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CPD Credits
3
Event Type
Live Online Event
Location
Zoom & Recording
Time (UK)
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Standard
£80.00
Trainee/NHS
£68
Book Tickets
Woman self hug
Friday, September 18, 2026

Psychoanalysis and Somatic Trauma Treatment Models

Treatment for patients suffering from early developmental trauma and dissociation

With Dr David Levit & Dr Zack Eleftheriadou (Chair)

The focus of this webinar will be treatment with patients suffering from early developmental trauma and severe dissociation. Our speaker, Dr David Levit, draws upon his training not only in psychoanalysis but also in Somatic Experiencing®, one of the somatic trauma treatment models that have developed over the past fifty years outside of psychoanalysis.

Levit will discuss and illustrate ways of working with patients’ bodily experiences in a more direct and sustained manner than psychoanalysts or psychotherapists are typically accustomed to in psychoanalytic or psychoanalytically informed treatment. In this way of working, the body is not only a port of entry but also a central site of therapeutic action.

In presenting extensive clinical process, Levit will invoke Ogden’s notion of looking from multiple theoretical vertices.  Levit will illustrate the interweaving of specific interventions from the somatic trauma therapies, but his emphasis will be on discussion  of the clinical processes from the vantage points of holding, as variously defined by Winnicott, and containing, as defined by Bion. He is not suggesting that we replace or even supplement our psychoanalytic forms of provision.  Rather, he will illustrate how interweaving approaches from somatic trauma therapies into our clinical work can enhance our capacities to offer that which we offer psychoanalytically, namely, being with and bearing what patients cannot bear, and providing much needed holding and containment. All of this within a context of our continuing efforts to help patients develop their capacity for being present with their traumatic past, rather than being continually haunted by the past  in the ongoing present.

Programme

14.00 Introductions
14.05 Introductory remarks about somatic trauma therapies

Contextualising their contribution to psychoanalytic treatment through a brief overview of psychoanalytic modes of working with the body in treatment and working with posttraumatic dissociative states. Including an outline of human psychobiological responses to felt threat/danger.

14.30 Q&A
14.45 First patient: “Sue”

This session includes two clinical vignette interweaving intervention from somatic trauma therapies into psychoanalytic treatment. Followed by a discussion of clinical process from three vantage points: somatic trauma therapy perspective, holding, and containing.

15.30 Q&A
15.45 Break
16.00  Second patient: “Ellie”

This second case study will include multiple clinical vignettes along with discussion from the same three vantagepoints: somatic trauma therapy perspective, holding, and containing.

16.45 Q&A
17.00 End

Zack Eleftheriadou

Dr Zack Eleftheriadou is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society (HCPC reg). She has trained as a child and parent-infant psychotherapist (CPJA/UKCP) and as an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist (CPJA/UKCP & Tavistock Society/BPC). Zack runs the consultancy service ‘Noema Psychology and Psychotherapy’, providing psychotherapy, supervision and teaching. She lectures in the following areas: developmental issues, trauma/complex trauma, migration/cross-cultural work and the ‘replacement child’ psychodynamics. She has published widely, including the text ‘Psychotherapy and Culture’. She is member of The Bowlby Centre and is a visiting external examiner for Doctoral projects across the UK. She feels passionate about early intervention and regularly presents on ‘the psychology of the baby’, for health professionals and psychotherapists. She has previously worked in several London NHS Hospitals and charities, such as Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre and Freedom from Torture. She is also currently an honourary psychotherapist of the Tavistock Complex Trauma Service.

Dr David Levit

David Levit, PhD, ABPP, SEP is a board-certified Diplomate in Psychoanalysis and Clinical Psychology, and a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. He is a Fellow of both the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis and the American Academy of Clinical Psychology.  Dr. Levit is Faculty and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), where he also serves as Co-founder, Chair, and Faculty of the MIP Postgraduate Fellowship Program–West. He is an Instructor in Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and formerly held academic appointments at Tufts Medical School and Smith College School for Social Work.  His work focuses on drawing upon the somatic trauma therapies in psychoanalytic treatment. He has presented widely on this topic nationally in the US and internationally.  He maintains a private practice in Amherst, MA, offering psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and professional consultation.

Book Tickets