The Unshaming Practitioner:
Trauma, Somatics, and the Power of the Witness
3-Day Training for Therapists, Coaches, & Healers
with David Bedrick & Lisa Blair
June 5th, 6th & 7th, 2026 | London
EVENT DETAILS:
WHEN: June 5th, 6th & 7th, 2026
LOCATION: The Kairos Centre, Roehampton, London
If you are a therapist, coach, doctor, or healer and are working with those affected by issues around shame, internalized oppression, or trauma, this event is for you.
TRAUMA is one of the most urgent topics in the world of healing today. Yet our collective understanding is full of gaps.
Too often, there’s little clarity about what trauma really means, how it shows up in people’s lives, and what it takes to address it. Somatic work has brought enormous breakthroughs, but entering overwhelming experiences without preparation can cause harm. Before we guide people into the body, they need self-awareness, empowerment, and clear ethical safeguards. Without these, the work risks being re-traumatizing rather than healing.
Another overlooked piece is what happens when someone shares their story. In a world that often denies, dismisses, or minimizes trauma, people learn to see themselves through shaming eyes. Instead of compassion, they internalize judgment—and healing becomes about “getting rid” of parts of themselves. This is the shadow of trauma, and unless we address it, even the best methods fall short.
As coaches, healers, and therapists, we must also recognize that most people don’t even know how to tell their own story. They repeat the narratives others have given them: “This is what’s wrong with me. This is what I need to stop.” Trauma teaches people to distrust themselves. Left unchecked, this cycle of self-shaming shapes the very way they try to heal.
The Crucial Role of the Witness in Trauma Healing
Another overlooked piece is what happens when someone shares their story
While perpetrators cause harm, it’s the witness who holds the greatest power in healing. When pain is met with a loving witness—someone who believes, validates, and supports without gaslighting or blame—the wound, though painful, doesn’t freeze into trauma. Healing begins, and shame no longer takes root in the self.
If, however, we don’t have a loving witness, then we internalize a shaming witness—a voice that tells us we are to blame, that we deserved what happened, and that our natural responses are inherently wrong.
This shame and lack of compassionate witnessing is the true root of trauma.
When an injury is denied, dismissed, or neglected, the healing process freezes. Our natural reactions, including pain, anger, and fear, are suppressed and shamed, becoming locked within us. This frozen state is trauma—a condition not solely caused by the initial harm, but by the absence of validating witnessing.
This is why unshaming, a skilled and aware form of witnessing, is the essence of trauma healing.
Testimonials for David…
Day One:
Trauma’s Root: From Dismissal to Dissociation and the Path to True Witnessing
Learn the etiology of trauma—trauma is born of abuse that has been denied, gaslit, dismissed or neglected.
To be trauma-informed, you need to understand how people and systems that denied, dismissed, neglected or gaslit your client’s story and experience live in their psyche, bypassing and marginalizing their feelings and self-trust.
Learn what happens when trauma overwhelms the system— when trauma overwhelms the system, we respond, naturally and organically, by dissociating.
To be trauma-informed, you need to become aware of dissociative states and how to honor the organic function of your client’s dissociation.
Learn about the role of the witness—when an injury is denied, dismissed, or neglected, the healing process freezes. Our natural reactions, including pain, anger, and fear, are suppressed and shamed, becoming locked within us. This frozen state is trauma—a condition not solely caused by the initial harm, but by the absence of validating witnessing.
To be trauma-informed, you need to understand the profound role played by witnesses to the traumatic event.
Day Two:
The Unspoken "No": Cultivating Presence and Honoring Consent in Trauma Healing
Learn how trauma disconnects people from their power and consent-making function.
To be trauma-informed, you must see how working with your client’s power and boundary-making capacity is actually a part of trauma healing.
Every practitioner has had the experience of a client saying “yes” on the outside while their body quietly says “no.”
The breath changes.. Their eyes become glazed. Hesitations interrupt their speech. They’re a little too happy with everything you do.
These moments are easy to miss, especially when we’re focused on applying a technique or guiding a process. But they’re also some of the most important signals we’ll ever get. They tell us whether safety is present—or slipping away.
Learning to recognize and respond to these subtle cues is what separates trauma-informed practice from well-meaning practice.
Learn how trauma perpetuates itself in the psyche by showing up as abusive inner criticism and internalized oppression.
When inner criticism is unconscious and unwitnessed, it retraumatizes the person on a daily basis. Working with inner criticism is a significant part of trauma healing.
Day Three:
Radical Soma: Accessing the Body's Full Intelligence
Learn how to use somatic experience in healing trauma.
Because trauma leaves suppressed feelings in its wake, we need methods to access those feelings. Those methods must NOT ONLY access interoceptive or proprioceptive body experience, but also somatic experience that can be expressed in the body’s movement and voice. This is what I call Radical Soma, a holistic approach that honors the body’s full intelligence.
Learn how to enter a client’s story with care.
We will use the foundational skills from previous classes—including working with dissociation, witnessing, and micro-communication cues/feedback—to ensure we approach your trauma story safely and ethically. This is crucial to avoid re-traumatizing a client and to modulate their experience, allowing for a gentle back-and-forth between entering the story and creating distance as needed.
Learn how to give expression to the body's voice.
You will learn to access the full range of the body's expressions, including movements like pushing and shaking, as well as vocalizations like screaming, groaning, and crying. These are not merely releases, but intelligent and meaningful expressions of parts of yourself that long to be integrated and heard.
Testimonials for Lisa & David…
REGISTRATION DETAILS:
WHEN: June 5th, 6th & 7th, 2026
LOCATION: The Kairos Centre, Roehampton, London
COST:
Prices are in USD.
LOCATION
Location: Kairos Spirituality and Conference Centre
Address: Mount Angelus Rd
Roehampton
London SW15 4JA
Meet David
David Bedrick is the author of The Unshaming Way, about which Gabor Mate wrote, ”In this astute work, David Bedrick provides a deep investigation of shame, the most debilitating of our mind states, and offers a workable, practice-based, and accessible path to divesting ourselves from it.”
Davidis a teacher, counselor, and attorney. He was on the faculty for the University of Phoenix for 8 years as well as the Process Work Institute in the U.S. and Poland. He is the founder of the Santa Fe Institute for Shame-based Studies where he educates therapists, coaches and healers. His embodied way of teaching goes beyond informational, students are regularly brought to tears and face to face with their beauty, power, life path and soul.
David’s passion for studying shame arose from his childhood, growing up with a father who used fists and belts to express his rage and a mother who coped by denying and gaslighting his experience. Forty years of research, teaching, and working with individuals awakened his heart and mind to how the dominant healing paradigm pathologizes people—sees people's suffering and symptoms as something to “fix" instead of messages that deepen our relationships with ourselves and the world around us. David’s unshaming way treats difficulties as invitations to insight, soul, and the divine unfolding of our lives.
David also writes for Psychology Today and is the author of three additional books: Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology and Revisioning Activism: Bringing Depth, Dialogue, and Diversity to Individual and Social Change, You Can’t Judge a Body by Its Cover: 17 Women’s Stories of Hunger, Body Shame and Redemption. His 5th book will also be published by North Atlantic Books and available early in 2026.
Meet Lisa
Lisa Blair, MA, Dipl. PW, is a scholar, a PhD candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a psychotherapist who consults and teaches internationally. Her doctoral work explores redefining intimacy to address the unprecedented challenges romantic partners face in a postnormal world. Her research has been published in World Futures, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and the 2nd edition of the International Handbook of Love. She and her husband David Bedrick co-host In Two Deep, a podcast about emotional intimacy, conflict, and connection from a depth psychological perspective. Lisa is also the publisher at Belly Song Press, a small independent press of nonfiction titles in psychology, social justice, and leadership.