Integrating Somatic Therapy into Intuitive Eating in Atlanta, GA

Are you a therapist interested in deepening your awareness of the importance of inviting clients into body-based practices supported by trauma-informed research and developmental movement patterns?

Did you know that relational attunement sets the stage for biological functioning? In our upcoming 5hrs Ethics CE workshop Integrating Somatic Therapy into Intuitive Eating for Relational Nourishment, counselors will learn more about the psychoeducation of nervous system functioning & the rhythm of firing and relative refractory period of the vagus nerve for deep nourishment.

Learning about these anatomical process increases ethical competency by gaining a deeper understanding of the science of the vagus nerve & how relational somatic practices can affect bodily functioning. Here are a few areas we will cover:

Safety/Trust — Breathing, Swallowing, Digestion

When counselors are informed about the latest scientific understanding of how trauma affects the coordination of breathing and swallowing as well as gut motility, Somatic Therapeutic techniques can be ethically offered for deep nourishment.

Autonomy/Self Determination — Mobilization without Fight/Flight

For example, the development of the striatum helps us to know that relational support can help channel random movement into goal-directed movement. This helps one to mobilize with acetylcholine rather than adrenaline. This creates a greater capacity for nervous system state “Rest & Digest” and Play/Dance.

Scientific Understanding of Co-Regulation — Interoceptive Awareness and Gut Motility

A therapist offering a client specific relational and developmental somatic techniques can replicate ideal infant/parent dances that pattern Social Engagement system functioning:

• creating greater awareness of interoceptive cues,

• attunement to appetite and food cravings, regular digestion and peristalsis,

• and regular bowel functioning.

Boundaries and Consent — Core Connection

When Somatic Therapeutic techniques invite oppositional movement radiating from the pelvis, the dance of consent, autonomy and beneficence can bring consciousness of multigenerational patterns of nervous system functioning that foster one group to dominate and marginalize others.

When helping professionals are educated about, and they are equipped with the ability to “catch” a client’s “putting-a-foot-down,” the client can feel, “Maybe all of me is finally welcome here. Maybe my hunger for food and connection is reasonable and can be fed literally and figuratively.”

Invitational Techniques — Trauma-informed Approach

Offering one invitational and relational practice at a time helps the helpers to sense the integrity in honestly representing the fact that healing the patterns of multi-generational trauma that foster one group dominating and marginalizing others takes practice. No quick fixes. One bite at a time.

Save the date!

🌟 May 1, 2026 🌟

Somatic therapists Dee Wagner, LPC, BC-DMT, MSME/T & Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, RSME/T are excited to offer a deeper understanding of the science of the vagus nerve and how relational somatic practices can affect bodily functioning, providing an ethical approach to integrating somatic therapy into Intuitive Eating.

5hrs Ethics CEs for Counselors
(LPCA of Georgia Approved)

Ethics of Integrating Somatic Therapy into Intuitive Eating for Relational Nourishment

Date: Friday, May 1, 2026
Time: 9:00am - 3:30pm
Location: Harbor of Dreams Art, Stone Mountain Georgia
Address: 6570 James B Rivers Memorial Dr, Stone Mountain, GA 30083

Program Description: 

Current understanding of the vagus nerve, trauma patterning and attachment theory offers evidence-based support for somatic practices as relational nourishment. Somatic therapists Dee Wagner, LPC, BC-DMT, MSME/T and Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RYT, RSME/T offer a deeper understanding of the vagus nerve and how it affects co-regulation and digestive functioning in their new peer-reviewed article “Chi for Two® developmental relational practices: A lens for examining how somatic therapy might resolve infant reflexes,” in Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. Wagner and Gebhardt offer relational practices providing an ethical approach to integrating somatic therapy into Intuitive Eating.

Objectives:

1) Identify and describe the ethical guidelines that are followed when somatic practices are invitational and relational.

2) Increase ethical competency by gaining scientific understanding of deprivation/restriction as dorsal vagal Shutdown and invitational and relational somatic practices as the pathway to the biological functioning called our Social Engagement system.

3) Ethically offer clients somatic practices that are invitational and developmental, creating consciousness of multi-generational trauma patterns that have caused harm, and providing the co-regulation that supports the digestive functioning that heals systemic harm.

Dee’s Bio 

Dee Wagner, LPC, BC-DMT, MSME/T has worked as a counselor, dance therapist and somatic educator since 1993. Originator of Chi for Two® – a polyvagal-informed, multi-generational trauma healing method, Dee has written many articles on nervous system functioning. Dee has offered workshops for professionals on the use of somatic trauma-healing experiences since 1997. The ‘Map’ of nervous system functioning Dee created is one of the tools in Miller and Beeson’s Neuroeducation toolbox: Practical translations of neuroscience in counselling and psychotherapy. Chi for Two is an approved training program for the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA).

Caroline’s Bio

Caroline Gebhardt, LPC, RSME/T, is a Licensed Professional Counselor, certified Chi for Two® embodiment coach/trainer, Registered Yoga Teacher, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, & Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator with ISMETA. Caroline’s trauma training, decades of experience as a movement educator & expertise in eating disorders and early eating/feeding rhythms from an attachment-based lens contributed to her co-developing Chi for Two, a mindful embodiment method. Working in various levels of care for eating disorders treatment deepened her understanding of the need for more trauma-informed and relational approaches for sustainable bodily functioning and relational nourishment.

Registration: https://www.chifortwo.com/ethics-somatic-therapy-intuitive-eating

Questions? Email Caroline@MBodiedTherapy.com

ChiforTwo.com