Somatic Trauma and Attachment Therapist (STAT) DEVELOPMENT
What is a STAT?
STAT stands for Somatic Trauma and Attachment Therapist. I (Liz) have taught and trained not only mental health professionals but also a variety of therapist types including Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Yoga Teachers, Coaches, and others internationally in the ethical use of talk, touch, and movement to enhance the well being of students, clients, and patients. I believe that all types of therapists and personal growth professionals benefit from ongoing support the way that psychotherapists do. I currently provide consultation sessions online or in-person to any therapist or person who works in the personal growth field who provides or is interested in providing Somatic Trauma and Attachment Therapy.
CONSULTATION TOPICS
STAT stands for Somatic Trauma and Attachment Therapist. I (Liz) have taught and trained not only mental health professionals but also a variety of therapist types including Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Yoga Teachers, Coaches, and others internationally in the ethical use of talk, touch, and movement to enhance the well being of students, clients, and patients. I believe that all types of therapists and personal growth professionals benefit from ongoing support the way that psychotherapists do. I currently provide consultation sessions online or in-person to any therapist or person who works in the personal growth field who provides or is interested in providing Somatic Trauma and Attachment Therapy.
CONSULTATION TOPICS
- All populations listed on the home page, especially people who are "stuck" and/or living with chronic health issues
- How to effectively engage with client trauma within your scope of practice
- and when to refer and how to do it
- How to care for yourself as a caring professional including managing boundaries with clients
- How to have more empathy and understanding of your clients and students without compromising your needs
- this is the most important thing to have if you are going to have excellent boundaries and professional self care
- How to work with your parts when they get triggered with clients
- And more.
Mission and Thoughts
Prosopon is on a mission to liberate all therapy professions (OT, PT, MT, LPC, LMFT, LCSW, etc.) from unnecessary constraints imposed on our practices when it comes to treating nervous system (psychological and emotional) trauma presentations. That trauma is a mind/body condition has been proven and established. Now is the time to support clinicians in incorporating appropriate practices across disciplinary lines, when properly supported with education, evaluation, and supervision. It's time to officially redraw the boundaries.
The boundaries have been unofficially redrawn for decades, but clinicians still feel the need to use work arounds in the language of their paperwork, websites, and other official documents. This is largely unnecessary because most therapists are not working outside of their scope of practice. If the therapy field felt free to be more open about what we are doing, we could hold ourselves more accountable, have better conversations out in the open, and continue our pioneering efforts in improving how we treat traumatized nervous systems and the long list of symptoms that comes with that.
I believe that this integration should be done intentionally and that there needs to be training and evaluation processes that ensure the highest quality of care for clients living with trauma. Many such training programs already exist! So many therapy professionals already nudge into other disciplines by incorporating coaching, Hakomi, IFS, psychotherapeutic touch work, vagal toning exercises, yoga, etc., because they see a need in their clients that they as individuals are fully capable of providing but are technically constrained by their license. There are good reasons for constraint as discussed in this article by Massage Magazine: Have you Crossed Over into Counseling Clients?
We are currently in an atmosphere where therapists who are willing and able to provide the full spectrum interaction that truly accelerates trauma healing do so in the grey area of their scope of practice. The consequence of this for many, especially the clinicians who are just getting into trauma work, is that they feel anything from unsupported to legally threatened. Of course, clinicians who cross boundaries that cause harm to their clients should be held legally accountable. Clinicians who cross boundaries to work in an interdisciplinary way with integrity should be celebrated and are celebrated by the clients who receive the great benefit of this integration.
There are two kinds of conversations I have with colleagues that inspire me to be clear about this issue. The first one is when I bring up psychotherapeutic touch work to psychotherapists. Many therapists do not realize that it is legal and ethical to touch their clients for therapeutic reasons. Sometimes it is unethical not to touch. Here is an article by Dr. Zur that discusses this issue in more depth: To Touch or Not To Touch. Our code of ethics demands that we take the transference/countertransference that can be created through touch seriously, but it does not ban touch. If a psychotherapist is not interested in using touch work they should be fully supported. However, many psychotherapists are talented in touch work and should be encouraged to provide this important intervention.
The second conversation I often have is with bodytherapists (PT, OT, MT) who clearly see that someone's recent or past psychological trauma is interfering with the progress of relieving body symptoms. These therapists feel like they would be neglecting their clients if they were to avoid holding space for the psychological and emotional content coming up as a result of the client receiving body care. There are better and worse approaches out there for holding space and it would benefit the field if we disseminated space-holding techniques that work.
Furthermore, as a psychotherapist, I do occasionally hear bodytherapists (and psychotherapists, unfortunately,) using interventions that tell me their heart is in the right place but it is clear that a better understanding of transference/countertransference dynamics (or some other classically psychotherapeutic topic or skill) is necessary for the therapist to better serve their client. This integrative work is going to happen regardless of taboo status. We would be reducing harm more by getting these dedicated and skillful bodytherapists trained to handle enactments rather than pretending that bodytherapy is not also psychotherapy, and vice versa.
There are instances when the psychology of a person is so complex that working with someone with a lot of direct experience with people with complex psychologies is warranted. In my experience, however, many trauma cases are not at this level. We would be relieving the pressure that the mental health field is currently experiencing if more kinds of professionals were empowered to work with standard trauma cases. Furthermore, there are aspects of trauma that the bodytherapy fields are better suited at treating than the talk therapy field and this reality needs to be better communicated to clients who continued to suffer unnecessarily.
I do not have all the answers about this issue, nor currently provide evaluative interdisciplinary training. My goal in making this statement is to clarify a problem we have in the trauma field, namely that many types of professionals are fully capable of learning to treat trauma in a wholistic and interdisciplinary way and, not only should not feel threatened in doing so but should be fully empowered and supported.
Prosopon is on a mission to liberate all therapy professions (OT, PT, MT, LPC, LMFT, LCSW, etc.) from unnecessary constraints imposed on our practices when it comes to treating nervous system (psychological and emotional) trauma presentations. That trauma is a mind/body condition has been proven and established. Now is the time to support clinicians in incorporating appropriate practices across disciplinary lines, when properly supported with education, evaluation, and supervision. It's time to officially redraw the boundaries.
The boundaries have been unofficially redrawn for decades, but clinicians still feel the need to use work arounds in the language of their paperwork, websites, and other official documents. This is largely unnecessary because most therapists are not working outside of their scope of practice. If the therapy field felt free to be more open about what we are doing, we could hold ourselves more accountable, have better conversations out in the open, and continue our pioneering efforts in improving how we treat traumatized nervous systems and the long list of symptoms that comes with that.
I believe that this integration should be done intentionally and that there needs to be training and evaluation processes that ensure the highest quality of care for clients living with trauma. Many such training programs already exist! So many therapy professionals already nudge into other disciplines by incorporating coaching, Hakomi, IFS, psychotherapeutic touch work, vagal toning exercises, yoga, etc., because they see a need in their clients that they as individuals are fully capable of providing but are technically constrained by their license. There are good reasons for constraint as discussed in this article by Massage Magazine: Have you Crossed Over into Counseling Clients?
We are currently in an atmosphere where therapists who are willing and able to provide the full spectrum interaction that truly accelerates trauma healing do so in the grey area of their scope of practice. The consequence of this for many, especially the clinicians who are just getting into trauma work, is that they feel anything from unsupported to legally threatened. Of course, clinicians who cross boundaries that cause harm to their clients should be held legally accountable. Clinicians who cross boundaries to work in an interdisciplinary way with integrity should be celebrated and are celebrated by the clients who receive the great benefit of this integration.
There are two kinds of conversations I have with colleagues that inspire me to be clear about this issue. The first one is when I bring up psychotherapeutic touch work to psychotherapists. Many therapists do not realize that it is legal and ethical to touch their clients for therapeutic reasons. Sometimes it is unethical not to touch. Here is an article by Dr. Zur that discusses this issue in more depth: To Touch or Not To Touch. Our code of ethics demands that we take the transference/countertransference that can be created through touch seriously, but it does not ban touch. If a psychotherapist is not interested in using touch work they should be fully supported. However, many psychotherapists are talented in touch work and should be encouraged to provide this important intervention.
The second conversation I often have is with bodytherapists (PT, OT, MT) who clearly see that someone's recent or past psychological trauma is interfering with the progress of relieving body symptoms. These therapists feel like they would be neglecting their clients if they were to avoid holding space for the psychological and emotional content coming up as a result of the client receiving body care. There are better and worse approaches out there for holding space and it would benefit the field if we disseminated space-holding techniques that work.
Furthermore, as a psychotherapist, I do occasionally hear bodytherapists (and psychotherapists, unfortunately,) using interventions that tell me their heart is in the right place but it is clear that a better understanding of transference/countertransference dynamics (or some other classically psychotherapeutic topic or skill) is necessary for the therapist to better serve their client. This integrative work is going to happen regardless of taboo status. We would be reducing harm more by getting these dedicated and skillful bodytherapists trained to handle enactments rather than pretending that bodytherapy is not also psychotherapy, and vice versa.
There are instances when the psychology of a person is so complex that working with someone with a lot of direct experience with people with complex psychologies is warranted. In my experience, however, many trauma cases are not at this level. We would be relieving the pressure that the mental health field is currently experiencing if more kinds of professionals were empowered to work with standard trauma cases. Furthermore, there are aspects of trauma that the bodytherapy fields are better suited at treating than the talk therapy field and this reality needs to be better communicated to clients who continued to suffer unnecessarily.
I do not have all the answers about this issue, nor currently provide evaluative interdisciplinary training. My goal in making this statement is to clarify a problem we have in the trauma field, namely that many types of professionals are fully capable of learning to treat trauma in a wholistic and interdisciplinary way and, not only should not feel threatened in doing so but should be fully empowered and supported.
The STAT Group
We are a very new group with no documents outlining the group or organizational structure. We may develop something more official in the future to achieve our goals. Currently, we meet to discuss the definition of a STAT, how to protect ourselves and our clients as we redraw the professional boundaries, and what options we have to redraw those boundaries. We do our due diligence legally and ethically. We are interested in fully understanding the "system" where it stands. We wish to officially add a field (STAT) that already unofficially exists that extends from our original licenses. This may look like having a STAT certification process or creating an entirely separate license if possible.
If you would like to join us, email Liz at [email protected].
We are a collection of interdisciplinary therapists (PT, OT, MT, LPC, LCSW, LCMHP, LMFT, etc.), movement teachers, coaches, acupuncturists, doctors (MDs, DOs, NDs, DCs, NPs, PAs) and other types of professionals who are trained in Somatic Trauma and Attachment modalities such as:
We primarily support clients and patients in Nervous System Regulation, Somatic Awareness and Discharge Practices, and Top Down Approaches such as motivational interviewing, The Work, neurolinguistic programming and other talk based regulation practices. Our work is appropriate for supporting people living with:
STAT therapy is often one piece of the puzzle for people living with the above conditions. STATs strive to be knowledgeable in the health and wellness field in order to work in an interdisciplinary manner.
We are a very new group with no documents outlining the group or organizational structure. We may develop something more official in the future to achieve our goals. Currently, we meet to discuss the definition of a STAT, how to protect ourselves and our clients as we redraw the professional boundaries, and what options we have to redraw those boundaries. We do our due diligence legally and ethically. We are interested in fully understanding the "system" where it stands. We wish to officially add a field (STAT) that already unofficially exists that extends from our original licenses. This may look like having a STAT certification process or creating an entirely separate license if possible.
If you would like to join us, email Liz at [email protected].
We are a collection of interdisciplinary therapists (PT, OT, MT, LPC, LCSW, LCMHP, LMFT, etc.), movement teachers, coaches, acupuncturists, doctors (MDs, DOs, NDs, DCs, NPs, PAs) and other types of professionals who are trained in Somatic Trauma and Attachment modalities such as:
- Hakomi
- Somatic Experiencing
- Neural Circuit Retraining Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Myofascial Release (John F Barnes)
- (We will keep adding to the list as more modalities come to light)
We primarily support clients and patients in Nervous System Regulation, Somatic Awareness and Discharge Practices, and Top Down Approaches such as motivational interviewing, The Work, neurolinguistic programming and other talk based regulation practices. Our work is appropriate for supporting people living with:
- Chronic stress and nervous system dysregulation
- Body tension, postural and movement imbalance primarily when related to the belief system
- Chronic illnesses and infections like mold toxicity, chemical sensitivities, POTs, Lyme disease
- Functional Neurological Symptoms and Medically Unexplained Symptoms
- Chronic pain like myofascial pain syndrome, back pain, nerve pain, headaches/migraines, and fibromyalgia
- Mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and panic attacks
- Trauma symptoms related to PTSD, cPTSD, and attachment wounding
- Autoimmune diseases like lupus, interstitial cystitis, Hashimoto's, and rheumatoid arthritis
- Digestive issues such as gastroparesis, constipation, IBS, and Crohn's
STAT therapy is often one piece of the puzzle for people living with the above conditions. STATs strive to be knowledgeable in the health and wellness field in order to work in an interdisciplinary manner.