Module 1 - Beyond Fawning: Appeasement is the Fourth F with Nkem Ndefo
In this module, somatic practitioner and resilience educator Nkem Ndefo introduces appeasement as a distinct and underrecognized stress and trauma response. She argues that it functions as a core fourth survival strategy alongside fight, flight, and freeze. This response is particularly relevant for individuals navigating complex social hierarchies shaped by race, gender, and other systemic structures of oppression.
Key Concepts Covered
- Appeasement vs. Fawning: Distinguishing appeasement from the commonly used concept of fawning, explaining that fawning is a localized subcategory, while appeasement operates on a macro scale directed at groups, cultures, and internalized social norms.
- The Cost of Survival: Examining the hidden internal toll of chronic appeasement and reframing it not as a personal failure, but as an active adaptation to real power differentials.
- Limits of Individual Regulation: Recognizing that systemic power imbalances cannot be resolved through individual nervous system regulation alone.
Learning Objectives & Format
Through structural analysis and somatic mapping, participants will learn how to build real-time awareness of their own or their clients' appeasement responses. This module provides the framework to shift from internalized shame to self-compassion, helping individuals reclaim the systemic energy and bandwidth needed to participate in the collective, liberatory work of dismantling oppressive social hierarchies.
Module 2 - Autonomic Wisdom: What We Know About the Nervous System with Deb Dana
In this module, Deb Dana guides participants through how the autonomic nervous system serves as the ever-present foundation beneath all human experience and relationship, impacting both personal living and professional clinical practice.
Key Concepts Covered
- Autonomic Truths: Exploring the core principles of nervous system architecture, including the shared organizing hierarchy among all human nervous systems.
- State-Shaped Perception: Understanding how an individual's internal autonomic state directly dictates how they perceive and interpret the outside world.
- Ventral Vagal Regulation: Identifying ventral vagal regulation as the essential somatic ingredient for long-term well-being, deep healing, and genuine relational connection.
- Glimmers and Micro-Moments: Utilizing micro-moments of safety and "glimmers" to gently shift the nervous system away from defensive bracing.
Learning Objectives & Format
Through hands-on reflective practices, participants will learn how to help clients identify their autonomic anchors, listen to the innate wisdom of survival responses, and construct a personalized resource menu. This module anchors practitioners in the foundational belief that every nervous system carries an inherent longing to return to regulation and already possesses the pathway home.
Module 3 - From Freeze to Flow– Creativity, Somatics, and Trauma Healing with Rosario Sammartino
When we experience trauma, the body often enters states of freeze, collapse, or chronic holding patterns that constrict our capacity to feel, express, and dream. Led by Dr. Rosario Sammartino, this module explores how integrating movement, somatic awareness, and creative expression can support the vital transition from trauma-induced stuckness back into a state of flow. The session honors the innate creative, emotional, and imaginal intelligence within each individual that inherently knows how to adapt and heal.
Key Concepts Covered
- Trauma and Somatic Holding Patterns: Identifying how traumatic experiences manifest physically as states of freeze, collapse, or repetitive muscular bracing.
- The Halprin Life/Art Process®: Drawing on this expressive arts therapy methodology to bridge the relationship between physical movement, emotional processing, and artistic expression.
- Awakening Embodied Imagination: Utilizing depth psychology and contemporary trauma-informed frameworks to reconnect clients with their internal creative and imaginal resources.
Learning Objectives & Format
Through interactive, experiential activities and somatic practices, participants will discover how to awaken dormant physical expression. This module equips practitioners with expressive and body-centered tools to help clients expand internal resiliency resources, bypass cognitive defense mechanisms, and discover creative new pathways toward deep healing.
When we experience trauma, the body often enters states of freeze, collapse, or repetitive holding patterns that limit our ability to feel, express, and dream. Yet within each of us lives a creative intelligence—somatic, emotional, and imaginal—that knows how to adapt, reconnect, and find new pathways toward healing. In this module, we explore how the integration of movement, somatics, and creative expression can support the transition from stuckness to flow. Drawing from the Halprin Life/Art Process®, depth psychology, and contemporary trauma-informed practices, Dr. Rosario Sammartino guides participants through experiential activities designed to awaken movement, expand internal resources, and reconnect with embodied imagination.
