17/05/2026
Restoring Wholeness
Introducing Compassionate Somatic Practice
Trauma Training in Scotland
Date: 10.00 – 4.00 pm Saturday 6 June 2026
Facilitator: Dr Bill Paterson
Venue: Healing for the Heart. Fourth Floor, Merchants House, 30 George Square, Glasgow G2 1EG
Contact: [email protected]
Cost: £ 95.00
The workshop is for therapists, counsellors, and other helping professionals wishing tounderstand and develop a somatic compassion practice; not just for working with clienttrauma, but as a self-care resource for practitioners.
For the last 16 years, as a mindfulness/compassion teacher and then therapist, I have beenexploring different streams of somatic practice. Those streams began with embodiedcontemplative practice (Rob Nairn, Reggie Ray, and the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition),but include somatic psychotherapy (Reich, Lowen, Levine, Hakomi), neurobiological andpolyvagal frameworks (Porges, Dana, Maté), attachment and developmental theory (Bowlby,Gerhardt), compassion-based clinical approaches (Gilbert, Neff, Jinpa), trauma-informeddissociation models (Janet, Van der Hart), and relational and person-centred traditions(Rogers, Prouty, Gendlin, Badenoch). All of this has helped me develop a compassionatesomatic practice for 'cultivating wholeness' with clients who want to work with their trauma.Whilst the workshop will focus on introducing these practices to participants, the theory is woven throughout.
This is an experiential day of practice and discussion, not a lecture.
The day begins with bringing awareness to the body to compassionately recognise thepatterns of the nervous system. In the afternoon we will begin meeting what we find with acompassionate felt sense. This creates the conditions to explore different ways of releasing thesurvival energy that was mobilised but never completed. Promoting these practices as an act of self-compassion in the pursuit of wholeness can help alleviate the shame and guilt thattrauma survivors often experience.
Please bring an open and curious mind, a yoga mat, blanket, cushion, and notebook, and wearclothes that allow movement and layers so that you can regulate your temperature.
