Protector parts include parts that guard us from speaking our truth, protect us from intimacy, or inhibit us from taking important steps to move forward in our lives.

Do your clients feel held back by their protector parts and want to get rid of them?  Do you often find yourself doing the same–trying to out-maneuver their protector parts, or trying to show them that they are no longer needed?

And then… do you find that the protector parts return, as entrenched as ever?

In this workshop, we will learn to engage protector parts as intelligent constellations organizing experience and identity.  We will learn to consciously inhabit protector parts, and through them, the protected states that hide underneath the protectors.

Building from the first workshop in this series (Working With Protectors, Part 1: How to Go Beneath Judgment States to the Underlying Core Material, which is available for purchase as an on-demand recording for those who missed it), we will review how to provide the context and compassion that will help you re-frame with your client what this work is really about.  (Hint: It’s not about expunging these parts of the self.  Rather, it’s about learning to have a conscious relationship with them.  When we can really listen to the protector parts, they no longer have to “grab the steering wheel” in order to get what they really need.)

In essence, will learn how to build the trust of the protector parts, so that they become allies instead of adversaries.

By consciously inhabiting protector states, in a deeply embodied way, our clients experience an infinitely greater sense of internal space.  These experiences are pivotal, and they deepen commitment to the process of reconciling with both protector and protected parts.  The work becomes highly gratifying for both clients and practitioners.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify protector parts
2. Support the client to reframe and engage protector parts as intelligent constellations organizing experience and identity
3. Utilize supportive interventions for working with protector parts both in session and applied to the clients life outside the therapy space

This Workshop is the second part of a 3-part series (participants who need to catch up on Part 1 prior to joining for Part 2 can add Part 1 in the registration form):

Working with Protectors, Part 1: How to Go Beneath Judgment States to the Underlying Core Material (Prerequisite available as an on-demand recording plus live practice session)

Working with Protectors, Part 2 (December 6-7): Learning to Consciously Inhabit Protector States and Protected States

Working with Protectors, Part 3 (date TBA): Re-Integration of Self—What is the New Self We Discover When We Embody Protector and Protected States in a Collective and Creative Space?

Note: These workshops are intended to be sequential.  People who have missed a workshop and want to take the next one will have to do an online version of the previous workshop(s).  This will consist of carefully reviewing the workshop video, studying the written materials, and then doing a review session with one of the instructors.

Instructor Bios

Shai Lavie, M.A., Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, works with adults, adolescents, and families in private practice in San Anselmo, California. He got his Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1995, and received his MFT license in 1999.

Shai is certified in the Hakomi Method of mindfulness-based psychotherapy, and is a Certified Hakomi Trainer on the faculty of Hakomi Mallorca and the Hakomi Institute of California.  He is also certified in the Somatic Experiencing method of working with trauma, developed by Peter Levine.

Shai has been practicing Vipassana meditation for over 35 years. For many years beginning in 2001, Shai taught meditation in the Teen and Family Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center (see www.spiritrock.org).

Shai has also led psychotherapy trainings for therapists at numerous agencies and training centers in California.

Please look for articles from Shai Lavie in the September/October 2011 issue of Psychotherapy Networker (“In Search of a Lost Self”) and in the September/October 2011 issue of The Therapist (“Mindfulness-Based Family Therapy”). These articles can be found on the Hakomi Institute website. Please also look for Shai’s chapter (“Experiments in Mindfulness”) in the new book: Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice (W.W. Norton, 2015). Shai’s newest article, “Held Experience: Using Mindfulness in Psychotherapy to Facilitate Deeper Psychological Repair” published in the Fall 2015 issue of the International Body Psychotherapy Journal.

Shai lives in Fairfax, California with his wife and daughter. He loves wilderness hiking, paddle boarding, climbing, frisbee, martial arts, and music.

Karen Daley, MA, MFT, Certified Hakomi Teacher.  Alongside twenty years of experience in the field of community mental health, she also brings ten years as a senior leadership trainer/organization development consultant with AmeriCorps and various other non-profits.

Karen co-created and for four years directed the Resilience Clinic at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, where the goal was to partner with families and build on their own knowledge by introducing both caregiver and child to nervous-system regulation and tracking, to mitigate the effects of stress.

She believes in collaboration and the power of equanimity as we deepen our awareness and understanding of our own social location as well as the social location of others. Karen believes in the transformative power of the Hakomi Method to facilitate deep healing both on an individual and a collective level.

When not with others, Karen can be found tending her garden or going on long walks.

12 CE’s: (ACEP #5476): Hakomi Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP No. 5476.) Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Hakomi Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.