Pre- and Perinatal Study Group

This study group addresses the earliest imprints of life’s challenges from preconception through the first years of life. Disruptions to secure attachment can result from difficult births, prematurity, early illness and injuries, surgeries, adoption, parental mental health challenges, as well as generational, social and systemic trauma.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OVERVIEW

This two-year training supports healthy attachment and repair and renegotiation of early trauma. 

This is a highly experiential training where participants are encouraged to learn from the inside out by being open to exploring their personal birth process and early attachment strategies. Group members will learn how to establish a felt sense of safety through somatic and verbal skills to support clients to rediscover their original blueprint of health and wholeness. Didactic material includes an introduction to pre and perinatal psychology, early developmental concepts, embryology, and attachment theory through the lifespan.

Participants will experience directly and learn how to guide others through these earliest implicit imprints that may have occluded their true selves. Practitioners will learn to support others to stay connected to adult consciousness by creating a safe container for the exploration of traumatic somatic memories and disavowed parts of self. Skills and tools include resourcing, boundary setting, somatic and emotional tracking and differentiation to enhance agency and integration. 

This work is grounded in the practice and theories brought forth by Myrna Martin, Ray Costellino and William Emerson. Elements of Somatic Experiencing, Neuroaffective Relational Model, Neuroaffective Touch, Ego State work, as well as components from other experiential modalities will be embedded throughout.

PARTICIPANTS:

The study group is ideal for psychotherapists, bodyworkers, health professionals, midwives, doulas and somatic educators and coaches. It is beneficial for those working with children, adults, families or couples and those supporting the childbearing and early years.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES INCLUDE: 

• Understand your own early trauma and implicit imprints for greater presence and compassion in your work;
• Learn to recognize early imprints and implicit memory as they show up in the body, personality and character structures;
• Identify how current experiences in the mind and body, as well as relationally, might be seen through one’s pre and perinatal imprints;
• Establish and support healthy boundaries and self regulation in yourself and clients;
• Understand the physiological basis of early trauma and the imprinting process
• Learn somatic tracking, titration and resourcing to facilitate the resolution of pre and perinatal trauma and early attachment woundings;
• Learn to support families, parents and babies through their current pre and perinatal experiences

Year One Modules 1-5: Explore attachment, preconception, birth imprinting, surgical and chemical imprinting, and double binds.

Year Two Modules 6-10: Explore pregnancy loss, adoption, prematurity, treatments for newborns and couples work in attachment theory.

Study Group Facilitator: Waller Thompson, EdD, LPC, SEP, BCST has been supporting individuals, families, children and babies throughout her career as an educator, psychologist and counselor since the ‘90s. She is passionate about pre and perinatal trauma healing work in part because it touches us at our place of deepest humanity while reconnecting us to one of the greatest mysteries of life. 

DATES: 

Wednesdays 9 am to 12 noon

YEAR 1:

Begins September 13, 2023

WINTER BREAK: Mid-December 2023 through early February 2024

Resumes February, 2024

SUMMER BREAK: mid June through mid September

YEAR 2:

Begins September 11, 2024

WINTER BREAK: Mid-December 2024 through early February 2025

Resumes February, 2025 through mid June 2025

Exact dates will be available this summer

TUITION:

Full Tuition for Both Years 1 & 2: $3200 (a cost of  approximately $53 per 3 hour class)

(Payments of $1600 due annually or by payment plan) 

The $250 deposit due by August 1st that reserves your spot will go towards your first payment.