USABP currently has a vacant President position on the Board of Directors (BOD). In the interim, the BOD is working diligently to serve its members per the Society’s Mission and Goals. If you are interested in nominating yourself/or a colleague to join and lead this highly passionate and dedicated group, please complete the “NOMINATE” form below.

If you have questions, please email angie@usabp.org.

USABP President Position Description:
To lead the Board of Directors with the support of the Executive Director. The President’s term is for two years and they must be a member in good standing.

The President may be elected by a majority vote of the current Board. Please be sure that the nominee is aware of submission for this role.

Nomination Survey Questions to Submit with Your Nomination:

Submitter’s First and Last Name
Submitter’s Email Address
Nominee’s Name
Nominee’s Email Address
Why is the nominee a good fit to serve as USABP President?
Nominee’s Professional Website

Make Your Nomination

We are grateful for the life and legacy of Anna Halprin, founder of the Tamalpa Institute - An Official USABP Independent Body-Centered Training Institute Member - Level 1. 

Few dance artists have been as influential as Anna Halprin. She has been credited to have redefined dance as a tool for healing (NPR).

In 1978 she began offering the first movement-based expressive arts therapy training and art-based, somatic movement therapy training program in the field. The Institute continues to be a center for research, collaboration, workshops, training programs, and performance. You'll find their events listed in our events calendar.

In Remembrance there will be a special online event:

Honoring Anna Halprin: Halprin Work and Legacy ~ with Janice Ross
Friday, August 20, 10-11AM PDT

Register here.

The non-profit Center for Mindful Body Awareness offers trainings to therapists who want to learn how to teach clients fundamental strategies to access and sustain mindful interoceptive attention to enhance client embodiment, self-awareness, and emotion regulation. Based on strategies from evidence-based approach Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT), this training is focused on fundamental skills that develop and increase client capacity for interoceptive awareness. The MABT approach is particularly helpful for clients who are disconnected from their bodies due to high stress or patterns of experiential avoidance, chronic pain, or trauma. The Liberated Body podcast interview is a great way to learn about the MABT approach and research.

The next professional training is September 12-18, 2021 at the Whidbey Institute in WA State. 

Two educational scholarships are available to therapists working in community settings with underserved populations; applications will be accepted until July 18^th.

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy Board is pleased to announce it has granted its inaugural Scholarship in the amount of $7,500 to Mystique Hargrove from North Carolina for the 2020-2021 academic year!

Mystique is a first year doctoral student at Capella University.

Mystique is currently working on her dissertation topic for approval in hopes to focus her research on race based trauma among Black LGBTQ+ individuals.

Outside of her doctoral studies, Mystique is a single parent to a very energetic and loving 5 year old, who she homeschools as well. Mystique is also a community birth worker who is certified as a full spectrum doula as well as a community lactation professional who services Black bodies and other bodies of color in Greensboro, NC and surrounding areas.

Mystique says she is working "to improve accessibility in offering more inclusive services and support for Black bodies and other bodies of color, especially in the LGBTQ+ community.”

Her vision is to provide the needed research as well as mental health and wellness services centered around identifying, assessing and treating minority stress and race based trauma within these communities.

On behalf of all of us at USABP, congratulations Mystique!

Kinsey Institute Receives $290,000 Gift to Further Trauma Research

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) in partnership with the Dillon Fund has awarded a $290,000 gift to the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. The gift will provide funding for trauma recovery research being conducted at the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium (KI-TSRC). “We are excited about the promising research the KI-TSRC is producing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and are happy to continue our shared support of this valuable and unique mission,” said Dr. Christopher Walling, President, USABP.

Led by Distinguished University Scientist Dr. Stephen Porges, the KI-TSRC’s mission is to explore the science of human connection and the role that stress and trauma experiences play in disrupting a person’s ability to feel safe and to socially engage. KI-TSRC research emphasizes that social engagement is essential to health and wellbeing across the lifespan. With the collaboration of over 700 therapists specializing in trauma, the KI-TSRC is collecting data on the therapeutic needs of trauma survivors and the clinical practices of their therapists in order to advance research, develop innovative tools and methodologies, and further clinical care.

Dr. Jacek Kolacz of the KI-TSRC is currently leading a study that seeks to learn about coping behaviors and mental and physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they are impacted by prior trauma history. “In times when funds are scarce, philanthropists can make a difference and partner in the healing process by funding KI-TSRC research to uncover the diverse needs of our fellow humans today and offer accurate, effective support for trauma recovery tomorrow,” said Katherine A. Wolovsky, MA, Co-Director, The Dillon Fund.

In addition to this impactful gift of $290,000, the USABP and The Dillon Fund previously gave $260,000 in 2019 to support the KI-TSRC’s trauma research and archival preservation. “We are incredibly grateful for the ongoing support of the USABP and The Dillon Fund. The continued confidence and generosity of our donors and Advisory Council members allows our research faculty to stay at the forefront of important and timely scientific research, including the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and wellbeing,” said Dr. Justin Garcia, Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute.

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About the USABP

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy was founded in 1999 to help develop and advance the art, science, and practice of body psychotherapy and somatic psychology in a professional, ethical, and caring manner in order to support their members as they promote the health and welfare of their clients.

About the Kinsey Institute

For over 70 years, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University has been the premier research institute on human sexuality and relationships and a trusted source for evidence-based information on critical issues in sexuality, gender, and reproduction. The Kinsey Institute's research program integrates scholarly fields including neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, history, and gender studies. The Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections encompass over 500,000 items spanning 2,000 years of human sexual behavior and are a destination research collection for scholars and students. Kinsey Institute outreach includes traveling art exhibitions, public scholarship, research lectures, and a continuing education program.

For more information about the work of KI-TSRCplease visit kinseyinstitute.org or contact trauma@indiana.edu

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To continue these types of impactful services we draw upon readers like you to help us out. 

Would you like to donate to our cause? 

Learn More About Contributing to the USABP

We are pleased to announce that USABP Member Carl H. Shubs, Ph. D. is deeply honored and appreciative of having been given the Award for Outstanding Practice 2020 by The American Psychological Association (Division 56 – Trauma  Psychology) “to celebrate you and your fantastic work for Trauma Psychology [and] your amazing contributions to the field.”

We are thrilled to announce that Stella Resnick, PhD has been contacted by the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections Director to say that they would be honored to have her collection of books, papers, and memoranda to be a part of the Special Collections of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. IU is her alma mater where she graduated with a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the age of 26. 

In fact, the Kinsey Institute with its Special Collections will be moving to Lindley Hall, where she spent an intense five years of her early twenties, with all the insecurities and self-doubts of a young woman embarking on a highly competitive venture.  And now my life’s work in the field of sexual education and body-based sex therapy, will be housed in a place of honor in this same building. 

The prior director of the Kinsey Institute is Dr. Sue Carter, Biology Professor at IU and author of the brilliant article, Love as Emotional Medicine in the IBPJ, Spring/Summer 2019 and wife of Dr. Stephen Porges, our own Research Director of USABP. 

BIO
Stella Resnick, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, CA, specializing in relationship and sexual enrichment. Her latest book is Body-to-Body Intimacy: Transformation Through Love, Sex, and Neurobiology. Her previous two books are, The Heart of Desire: Keys to the Pleasures of Love and The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings has been translated into nine different languages, and is considered a classic.

A prominent speaker and seminar leader, Dr. Resnick is a regular presenter at professional conferences, including the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), the American Association for Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT).

Attention Somatic Practitioners and Body Psychotherapists! Join our Global Research Initiative. Learn what is involved below. Click the link to get started. Don't wait. Time is running short on getting survey's in. 

Please take the questionnaire for clinicians and trauma workers, a collaboration between the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium (TSRC), the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) and the European Body Psychotherapy Association Science and Research Committee (EABP SRC). To protect confidentiality, you will not be able to save your responses to return later. 

Please make sure to set aside about 45 minutes for the questionnaire. It will take about 15 minutes to complete the first part of the questionnaire (socio-demographics and data on your profession) and another 30 minutes to complete scales on your personal experience relevant to your clients.

 You are eligible for this study if: 

 1. You are a body psychotherapist or member of a body psychotherapist association

 2. You are 18 years or older 

 3. You are fluent in English  

If you are eligible and wish to continue, please click the red arrow button below.

Take Me To The Survey

With this award, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists is acknowledging her decades of writing about, developing, and practicing a holistic sex therapy, utilizing a somatic-experiential Gestalt approach, enhanced by breath work, and informed by the latest research and advancements in sexual health, interpersonal neurobiology, child and adolescent sexual development, and the science and psychology of pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. 

This work is the basis for the Embodied Relational Sex Therapy (ERST) training. 

We are delighted to receive the news that Stella Resnick, PhD  been chosen to receive the 2020 AASECT Award for Integrative Approaches to Sex Therapy

Stella Resnick, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, CA, specializing in relationship and sexual enrichment. Her latest book is Body-to-Body Intimacy: Transformation Through Love, Sex, and Neurobiology. Her previous two books are, The Heart of Desire: Keys to the Pleasures of Love and The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings has been translated into nine different languages, and is considered a classic.

A prominent speaker and seminar leader, Dr. Resnick is a regular presenter at professional conferences, including the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), the American Association for Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy (AAGT).

For more info ERST Training and more visit, https://www.drstellaresnick.com/professionals

Dear USABP Colleagues,

We are horrified and saddened by the tragic loss of life and the ongoing, multi-generational perpetuation of white supremacy in the United States and elsewhere. This is the outcome of generations of betrayed human connection, abuse, denial of human rights, loss, and unending grief and rage. Beyond social justice, it reveals the shadow of a larger dark force rising. The United States seems to be at a critical point, awakening to the fact that freedom requires consciousness and engagement. The choice for democracy or dictatorship is upon us all.

Peaceful protests and riots have emerged simultaneously. Statements of solidarity are co-opted by violence and looting. This fits what trauma recovery teaches us: when we come out of freeze, or out of denial, we escalate from protest to indignation, and from anger to rage — a heightening of sympathetic responses, a call to action to counteract the hopelessness that threatens to plunge us into collapse or the overwhelming pain that can send us back into denial. When we have endured centuries' worth of pain, it is not surprising that we are ill-prepared to face the sympathetic charge underneath. The indignation and rage are in proportion to the suffering caused by white supremacy, greed, sadistic abuse, and the obliteration of the unimaginable suffering that follows in their wake.

As somatic practitioners, how do we move forward in a political climate that thrives on hatred, division, and dread? 

How do we support the distinction between powerless freeze, uncontrolled anger, and the skillful navigation of dangerous times? 

Our community has watched with heavy hearts over the last weeks and months as racialized violence has unfolded at a terrifying rate, although we recognize, of course, that this is nothing new. And we are aware of the tragically disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people of color.

We mourn the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, Toni McDade, and the countless others who have died or otherwise suffered at the hands of police brutality. We recognize that many of us can only imagine the distress and trauma caused by these injustices, knowing that others in our community are directly impacted by them. 

We stand in solidarity with the black community against all forms of racism, systemic violence, and blatant injustice in the United States and throughout the world.

We hold the knowing power of our profession and put the restorative tools we have at our disposal in service of those who need us now.

The United States Association for Body Psychotherapy 

Dr. Chris Walling, President

Dr. Aline LaPierre, Vice President

Dr. Karen Roller, Secretary

Mahshid Hager, MFT, Treasurer  

Additional Resources/Links Can Be Found Here:

https://culturalsomaticsuniversity.thinkific.com/courses/cultural-somatics-free-5-session-ecourse?fbclid=IwAR2p-KjtmHx2FP_G097V0WvknLQTN9jRCbqw03fM9F0w-vGplAdP2j0kzTs

https://andrewgoodman.org/news-list/saytheirname/

https://antiracismcenter.com/national-antiracist-book-festival

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PrAq4iBNb4nVIcTsLcNlW8zjaQXBLkWayL8EaPlh0bc/preview?fbclid=IwAR3NRYunPLuLuGqOCxoMJhSP8cQZxBkabxb_hYygHjUNrdmaoNdgyIhDUNQ&pru=AAABcpq8c14%2AC_JncXmFmMjf8og2gUGURA