Embodied Approaches for OCD: Integrating Somatic Experiencing
Led by: Dr. brittany escuriex
Are more clients reporting ruminative thoughts they can’t control, compulsions or avoidance behaviors that cause them distress, or a general urge to get their environment “just right”? Do you feel less equipped than you’d like when clients request support with OCD or similar concerns? Have you been trained in techniques to treat OCD but feel they aren’t as trauma-informed and body-based as you’d like?
Presentations such as OCD, phobias, and related disorders are often classically treated with cognitive and behavioral tools such as exposure and response prevention. But for many clients—especially those with complex trauma histories—exposure-based approaches can feel overwhelming, incomplete, or even retraumatizing. And for therapists, these approaches may feel outside their scope of competence or not fully aligned with their commitment to trauma-informed work and body-based healing. This 3-hour training invites therapists to deepen their understanding of OCD and related disorders through a nervous-system and trauma-informed lens, exploring how Somatic Experiencing and body-based interventions can gently support healing from the inside out and bottom up.
Participants will learn how to recognize symptoms of OCD and related disorders, conceptualize the somatic underpinnings of compulsions and avoidance behaviors, and effectively support clients in disrupting the patterns of obsessions and compulsions using gentle somatic interventions. We’ll explore how trauma responses such as hypervigilance, repetitive thoughts, and rigid behavioral rules manifest in different diagnoses—and how to create more safety, choice, and integration in the therapeutic process. Whether you work with clients who have classic OCD symptoms, health anxiety, or trauma-driven phobias, this training will offer clinical tools, case examples, and nervous-system-informed practices to expand your effectiveness. This training is great for those who are looking to gain a new understanding of treating OCD-like symptoms, and for those who want to integrate somatic work into their existing knowledge base of working with OCD.
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Aug 8th from 9am-12pm
3 CEs Provided
Learning Objectives:
Identify how trauma and nervous system dysregulation can contribute to symptoms of OCD, phobias, and anxiety.
Explain key principles of Somatic Experiencing® as applied to OCD-related disorders.
Utilize at least three somatic interventions to support safety, containment, and regulation in activated or compulsive states.
Apply a trauma-informed lens to compulsive behaviors, including how they serve as attempts to regulate distress.
Gain tools for helping to separate the fixated pattern between obsessions and compulsions.
Assess when exposure work may be contraindicated and how to titrate intensity using somatic principles.
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