Description
Amy Sprague Champeau, MSFT, LMFT. 2 hours 41 minutes. Audio MP3 Download.
Topics: Mind/Body, Trauma
Penetrating the Darkness: Releasing Trauma from the Body
“The body has a wisdom of its own. However, slowly and circuitously that wisdom manifests, once it is experienced it is a foundation, a basis of knowing that gives confidence to the ego. To reach its wisdom requires absolute concentration: dropping the mind into the body, breathing into whatever is ready to be released, and allowing the process of expression until the negative dammed up energy is out, making room for the positive energy, genuine Light, to flood in.” -Marion Woodman
As Bessel van der Kolk states, “we have discovered that helping victims of trauma find the words to describe what has happened to them is profoundly meaningful, but usually it is not enough. The act of telling the story doesn’t necessarily alter the automatic physical and hormonal responses of bodies that remain hyper-vigilant, prepared to be assaulted or violated at any time. For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.” In this interactive and experiential workshop, participants learn 3 simple, yet profound techniques for penetrating the darkness of the unconscious held in the tissue of the body. You will have the opportunity to experience how using your conscious awareness to connect with what is unconscious in the body can allow us to release and more fully process the trauma of extreme experience and the accumulation of stress. Please wear comfortable clothes and bring a yoga mat and journal.
This seminar is half lecture and half experiential. It requires that you have two large sheets of paper and some pastels to draw, plus a journal to write down thoughts and experiences.
PowerPoint: The slides are included in this download as a PDF.
This lecture is part of the series New Perspectives on Trauma.
Click Here to Listen to a Sample
The video below is referenced in the seminar
Learning Objectives
This presentation is designed to help participants:
1) Develop an increased sense of body awareness;
2) Access and work with physical sensations as away to release trauma;
3) Utilize body-based practices in daily life and with a client population;
4) Articulate the more recent scientific and psychological understanding of the body’s role in trauma resolution.
Recommended Reading and Viewing
- van der Kolk, B., The Body Keeps the Score
- Levine, P., In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness
- Estes, C. P., Women Who Run with the Wolves, chapter 7, “Joyous Body”
- Woodman, Marion, Dancing in the Flames (video) & Walking the Tightrope: The Jung-Nietzsche Seminars
- Monte, C., “The body and movement in analysis,” in Stein, M., Jungian Psychoanalysis
- Keleman, S., Emotional Anatomy and Your Body Speaks Its Mind
Amy Sprague Champeau, MSMFT, LMFT is a Jungian psychoanalyst and licensed marriage and family therapist. She is currently a staff therapist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She is a certified level II provider of TRE(trauma releasing exercises), is a certified practitioner of Integral Bodywork, has taught intuitive painting for many years, and is a long-time practitioner of Zen meditation.
© 2016 Amy Champeau.
Ⓟ 2016 CG Jung Institute of Chicago.