ERGOS INSTITUTE PRESENTS
Healing Attachment Trauma Together
Embodied and Play-Based Work with Children & Caregivers
Bringing Together Somatic Experiencing and Integrative Attachment Family Therapy
w/ Peter A Levine, PhD & Dafna Lender, LCSW
Featuring Ergos Faculty Support from Mahshid Hager, LMFT, SEP
Five Session Live Online Training
Join Dr. Peter A Levine, Dafna Lender, and Mahshid Hager for the first class free in this five-part live online series exploring relational and body-based approaches to working with children and caregivers together. Discover what becomes possible when therapy supports the child while also engaging the caregiver as an active part of building greater safety, regulation, and connection.
Join the First Class Free
Free for All Thursday, November 19
11:00am–12:30pm PST
Full Series Continues w/ Tuition
December 1, 2, 8 & 9
11:00am - 1:30pm PST / 2:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Five Sessions: 11.5 Total Training Hours
Details on Continuing Education credits coming soon.
You do not have to work therapeutically with underage clients to benefit from this training.Limited Time Promotion
Advanced Registration for all Five Sessions $329
No-Fee Payment Plan Available
or First Class Free with No Obligation
Full Series Continues with $349 Tuition
ABOUT THE TRAINING
The Child Is Not the Only Nervous System in the Room
When a child is struggling, therapeutic work often focuses primarily on the child. Yet children develop, regulate, and heal within relationships.
A caregiver’s nervous system—whether settled, connected, overwhelmed, guarded, frightened, or reactive—can profoundly shape what becomes possible in the room.
Even a deeply loving and attuned parent or caregiver may find that insight alone is not enough to change negative automatic reactions rooted in their own attachment history.
At the same time, working with the caregiver separately may not fully address what happens when the child and caregiver come back together.
This live online 11.5 hour training moves beyond working with one while leaving the other outside the therapeutic process.
Together, Dr. Levine and Dafna Lender will explore how practitioners can work directly with children and their parents or caregivers—supporting both nervous systems and using the relationship itself as a pathway toward greater safety, regulation, resilience, and repair.
Through Somatic Experiencing and Integrative Attachment Family Therapy, participants will learn how to notice what is happening beneath words and behavior, respond to dysregulation as it arises, and guide interactions that help children and caregivers experience something new together.
Working with the Relationship in Real Time
A child may become frightened, shut down, oppositional, controlling, aggressive, or overwhelmed. A caregiver may respond with anxiety, frustration, withdrawal, criticism, helplessness, or an urgent need to regain control.
These reactions can quickly reinforce one another.
Rather than viewing either person as the problem, this training approaches the caregiver–child relationship as a living nervous-system process. Participants will learn to recognize cycles of activation and disconnection as they unfold and intervene in ways that help both child and caregiver remain more present, responsive, and connected.
This includes learning how to:
Work directly with the child and caregiver rather than focusing on one without the other
Notice and respond to their connected nervous systems in real time
Help caregivers recognize and shift automatic reactive patterns
Prepare caregivers to become more regulated and supportive participants in the healing process
Use nonverbal communication, body-based presence, and therapeutic play to build safety
Guide caregiver–child interactions without overwhelming or shaming either person
Recognize natural moments of rupture and support meaningful repair
Strengthen co-regulation, attachment security, resilience, and connection
Why Play Matters
Play is one of the primary ways children communicate, connect, discover, and recover from stress. It can create opportunities for movement, agency, surprise, synchrony, joy, and repair that words alone may not reach.
For children whose playfulness has been interrupted by fear, shame, neglect, abuse, or traumatic experience, including medical or environmental stressors, spontaneous expression may no longer feel safe. Play may become chaotic, rigid, aggressive, avoidant, or absent altogether.
Therapeutic play can help children experience their bodies, energy, emotions, and relationships differently—but its effectiveness depends greatly on the adults involved. When caregivers can participate with greater regulation, attunement, and openness, play becomes a powerful vehicle for rebuilding trust and connection.
This training will explore how to select and adapt embodied play interventions according to the child’s presentation, the caregiver’s capacity, and the level of activation within the relationship.
The Intersection of Dr Levine & Dafna’s Work
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Dr Peter A Levine, supports practitioners in tracking and titrating activation, defensive responses, bodily sensations, and shifts in the autonomic nervous system. It offers gradual ways to help children and adults build greater capacity for sensations and emotions that may previously have felt overwhelming.
Integrative Attachment Family Therapy, developed by Dafna Lender, is a multidimensional framework grounded in attachment science, interpersonal neurobiology, somatic practice, and experiential family therapy. It offers a structured yet flexible way to work directly with children and caregivers through attachment-focused dialogue, embodied interaction, and therapeutic play.
Together, they help practitioners look beyond behavior alone and become more responsive to the nervous-system and relational processes underneath it. Becoming more attuned to connection over correction.
Participants will explore how voice, rhythm, movement, facial expression, gesture, proximity, play, and body-based awareness can support connection and change.
The focus is not simply on teaching caregivers what to do, but helping them develop the embodied capacity to remain present and responsive when interactions become difficult.
Learning Through Real Cases and Practice
Dr. Levine and Dafna will use recorded demonstrations, case material, and in-depth conversations to examine how these principles are applied in actual therapeutic work.
The program will include a review of demonstrations involving childhood healing practices, with opportunities to slow down key moments and explore:
What is happening in the child’s nervous system
What is happening in the caregiver’s nervous system (not all sessions include caregivers)
How the practitioner determines where to intervene
How activation can be approached without overwhelming the child or caregiver
How embodied play can support agency, regulation, and completion
How caregivers can become active partners in co-regulation and repair
Live teaching will be complemented by in-depth discussions, Q&A, breakout-room practice, role-play, experiential exercises, and guided debriefing.
Mahshid Hager will join the four tuition-based training sessions as Faculty Support during group discussions, helping participants deepen their understanding and application of Somatic Experiencing principles throughout the training.
Learning Objectives
During This Training, Participants Will Learn To:
Describe how the nervous systems of children and caregivers influence one another during therapeutic interactions
Identify signs of activation, shutdown, defensiveness, and relational rupture in both children and caregivers
Apply body-based and attachment-focused interventions that support regulation within the caregiver–child relationship
Prepare caregivers to participate as more regulated and responsive partners in the healing process
Use voice, movement, gesture, facial expression, rhythm, and therapeutic play to strengthen connection and engagement
Select embodied play interventions appropriate to different trauma and attachment presentations
Demonstrate how to support children in gradually increasing their tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and emotions
Utilize techniques to guide caregiver–child interactions in ways that promote safety, co-regulation, and repair
Discuss how to respond to a caregiver’s reactive patterns without increasing defensiveness or shame
Use naturally occurring moments of misattunement and repair to build attachment security and resilience
Explain the evolutionary and autonomic foundations of fight, flight, freeze, and collapse responses
Apply body-based therapeutic practices to support interactions caregivers can continue using in everyday life
Teacher Bios
About Peter A Levine, PhD
Peter A Levine, Ph.D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma. He holds doctorates in both Biophysics and Psychology. He is the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education and the Founder and Advisor for Somatic Experiencing International. Dr. Levine recently finished his Autobiography, An Autobiography of Trauma, A Healing Journey, and is the author of several best-selling books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (published in over 30 languages). He has received Lifetime Achievement awards from Psychotherapy Networker and from the US Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy. He continues to teach trauma healing trainings & workshops internationally.
About Dafna Lender, LCSW
Dafna Lender is a family therapy expert and attachment specialist. She is a well respected international trainer and supervisor for practitioners who work with children and families and the creator of Integrative Attachment Family Therapy.
Her expertise is drawn from decades of work with children and families in therapeutic foster care, in-home crisis stabilization, residential treatment, community programs, and private practice. Dafna combines attachment-focused dialogue, therapeutic play, embodiment, and direct caregiver involvement to address relational trauma and strengthen safety and connection.
She is the author of Integrative Attachment Family Therapy and co-author of Theraplay: The Practitioner’s Guide. Dafna teaches and supervises clinicians internationally in English, Hebrew, French, and Spanish.
Note: Dafna is soon entering the advanced level of the SE Training.
About Mahshid Hager, LMFT, SEP
Mahshid Hager is a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and faculty member with Somatic Experiencing International and Ergos Institute of Somatic Education. She began her clinical career working with nonprofit organizations in San Diego County, providing therapeutic services to school-aged children and their families.
Mahshid later trained in Dr. Peter A Levine’s Somatic Experiencing approach and has been in private practice since 2014. Her work is informed by an understanding of developmental trauma, nervous-system regulation, and the cultural and systemic influences that shape our experiences. She now teaches Somatic Experiencing in the United States and internationally and supports clinicians in integrating SE principles into their work.
In this online series, Mahshid will offer an in-depth SE perspective throughout the teaching and discussions, helping participants explore how Somatic Experiencing principles can inform work with children, caregivers, and the relationship between them.
This Live Online Five Part Training Includes
One 90-minute live online complimentary session (1.5 hours)
Four 2.5-hour live online tuition based sessions w/ paid registration (10 hours)
Teaching with Peter A Levine, PhD and Dafna Lender, LCSW
Ergos Faculty teaching support from Mahshid Hager, LMFT, SEP
Client case demonstrations
Guided analysis and discussion of clinical interventions
Experiential exercises and role-play
Breakout-room practice and connection
Live questions and answers
Downloadable course materials
Private online participant portal
Unlimited access to the recordings of all five training sessions
A BONUS segment from a previous in-person workshop w/ Dr Levine & Dafna (recording)
Ergos Certificate of Completion (for those who complete the full five part series)
11.5 continuing education credits (in approval process)
Who Is This Program For?
*This training is designed for professionals who work with children, caregivers, and families, including:
Counselors, psychotherapists, psychologists, and social workers
Marriage and family therapists
Child welfare professionals and case managers
Foster care and adoption professionals
Educators, school-based clinicians, and student-support staff
Nurses, occupational therapists, addictions counselors, and other mental health professionals
*Professionals who primarily work with adults and caregivers individually may benefit from understanding how early play, attachment, and nervous-system experiences continue to shape emotional regulation and relationships throughout life.
*This training is also for parents, caregivers, and family members supporting caregiver–child relationships.
*Those who are supporting children in non-joint therapy can also benefit from witnessing and experiencing this way of working together.
You do not have to work therapeutically with underage clients to benefit from this training.
Participants are not required to be clinicians to attend this training.Five Session Live Online Training
No Obligation Free Access:
Thursday, November 19
11:00am–12:30pm PST / 2:00pm - 3:30pm EST
Tuition Access:
Tuesday, December 1
Wednesday, December 2
Tuesday, December 8
Wednesday, December 9
11:00am - 1:30pm PST / 2:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Format:
First session is 90 Minutes, including Q&A
The following four sessions are 2.5 Hours each, including Breakout Groups and Q&A
Recordings are included
Live attendance is encouraged to experience the valuable breakout practice sessions.
Details on 11.5 Continuing Education credits coming soon.Choose How You’d Like to Join Us
*Register Now for the Full Five Session Series*
Ready to join us for the full series? Register now for a promotional tuition of $329 and receive access to all five live sessions, recordings, course materials, and participant information from the beginning.
Register for the Full Five Session Series — Limited Time Promotional Offer $329
*Begin with the First Class Free*
Would you like to experience the teaching before deciding? Join the opening 90-minute class at no cost.
Register for the First Class Free w/ No Obligation — Afterward, you’ll have the option to continue with the remaining four sessions for $349
11.5 Continuing Education Credit for Health Professionals
Credits are in the process of being approved.
• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by sponsors of CE who are approved by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP and LMFTs, and other professionals from outside of California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept credits from programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes. Nurses outside of California must confirm acceptance with their licensing boards.
• For questions about your certificate or the content, logistics, or other support issues regarding this course, please contact Ergos Institute at programs@somaticexperiencing.com.
For questions about whether APA CE is valid for you, contact your licensing board directly.
For general questions about APA CE, contact SCA at ce@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com.