Trainer, America Allen, LCSW, is a trauma-focused somatic and parts-based therapist and the founder of suNu Healing Collectively, PLLC where she provides trauma-responsive care and clinician education. She has experience across community mental health, nonprofit, and government-adjacent settings, specializing in trauma-driven patterns such as self-silencing, over-functioning, and emotional shutdown. America facilitates trainings that translate complex trauma theory into practical, real-world clinical interventions. Her work has been featured in Women’s Health Magazine, PopSugar, and Bustle.

:00–0:15 — Welcome, Learning Objectives & Clinical Context

• Introduction and training objectives
• Brief overview of postpartum depression and anxiety
• Moving beyond a purely cognitive understanding of postpartum distress
• Establishing a trauma-responsive, attachment-aware, body-centered framework for the training
• Opening reflection: How are we currently taught to recognize postpartum distress?

0:15–0:45 — When Postpartum Distress Lives in the Body

• Understanding postpartum depression and anxiety as cognitive, emotional, relational, and embodied experiences
• How chronic stress, overwhelm, sleep disruption, birth experiences, caregiving demands, and major life transition can affect emotional regulation
• Recognizing signs of activation, shutdown, disconnection, hypervigilance, and overwhelm
• Understanding the relationship between bodily sensations and anxiety
• Why insight alone may not produce regulation or behavioral change
• Guided discussion: What happens when a client understands what is happening psychologically but still cannot access safety or regulation?

0:45–1:15 — Recognizing & Responding to Nervous-System Dysregulation

• Identifying patterns of hyperarousal, hypoarousal, overwhelm, and disconnection
• Tracking body cues alongside thoughts, emotions, and behavior
• Exploring triggers and patterns without increasing shame
• Assessing a client's current capacity before selecting an intervention
• Differentiating grounding, regulation, avoidance, and suppression
• Clinical activity: Participants review a postpartum vignette and identify cognitive, emotional, somatic, and behavioral indicators of distress.

1:15–1:25 — Break

1:25–1:55 — Somatic Interventions for Postpartum Depression & Anxiety

• Orienting and present-moment awareness
• Grounding through sensory input
• Somatic tracking and interoceptive awareness
• Breath and movement interventions
• Resourcing and identifying embodied experiences of safety
• Titrating interventions to avoid overwhelming clients
• Adapting body-based interventions for clients who experience disconnection from or discomfort within their bodies
• Experiential activity: Participants practice a brief orienting, grounding, and somatic tracking sequence.

1:55–2:25 — Guilt, Shame & Intrusive Thoughts

• Understanding common experiences of guilt and shame during the postpartum period
• The influence of expectations about what motherhood is “supposed” to feel like
• Helping clients distinguish thoughts from intentions, identity, and behavior
• Responding to intrusive thoughts without reinforcing shame or avoidance
• Exploring how shame appears cognitively and somatically
• Supporting clients who fear judgment when disclosing difficult postpartum experiences
• Maintaining appropriate assessment of risk and clinical safety
• Guided discussion/case application: A client says, “I love my baby, so why do I feel like I don't want to do this anymore?” Participants explore responses that reduce shame while maintaining appropriate clinical assessment.

2:25–2:50 — Bridging Talk Therapy & Body-Based Healing

• Determining when cognitive processing is useful and when a client may benefit from regulation first
• Integrating somatic interventions into existing psychotherapy approaches
• Moving between cognition, emotion, sensation, and meaning
• Helping clients develop greater capacity to experience difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed
• Supporting reconnection with the body and sense of self
• Clinical application: Participants develop an intervention sequence for a postpartum client experiencing anxiety, overwhelm, shame, and disconnection.

2:50–3:00 — Integration & Closing

• Review of key clinical concepts
• Selecting interventions based on client presentation and capacity
• Identifying opportunities to incorporate somatic interventions into current clinical practice
• Closing activity: Participants identify three body-based interventions they can incorporate into postpartum clinical work and one change they will make to their assessment or conceptualization of postpartum distress.
• Questions and evaluation