumni have said 😊  first blog, second blog, and third blog.

Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy 2-year online training – 2025, began two cohorts – March and May. What can I say, it’s amazing to watch clinicians, both new to the field, and seasoned alike, fall in love with the body and bring the body into practice. To witness therapists fall into the right hemispheric work is a ride – bumpy, mucking about at first, but then, WOW, it all comes together in the second year (for our current cohorts, that comes in 2026). Beautiful to see people take the work and find their way, to take Attachment Theory and apply it to clinical practice; to understand and bring the body front and centre into clinical process, moving from mindful awareness to somatic processing (here’s a blog all about that), and to work skillfully through a Psychodynamic lens that attends to the therapeutic relationship, relational dynamics, defenses, etc, to move therapy forward. For more information, click here.

Therapist participating in a somatic attachment psychotherapy training with bringing the body into practice.

Embodying the Heart Retreat: An Online Intensive for Therapist Evolution. In November we re-launched our retreat work, this time online. And, how fun. We invited creative process into the mix of this three day online intensive for SAP students and alumni, and never mind fun, it was POWERFUL, POTENT, and PURPOSEFUL. We honed in on therapist practice and evolution, inviting therapists to process and reflect on their clinical practice, asking in essence, what is your practice asking of you and what do you need from it? We ran the retreat as a fundraiser and donated over half of the fees collected to the BC SPCA (so $5000 for the animals). We can hardly wait to run it again – slated for November 2026 – more info here.

In April, Stacy ran his Chronic Shame in Clinical Practice: An Embodied Relational Perspective online workshop for therapists. Every time Stacy offers the workshop, we reach more therapists from across Canada who want to better understand how chronic shame is part of insecure attachment and hides in plain sight. It is, what I would call, a sticky part of clinical practice where it operates, as Stacy writes, like an invisible hand that guides one’s life. This workshop didn’t disappoint – over five weeks we gathered and talked about chronic shame in clinical practice, its etiology, how it presents (and hides), how to work with it from an embodied relational perspective, read, right hemispheric vs cognitive approach (which is refractory), and perhaps most significantly, Stacy starts out the workshop with the agenda to humanize folks with chronic shame. I feel teary writing this – it’s such a powerful opening and invitation – of course, I’m taking the liberty to extend it here to you, the reader. Here’s a link to the workshop info, and I’m happy to say, Stacy is offering it again in April 2026 – more info here.

Wildfire Trauma Fundraiser – in April we offered our third lecture and fundraiser on working with Wildfire Trauma. In 2025 we expanded this presentation and invited the wider therapist community, which included therapists from across Canada (the previous two lectures/fundraisers were limited to BBP therapists). As always, the fundraiser (as part of the BC SPCA Champions for Animals program) was well attended and we raised $3350 for the BC SPCA. We have plans to offer this again spring of 2026.

Baby ducks at the Wild ARC animal hospital, Victoria, BC - Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Wildfire Fundraiser supports BC SPCA and Wild ARC.

As a training program, our community service fundraising is focused on animal welfare, and 2025 was an excellent year in terms of funds raised and donated. This year we donated to two organisations – the BC SPCA and to Cat’s Cradle Animal Rescue. All totaled, we raised $8350 for the BC SPCA and donated an additional $2000 to the Cat’s Cradle Animal Rescue feral cat program.

In June 2025 Lisa closed her clinical practice after twenty years. It was hard to say goodbye, not only to the people in my practice, some of them who I had walked beside for a very long time, but to close that chapter of my clinical world and work. It was a difficult decision, but one that has opened new possibilities for teaching and curriculum development and expansion.

In October, I offered the Attachment, the Body and Relational Repair: Three Pillars of Clinical Practice Workshop. Over 5 evenings online we gathered with a group of therapists from across Canada to explore how attachment trauma deeply impacts the integrity of the self, and is at the heart of insecure attachment, disrupting healthy development, and forging a neurophysiological template that endures throughout the lifespan. We brought understanding to how to apply attachment theory to clinical practice through an embodied relational lens. As always, the discussion was rich and 5 weeks felt like we were saying goodbye just as we were getting started (yes, this is a plug for the 2-year Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training).

Most important of all, we were able to work with therapists across Canada in meaningful and transformative ways, not only for their clinical evolution, but also for their own personal evolution. Recognizing the gift of leading 13 cohorts of therapists on this journey is difficult to quantify and articulate in terms of our feelings of privilege and gratitude.gratitude for somatic attachment psychotherapy

Finally, here’s what we are offering in 2026:

Finally, if you are interested in one of our offerings, we’d love to hear from you – send us an email at trainings (at) bringingthebody.ca