Presence Psychotherapy is a trauma therapy that integrates spirituality, somatic inquiry, and relational attunement to facilitate healing. Developed by Michelle Lepak, LCSW, this model helps clients orient to four dimensions of presence to experience the essence of who they are beyond their trauma, sense compassion in and around them, and experience oneness.
The model, published in the APA's Journal of Integrative Psychotherapy, introduces the concept of Four Dimensions of Presence to process trauma and experience well-being: Grounded Presence, Spacious Presence, Relational Presence, and Transcendent Presence.
During this intensive 5-day training with Michelle, mental health professionals and pastoral clergy gain the tools and knowledge to:
- Identify the qualities and therapeutic aspects of the Four Dimensions of Presence: Grounded Presence, Spacious Presence, Relational Presence, and Transcendent Presence
- Utilize the skill of listening for and facilitating client's Presence awareness through client's narrative
- Recognize how to utilize clients' personal connection to spirituality in trauma treatment
- Describe how to help clients regulate affect between sessions utilizing Four Dimensions of Presence techniques
- Explain how to help clients experience an embodied sense of Presence
- Practice how to attune to and expand client's awareness of any of the Four Dimensions of Presence after facilitating Four Dimensions of Presence guided mindfulness in session
- Assess how to utilize Four Dimensions of Presence to heal attachment wounds
- Identify how to access implicit procedural, semantic, emotional, and sensory trauma memory
- Demonstrate how to utilize the Four Dimensions of Presence to heal negative trauma-induced beliefs
- Explain how to facilitate Transcendent Presence awareness to regulate trauma processing without creating spiritual bypass
For a full list of what you will learn, please see presencepsychotherapy.org/training.
Presence Psychotherapy offers a thorough trauma treatment protocol based on the acronym ORBITS, which stands for:
- Orient to presence
- Reside in presence
- Body sense awareness
- Inquire, invite, illuminate
- Turn the view
- Sit in presence
This training will describe how ORBITS can also easily integrate other therapeutic models. You discover and practice how to include clients' awareness of any of the four dimensions of presence to facilitate both affect regulation and trauma processing. You will also discover how to utilize Presence Psychotherapy's expanded concept of Compassionate Presence to include animals, spiritual beings, and totems in trauma work.
This training is limited to beginning, intermediate, and advanced mental health professionals who are licensed to provide treatment and to pastoral care clergy.
