Healing the Hidden Wounds of Surgery
Healing the Hidden Wounds of Surgery
17-20 May, 2027
With Lael Keen
Renegotiating surgery is more than a technique: it is a journey toward profound resilience.
Workshop description
Surgical experiences can leave complex traumatic imprints involving altered states of consciousness, immobility, intense activation, freeze responses and the experience of an inescapable threat. These imprints may remain both in the autonomic nervous system and in the affected tissues.
For practitioners, working with surgical trauma can be particularly challenging: Where do we begin? Which thread should we follow first? How can we support a client who still seems caught in an experience that has already ended?
In this four-day workshop, Lael Keen will offer a clear map for navigating the complex territory of surgical trauma and working with its different components through Somatic Experiencing®.
What you will learn:
- Establish a clear hierarchy for working with surgical trauma: where to begin, what comes next, and how to proceed when a client becomes locked in a complex freeze response.
- Track and renegotiate the altered states associated with anesthesia.
- Work with defensive and orienting responses that were left incomplete during surgery.
- Use specialized touch protocols to support the return of vitality, breath and coherence to affected tissues.
- Work with different types of surgical intervention and their possible imprints on the organism.
Program
Day 1 · Renegotiating surgery as a one-time event. Completing incomplete defensive and orienting responses.
Day 2 · Working with anesthetized states: Meeting the Angels and Demons. Exploring altered states of consciousness related to anesthesia and their potential traumatic impact.
Day 3 · Tracking coherence through touch. Including:
- Scar tissue protocol;
- Interventions related to breast surgery;
- Touch and the tracking of coherence through affected tissues.
Day 4 · Visceral and orthopedic surgeries. Integration and application of the work to visceral and orthopedic surgeries.
If you would like to learn more about the workshop, we encourage you to join the free talk taking place on 4 March.
Details
Instructor: Lael Keen
Dates: 17-20 May, 2027
Approximate schedule: 10:00–13:30 and 15:30–18:00.
Location: Hotel Fuerte El Rompido (El Rompido, Huelva).
Language: English with Spanish translation
Requirements: SEP or completion of the Advanced Level of Somatic Experiencing® training.
Certification: 100% attendance is required to receive the certificate. When booking your outbound and return travel, it is very important to take the workshop’s start and end times into account.
Price: €920
AESE Members: €825
Early payment deadline: March 17, 2027
- Early payment discount: €780
- Early payment + AESE member: €700
- Active Assistant price*: €400
* An active assistant refers to individuals who have already started assisting in any of the official Somatic Experiencing® Spain trainings.
Instructor: Lael Keen
Lael is a Somatic Experiencing® practitioner and faculty member. She began studying with Peter Levine in 1993 and later helped bring the first Somatic Experiencing® training to Brazil. She is one of the co-founders of the Brazilian Trauma Association and teaches Somatic Experiencing® internationally. Her professional background also includes decades of experience in Rolfing® and Rolf Movement®.
Her work brings together extensive experience in trauma, the body, movement and orientation. In recent years she has developed a particular focus on the surgical experience and on ways of preventing and renegotiating its potential traumatic effects. Her Empowered Surgery series explores topics including reducing surgical trauma, communication with medical teams, altered states associated with anesthesia, and the role of language and the surgical environment.
