Expanding The Circle Of Capacity: Expressive and Somatosensory Approaches to Trauma

From Keynote Presentation, Dr. Cathy Malchiodi briefly introduces her model, Circle of Capacity: "Traumatized individuals are often either in mind-body states of anxiety, worry, panic, and hyperarousal or are numb, withdrawn, fearful, collapsed, or dissociated from others and their environment. Survivors of chronic trauma may fluctuate between these states or even experience both simultaneously. As a result, many individuals often become alienated from their ability to experience a sense of mastery, empowerment, and self-efficacy in both body and mind. They may no longer feel the reparative moments of joy, playfulness, curiosity, and enlivenment necessary to full repair and recovery from trauma.
How do we address these powerful experiences of suffering and internalized pain that often include moments of shame, guilt, or moral injury? Most trauma specialists are familiar with the framework known as “window of tolerance.” But how do we help individuals move beyond “tolerating” to replacing pain and suffering with positive sensations that eliminate fear and distress? This session will focus on an alternative model that integrates somatosensory (sensory integration and somatic therapy) and expressive arts therapy through a “Circle of Capacity” framework (Malchiodi, 2021). How a focus on capacity supports key factors of self-regulation, co-regulation, resilience, self-compassion, enlivenment, curiosity, play, and joy is explored through conceptual frameworks, best practices, and emerging research in trauma and related fields."