Last week I attended a seminar offered by BCACC on SEO with Tedi Bezna, founder of Searchlight Digital.Although it was called Human-Led SEO in the Age of AI Search, I could have also personally titled it ‘The Brave New World of marketing in the AI Age’, or ‘navigating the tire fire of AI to fire proof your business’. In all seriousness, Tedi offered some real insights that I’m taking away, and attempting to put into practice.
A main takeaway that I’m going to try to address here, is that people are able to ask incredibly specific, unique questions about our trainings using Chat GPT and the like, that I had never considered possible using a simple Google search. As a thought exercise in this blog, I’m imagining a prospective student typing in something like… What is the best online somatic therapy training in Canada? So I thought that I might ask and answer this and some other possible questions…from my perspective of course 🙂
In the daily lectures, Lisa Mortimore, PhDtakes diverse and complex academic material from Somatic therapy, Attachment research, and Psychodynamic Practice, and makes it accessible through her engaging way of teaching, clinical demonstrations, lectures and discussions. Our daily practice sessions are facilitated by skilled, open hearted, generous clinicians who understand this way of working, and want to help students internalize the work. Additionally, we offer group consults between clinics, where students can present cases and get feedback in applying this way of working in their practice.
I’m a recent Master’s graduate. Is the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy training good for me? Definitely. The Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy trainingoffers and expansive and comprehensive foundation in working with affect regulation, the body, attachment patterns, the therapeutic dyad, and trauma, in the context of psychotherapeutic practice. It takes the clinically necessary and rich areas of Somatics, Attachment, and Psychodynamic Process, and presents them in a coherent way of thinking about clinical practice, and working with clients, that clinicians at any point in their clinical career, can integrate into their practice.
I’m a seasoned clinician. Is Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy going to add enough to my practice? Absolutely. This program has a depth, breadth, sophistication and nuance to clinical practice that can meet clinicians anywhere on their career trajectory.
I just heard about Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy trainings. Are they new? Not at all. The Bringing the Body into Practice, Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy 2-year training have been offered for 10 years, and in 2026 we are starting our 14th two-year training cohort. Lisa Mortimore, PhD has been teaching and offering workshops and trainings since 2005. Stacy Jensen, MEd has been teaching since 2010.
Are Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy trainings only online? The Bringing the Body into Practice, Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy trainings are only available online. I know that some people will be turned off by this, but we have found some real benefits to working online, particularly when it comes to affordability and accessibility. Until the Covid pandemic, we taught our two-year trainings in person in Victoria BC, and we loved it, but we found that we were a regional training, with students only coming from the western Canada.
Since moving the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy trainings online, our trainings have become truly national, which I think demonstrates the increased accessibility that our live online format offers, with both current students and alumni coming from most provinces, and including: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Yukon.
This is a pretty massive change for the program, which I believe is also facilitated by the relative affordability, that the online format offers, with the removal of the costs of travel, meals, accommodation, etc., that would be incurred by students who needed to travel to take our training. These changes combine to make it possible for more therapists to take the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy training, which I believe is a great thing for students and clients alike.
I find it hard to be online all day, how do you make it easier for me? I absolutely get that being online all day is a stretch for lots of people, and I think that we have done a good job to make it work for a wide cross section of therapists. We want students to keep their camera on during the training, because it is essential for creating safety within the group, but apart from that, we want students to do what they need to do to regulate their nervous system so that they can be most present. This may include stretching, yoga, knitting, and the like, to help maintain focus while taking in the information.
I hope that you and our AI overlords enjoyed the read 🙂
Stacy
Every moment in therapy — not just the heavy ones — is a conversation between two nervous systems. I feel it in subtle ways: a tightening in my chest, a flutter in my stomach, or a lightness I can’t quite name. My nervous system constantly attunes to the client’s, noticing the small rhythms, pauses, and cues — like the gentle shifts of wind through branches, signaling movement in the therapeutic/relational field.
Early in my work, I probably wouldn’t have recognized these cues. Now, I register them. My eyes may water, not because I’m feeling sad, but because something is moving in the field. Attending to my own system in the moment allows me to remain present, resourced, and available — a dance of co-regulation, not self-processing.
Capacity as the Ability to Bear Witness
Capacity speaks to the ability to bear witness — to ourselves and others. If we haven’t tended to our own wounds in our own therapy and reflective work, our nervous system can’t fully hold space for similar experiences in another, or even experiences that resonate on some level.
Capacity grows from knowing our own nervous system and cultivating self-attunement and regulation so that we can remain regulated, present, and responsive, moment to moment during sessions. This is always developing; and there is, and always will be, space for more capacity. This expanding capacity allows me to hold space with care, steadiness, and attuned presence — like a forest standing firm through shifting weather, providing shelter and support to the life within it.
The Body as Co-Regulatory Ally
Throughout sessions, I notice subtle bodily cues — a tightness in my chest, a flutter in my stomach, or a shift in posture — that signal to me how the material in the field is moving through both the client’s and my own nervous system. This is not about processing for myself, but about allowing the activation present in the session to be sensed, regulated, and moved in real time.
During sessions, my body helps me remain attuned to the client’s right hemispheric processes, including rhythms, pauses, and cues. Grounding through my feet, softening into my seat, or placing a hand on my heart are ways I support regulation as the work unfolds — like roots stabilizing a tree during a storm, providing resilience while still moving with the air currents around it.
These in-session practices enable me to bear witness and support clients in a way that fosters deeper, more integrated healing — a steady, embodied responsive presence that moves with the flow of the material in the therapeutic/relational field.
From Endurance to Attuned Presence
Many therapists may not fully realize the depth and importance of what holding space requires. Early in my practice, I didn’t realize that true attuned presence isn’t just about being available for the client — it requires an ongoing, intimate relationship with our own nervous systems and psyche.
My own process of learning to hold space deepened profoundly through the two-year Bringing the Body into PracticeSomatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training, which invited me to meet my nervous system and relational patterns with greater curiosity and care. It offered a living reminder that how we tend to ourselves shapes the ground we offer others. This means noticing my own activation in the moment, regulating my nervous system and responses, and continuing that work outside of sessions.
Presence is nurtured through small, somatic practices: noticing breath, posture, and tone; pausing when the client’s system shifts; or using grounding cues like rhythm through the feet or a hand on the heart. Each micro-moment of such noticing and tending strengthens the relational field and allows us to hold space for clients to be seen, felt, and cared for, without losing our own regulation — like water flowing gently around rocks, shaping a channel while continuing onward.
Relational Capacity: We Don’t Hold Alone
Therapy asks us to witness deep emotions and wounding — but capacity isn’t a solo endeavor. Connection with supervisors, peers, mentors, or even the natural world expands our nervous system’s tolerance and capacity. Holding space is inherently relational: the therapist’s system is influenced by, and influences, the client’s system, and support outside sessions builds my capacity, which ultimately strengthens both.
During a clinic in the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training, Lisa Mortimore, PhD shared something that stayed with me: We don’t become therapists without wounds, and we can’t become exceptional therapists without noticing and tending to them. Her words remind me that our own healing happens outside of sessions, so that inside the session, we can remain steady, attuned, and available.
Through my training, I came to see that holding space isn’t just about being available for the client — it begins with tending to our own systems first. Our inner work becomes the soil from which attunement and repair can grow.
Our capacity is shaped not by perfection, but by our willingness to meet what lives within us in our own reflective work — so we can bear witness to clients with tenderness, regulation, and repair. Every session, every moment, is like a river carrying both sediment and water: our own regulation helps the flow move smoothly, holding space for the client’s experiences without stagnation or turbulence. It’s an invitation to stay with, to soften, to keep becoming, like soil gradually nourishing roots and life over time.
A Gentle Closing
A therapist’s capacity is never fixed — it unfolds over time, in layers, through reflection, self-attunement, and connection. As therapists, we are expanding our capacity to stay present, attuned, and steady, even as new layers of experience arise in ourselves and in our clients. This work is ongoing, tender, and deeply human.
Each session, each moment, is an invitation to continue cultivating the capacity to bear witness, with care, compassion, and curiosity. By orienting, breathing, and noticing, I support my own regulation. This helps me remain fully present. Bearing witness doesn’t require endless endurance; it requires presence, embodied awareness, and relational attunement, all things which are at the heart of the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training.
Danielle Morran, MC, CCC is a relational therapist trained in Somatic Attachment Psychotherapyand embodied regulation. She supports clients in reconnecting with their body’s wisdom, cultivating awareness, regulation, and deeper connection, and fostering healing, growth, and meaningful relationships. To reach Danielle, go to her website, https://www.morrancounsellingtherapy.com/
Understanding attachment and the ways in which it forges the self, and continues to be alive in one’s internal and relational world in the present day, is an imperative for therapists. As a therapist educator, I spend a lot of time talking with therapists and teaching about attachment, and how to apply attachment theory to clinical practice. I have found that most therapists have a clear understanding that early relational dynamics with primary caregivers wire the self, the body and psyche, neurophysiologically (affect and physiological regulation capacity) and psychically (internal working models) in ways that typically remain active across the lifespan. However, understanding this and seeing it in action, or mentalizing how attachment dynamics, particularly insecure attachment patterning, actually happens in people’s early years and continues to be active across the lifespan (through clients out of awareness or unconscious relational dynamics), stretches many clinicians.
I often hear in consultation, “they had a good childhood“, or “there was a secure base”, yet the ensuing case presentation tells a different story ~ one rife with a typical history of neglect, non-recognition, invalidation, accommodation, etc., ~ all of which are basically the bread and butter of insecure attachment, where the child needed to meet the caregiver’s needs, or meet the caregiver on their terms, rather than on the developing infant and child’s terms. This essential need for one to be met on their own terms, to be recognized, validated, cherished, seen, heard, and valued, are hallmark challenges for caregivers with their own histories of insecure attachment, which are transmitted unconsciously through the attachment dynamics of relationship. This relational trauma, is often difficult for therapists to grasp and see it unfold in their clinical work, both in the stories of today and yesterday that clients tell, and the relational dynamics that are showcased both in and out of the therapeutic dyad.
This is where the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training comes in – over two years we translate attachment theory into clinical practice through lecture, dialogue, demonstration and debrief, and practice sessions. The SAP training is particularly sophisticated in its nuanced understanding and application of attachment, relational dynamics, and how they intersect with the body and psyche. Through the SAP training, we…
dig into the heart of how attachment is formed,
explore how attachment is transmitted through the out of awareness early relational dynamics of everyday contact and connection,
learn about the unconscious dynamics of attachment transmission in relation to caregiving, including the window of tolerance and the polyvagal,
understand and recognize the internal working model(s) of self and how they showcase in people’s lives for better or worse
learn to recognize and work with patterns associated with attachment classifications gleaned from the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
learn how to recognize attachment patterns in clinical practice in terms of relational dynamics that are present in the content of the material that clients bring to therapy,
deepen how to listen and discern dynamics from early caregiving relationships that forged the self,
learn how to listen for and track the relational dynamics that continue to be recapitulated over the lifespan, so in the relationships of today,
understand how chronic shame goes hand in hand with insecure attachment and is foundational in the development of self,
explore how to work with chronic shame dynamics that are deeply interruptive of healthy functioning,
explore therapists attachment and how that intersects with clinical practice,
and of course, we learn how to recognize and work with relational dynamics in the therapeutic relationship.
In addition to attending to the relational dynamics, the Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training supports the regulation of the autonomic nervous system which is compromised with insecure attachment, and other traumas. Through this dynamic and comprehensive training, therapist capacity to understand, recognize and work with insecure attachment is advanced and solidified.
If your interest in Attachment Training is piqued, here’s a linkto more information and the next cohort dates. Hope to hear from you!
From Somatic Experiencing to Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy
I’m in the process of closing my clinical practice—after 21 years—to make more space for my teaching practice, but also to explore new frontiers that have been calling for my attention for a while. It took my clients by surprise, and truth be told, it surprised and continues to surprise me. I love my work. I have profound and meaningful connections with the people in my practice, all of them, and some of them I have known and worked with for 17 years. That’s a long time.
As I find myself in transition, I have been reflecting on where it all started, this love that I have for therapy, for working in and with the bodyself and with trauma. I have been tracking the unfolding of my evolution and understanding of how to work with and support the healing of trauma, trauma of all kinds, but specifically, the heart of my clinical and teaching practice has always been the reparation of early attachment injuries.
If we go back to the beginning, to the fall of 2001, I saw a demonstration of Somatic Experiencing. I was in my first semester of grad school. I entered grad school knowing I was interested in trauma work but had assumed I would learn and use EMDR (I never did), but I was captivated by somatic work. I don’t know that I could grasp the profundity of what I was seeing, but my body knew. I remember as I witnessed the demonstration, I had an involuntary vocalization—not a gasp, not a laugh, but some sort of bubbling forth of a knowing—this is it I thought, I need to know more. Two months later as I started my second semester of my Master’s, I started training in Dr. Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing.
For the next 12 years I was deeply immersed in the somatic world—in 2006 I began working with Dr. Sharon Stanley as she built her Somatic Transformation training program. This immersion served me well—Sharon is a gifted and generous clinician and educator, and I was fortunate to be mentored by her until the end of 2014. I had found my clinical home in the somatic world.
Homes change 😊. I began studying with Dr. Allan Schore sometime around 2010 and I stretched my clinical mind and practice: I continue to appreciate Allan’s brilliance and the vast disciplines his work traverses. During this time, I was departing more and more from my somatic roots and teachings. In 2015, I studied with Dr. Mary Main and Dr. Erik Hesse in the Adult Attachment Interview Training (AAI)—that training was significant in putting into words the relational dynamics I was working with in my practice that were replications of early relational injuries and also embedded in the body. In retrospect, it was the AAI that helped me articulate my knowing and continues to serve as foundational to my understanding of relational trauma, which is the heart of my clinical work. This created yet another home.
Fast forward to 2016 and I started my own Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy 2-year training for therapists. I had been teaching workshops for the previous twelve years but this was different. I was able to have a bigger canvas to explore and expand upon my understanding of how to work with folks that have an insecure attachment from a somatic lens. It started out as a good program, but I’m excited to say that my thinking and knowing from there has significantly shifted again and again as I leaned into relational and interpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy training beginning in 2019. This too feels like another clinical home.
I think that what’s true for me is that over my clinical career I have found many clinical homes that continue to be foundational in my clinical thinking, practice and teaching. Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy (SAP), as it stands today, is an embodied way of practicing psychotherapy oriented toward working with relational injuries (insecure attachment).
Now, SAP has evolved into an outstanding training program and community. That’s not even hard to say—I have been supported by incredible teachers, some of the most brilliant hearts and minds in the field, and I have taught hundreds of amazing therapists that continue to invite me to expand my thinking and practice. Perhaps most significantly, I have walked with incredible people in my practice over time as they, and we processed, their early wounds and they found healing. This is where the work really happens, in clinical spaces, where theory meets practice, and emergent process happens and builds new practice and theory. Kind of a spiral situation.
While there’s lots more to my story, I find myself at the next opening of the spiral. I’ve found my next teacher, it’s in a different discipline, related but outside of psychotherapy. Sometimes, when I listen to him speak, I weep…and that tells me, like that involuntary vocalization 24 years ago, follow this—see what doors open, bring your curiosity—I think there’s another home here.
I’ve been having lots of conversations with therapists looking to enroll in our Somatic Attachment Psychotherapy Training about working with the body in therapy. Lots of therapists identify that they in fact already do use the body in their clinical practices, by asking,
what’s happening in your body?
where do you notice that?
is there a sensation that tells you that?
and then what they share with me is that they often feel uncertain about what to do with that information, or how to take it beyond their initial question/intervention – of course, this is what we teach in SAP over the two years! These conversations inevitably beg the question, is that enough? Is it enough to have people identify what is happening in their body and then notice it, stay with it, watch it? My response is, enough for what? What is the purpose of drawing the client’s attention to their internal sensation or felt sense? What is the working theory, not only about why the therapist is inquiring about the body, but also inviting clients to stay with it? That’s the guiding question here, what is the purpose?
If the intention is to merely have people increase their capacity to be present, be with what is, and increase capacity to tolerate discomfort, then yes, the status quo of how people often use the body might be a worthwhile intervention, though perhaps not the best intervention, as most therapists, prior to somatic training, choose to include the body at a time when there is distress, intense emotion, or disconnection/disembodiment. (More on this later).
If the intention to help process and metabolize material in the system (relational and incident traumatic material), then no, just dropping in and noticing the sensation, and staying with it, particularly difficult or uncomfortable sensations, is not likely going to further the processing of the neurophysiological material or psyche reorganization, and if it does, it will be short-lived. What is likely though, is that simply focusing on the body during these times of arousal will move the system out of the processing window into high/hyper or low/hypo arousal as the dysregulation in the system creates more and more dysregulation. Alternatively, the client may continue to feel the sensation but not really garner further process or understanding from it – for example, the tightness remains tightness, so the intervention fizzles without any further clinical or embodied process unfolding.
In order to process (trauma, grief, loss, etc.), the work is to up and down regulate the autonomic nervous system along side the story. This is where BBP/SAP differs from other somatic dominant trainings – one of our guiding principles is that people need to tell their story, and be witnessed relationally, rather than just experience and process what is happening in their body, so working to re-organize the psyche and body in concert. When we invite the body into the clinical dialogue and process, we want to be able to work to help people to not only be present to what is happening within, but to the nuanced truths of the story that also help anchor and facilitate processing and internal re-organization, both of which are key to change.
Change is key to therapy. We know the body and psyche are wired together, and that trauma is held in the right (versus the left), so we understand as therapists how bringing the body into practice offers an effective way to attend to and process traumatic material (of all kinds) in order to regulate and process the physiological body and reorganize the psyche and internal working models, and ultimately bring forth a new narrative understanding of self and story.
For clinicians, working adeptly with the body necessitates a solid understanding of the Polyvagal Theory (Porges) (read, the Polyvagal made simple) and the Window of Tolerance (Siegal). These conceptual frameworks offer therapists a theoretical framework to guide the use of somatic interventions, rather than simply inserting them into the therapy. Further, I would suggest that correlating sensations and felt sense into this framework is necessary for therapists to have a sophisticated capacity to work with, and in the body.
If we circle back to these conversations I’m having about bringing the body into practice, it seems to me that what we are differentiating here is mindfulness and somatic processing. While there is overlap, they ultimately have different purposes. Mindfulness is a practice oriented towards increasing one’s capacity to be with what is. Somatic process has the intention to shift the internal state and process material. These are significant differences when thinking about the purpose of inviting the body into the clinical conversation. In this way, I want to underscore not only the difference between mindfulness and somatic therapy, but the difference in intention. Somatic therapy is used to process material. It may use mindful presence to attune and be with experience, but it at its core, it’s about shifting and processing—making it different, not learning to be with what is.
