Jen offers somatic therapies in two ways:

(1)  Working with the nervous system to help you find a more balanced, resilient, and regulated state

(2) Through Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga

To guide you to greater nervous system resilience, Jen draws from her vast experience and training as a yoga teacher and practitioner, training from Dr. Stephen Porges (developer of Poly-vagal theory) and Deb Dana (the leading translator of Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory for both clinical and general audiences), her EMDR and alternative therapies training with Dr. John Hartung, and her certification in Acudetox (5-point auricular acupuncture).

What does all of this mean?  It means you get a large menu of options drawing from a wide variety of disciplines to help you step out of the cycle of being in fight/flight and shutdown and be able to more readily move into a regulated state (what we call resilience in the nervous system regulation world).

Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY), is an evidence-based somatic healing method developed by yoga teacher David Emerson and initially researched by Bessel van der Kolk (it is the research he cites in his landmark book The Body Keeps the Score).  It has been shown to decrease symptoms of PTSD to a sub-clinical level (i.e., no longer meet criteria for PTSD), increase a sense of agency (ability to do get out and do things you choose to do), and decrease dissociation while increasing a connection to your body.

At it’s core, TCTSY involves invitations to movement in which everything is a choice (including if you sit and watch).  Throughout TCTSY, one option is to notice where you might feel something in your body, a practice known as interoception.  The most important agreement throughout TCTSY is one of noncoersion.  That is, you have a choice about everything inside of a TCTSY practice, including if you want to do it.

TCTSY can be incorporated into 1:1 therapy sessions.  Since we are in a therapy room (or on Zoom) with limited space, most of the movements offered are seated.  Entirely seated practices can be up to 15 minutes in length.  Longer TCTSY practices are an option if you are open to some standing shapes or in the event there is access to a large space.

At times, Jen offers 10-week series of Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga live on Zoom to residents of Minnesota and Colorado.  At this time, she has paused these series.