Tao of Trauma 2025 - 2026

The Tao of Trauma: Integrating Five Element Theory and Trauma Healing is rooted in an East-meets-West approach to restoring balance and regulation in survivors of traumatic stress. It marries theoretical and clinical concepts from Western neuroscience with Chinese Medicine (CM) to elucidate mind and body based clinical skills for psychotherapists, acupuncturists, and physical care and medical providers.

The Self Protective Response, defined by Peter Levine, founder of the Somatic Experiencing model of trauma resolution, mirrors the movement of the Five Elements, defined by CM.  This interface provides a framework for deepening clinical applications of Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal theory. This integrative approach gives rise to a framework for understanding five “survivor types” and ways to access the incomplete survival impulses wreaking havoc in an individual survivor’s body, mind, emotions and spirit.

This ancient and modern integrative lens illuminates the diverse manifestations of traumatic stress in its survivors – chronic pain, mental health disorders, autoimmune illness, insomnia,  and metabolic problems – and provides clues to understanding and transforming the clinical and social impact of unresolved trauma in our homes, with our patients, and on the streets.

Summarizing main points of workshop.

• Survivors are genetically predisposed to both react and recover from the impact of overwhelming traumatic stress. The Traumatic Stress Response is not a life-sentence.   

• CM Yin/Yang theory mirrors the concepts of sympathetic activation and parasympathetic collapse in the autonomic nervous system. Similarly, the steps of the Self-Protective Response defined by neurobiology are mirrored in CM’s Five Phase theory. 

• Symptoms survivors of traumatic stress present with can be understood as expressions of their success or failure in completing one or more steps of their Self Protective Response.

• The Polyvagal theory provides a useful theoretical construct for understanding the impact of developmental trauma on the enteric brain and its impact on adult morbidity and mortality.

• The core principles of treatment for the spectrum of Traumatic Stress Responses and traumatic brain injury, include evaluating arousal and collapse, pacing, titration, enhancing body-based and emotional mindfulness and integration of treatment.

• The metaphors and correspondences of the Five Phase model of CM are a useful construct for working with cognitive function, emotional wellbeing, body systems and tissues, and spiritual longings in trauma survivors for diverse providers.

• Understanding these correspondences alongside the study of the autonomic nervous system can guide clinicians to more nuancedwhole-person approaches to understanding and treating the dysregulation caused by traumatic stress, including mental health disorders, chronic pain, autoimmune illness, insomnia, and metabolic problems. This ancient/modern, East meets West integrative approach enriches the clinical applications of diverse providers and brings new hope to survivors of trauma.

At the conclusion of this Workshop series, learners will be able to:

• Assess survivors' Traumatic Stress Response as an expression of success or failure in one or more steps of their Self Protective Response.

• Apply yin/yang theory to the concepts of sympathetic activation and parasympathetic collapse after traumatic stress.

• Summarize elements of  traumatic stress as an energetic (qi) system that has been stimulated beyond its range of resiliency and is awaiting restoration of its natural balance and equilibrium.

• Name core principles of treatment for the spectrum of Traumatic Stress Responses and traumatic brain injury, including evaluating arousal and collapse, pacing, titration, enhancing interoceptive mindfulness and integration of treatment.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills that help trauma survivors restore balance in the brace and/or collapse response in their body, mind, emotions and spirit after traumatic stress.

• Identify factors that contribute to the definition of a practitioner’s scope of practice

• Discriminate between signs of activation in the nervous system and those of relaxation

• Summarize elements of  the poly-vagal system and list the critical role of developmental trauma on the enteric brain in adult morbidity and mortality as a public health concern. 

• Identify the clinical usefulness of using the metaphors of the Five Phase model of Chinese Medicine for working with mental health disorders, body systems and tissues, cognitive function, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual longings.

In addition to the above, at the conclusion of the Awakening Arousal module, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate skill in conscious and respectful interactions with trauma survivors.

• Demonstrate ability to monitor client activation via a combination of verbal tracking of a client’s felt sense and tactile  awareness.

• Name the primary and secondary diaphragms.

• Summarize the ways in which the body diaphragms interact as resonant structures.

• Demonstrate skill in restoring balance and regulation to the brace/collapse response in the diaphragm system and its impact on the body, mind, emotions and spirit after traumatic stress. 

• Summarize the “personality” of the Lung in CM.

• Summarize the “personality” of the Colon in CM.

• Demonstrate skill in using the Felt Sense to restore interoceptive awareness.

At the conclusion of the Signaling Threat module, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate skill in helping trauma survivors cultivate interoceptive mindful approaches to the creation of safe boundaries.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills to restore capacity in the signaling function of the kidney/adrenal system after traumatic stress.

• Summarize  the poly-vagal system and the critical role of the Kidney-Heart axis in traumatic stress.

• Apply the concepts of titration and pendulation between a resourced state and an activated state via interoceptive capacity building and visual observation.

• Summarize the personality of the Kidney in CM.

• Summarize the “personality” of the Bladder in CM.

• Describe the relationship between the “Brain” as understood in CM and the brain stem as understood by neurophysiology.

• Demonstrate techniques for restoring regulation in the Kidney/Adrenal system.

In addition to the above, at the conclusion of the Mobilizing A Response module, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills  to restore the orienting response in trauma survivors.

• Demonstrate skills in slowing down, tracking and cultivating interoceptive mindfulness of the mobilization response of fight or flight in trauma survivors.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills  to restore regulation in the autonomic nervous system and in the joints to  address chronic pain patterns in survivors of trauma.

• Summarize the ways in which the five senses provide support for orientation and self-protection in trauma.

• Analyze the concepts of pain as a phenomenon of qi/energy becoming depleted, stuck, or disorganized due to  injury, illness, or environmental exposure.

• Analyze the influence building, moving, or bringing order to the qi/energy body may have on chronic pain.

• Identify the interface of the Elements of CM and the autonomic nervous system in survivors of trauma.

• Summarize “the personality” of the Liver and Gall Bladder and their role in the mobilization of the fight/flight response from an integrative, East-West perspective.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills designed to restore capacity to successfully orient to threat.

• Summarize the importance of slowing down, tracking and cultivating interoceptive mindfulness of the mobilization response.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills  to restore the joints and to  address chronic pain patterns in  physical injury survivors.

• Summarize dynamics of proprioception and kinesthetic sense after traumatic injury.  Develop skills in restoring the self-protective response after injury.

In addition to the above, at the conclusion of the Restoring Coherence module, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the poly-vagal system and the critical role of the kidney/heart axis in trauma survivors. 

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills to restore capacity for social engagement after trauma.

• Name the primary functions of fascia. 

• Demonstrate clinical skills in working with the mediastinum.

• Summarize methods through which clients can be supported in the development of the capacity to differentiate without fragmenting.

• Summarize methods through which clients can be supported in developing the capacity to unify or make healthy connections without constricting.

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills  to  support the relationship between connection and individuation as expressed in the fascia system and the Triple Heater meridian.  

• Summarize the “personality” of the Heart in CM.

• Summarize the “personality” of the Pericardium in CM.

• Summarize the “personality” of the Small Intestine in CM.

• Summarize the “personality” of the Triple Heater in CM.

• Discriminate between the “Mind” as understood in CM and the frontal cortex as understood by neurophysiology.

In addition to the above, at the conclusion of the Digesting the Gristle module, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate and practice regulation skills to  help restore balance and regulation in the competing impulses of “standing my ground” or “fighting/fleeing” in the body, mind, emotions and spirit of trauma survivors.

• Apply polyvagal theory in interaction to help restore balance and regulation in the enteric brain in survivors of trauma.  

• Describe common physiological responses to stress which affect the digestive system

• Describe the polyvagal theory concepts that name how early trauma can contribute to physiological dysregulation.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the role of the enteric or visceral brain in the neurophysiology of Adverse Childhood Events, and their impact on adult morbidity and mortality.

• Summarize the interface of the Five Elements of CM and the autonomic nervous system in survivors of trauma.

• Summarize the "personality" of the Spleen and Stomach and their role in digesting life experiences and harvesting lessons from an integrative, East-West perspective.

• Identify the science of the poly-vagal nervous system and how it helps explain the life-long impact of early trauma on the viscera and the enteric brain.

• Summarize  the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences as an underlying feature in virtually every public health question of morbidity and mortality 

• Observe and demonstrate regulation skills to augment treatment, access subtle expressions of dysregulation and bring healing to trauma survivors.