Patricia Dean

LMFT, SEP, BSP, BASE-P

Patricia is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in the state of Tennessee. She is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a Transforming Touch® Therapist. Additional trainings include: Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning Experience (DARe), Relational Bodywork and Somatic Education (BASE), Somatic Resilience and Regulation (SRR), Touch for Psychotherapist (TST), Level II EMDR, Certified in Brainspotting, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gottman Couples Therapy and additional master level trainings in Concussions & PTSD and somatic related trainings.

She coordinates Somatic Experiencing training in Nashville, TN, USA and assists at advance level Somatic Experiencing and Brain Based trainings throughout the US.

Prior to the counseling field, she was responsible for starting up new frozen food products for Stouffers/Nestle, Supplier Development Manager for a local restaurant company, owned a Nashville restaurant, and owned an internet advertising company. All of these unique careers help her “think out of the box” in her counseling practice.

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What is Somatic Experiencing (SE)?

Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.

The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. SE provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.

Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.

The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.

Patricia completed the three-year SE training in January 2018, BASE certified in December 2017 and DARe certified in July 2018 (completion of Module 4). She is trained in Developmental Trauma through the lense of Somatic Touch, Primitive Reflex and Somatic Resilience and Regulation Training.


Specializations & Trainings

  • Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)

    SE is a naturalistic, and neurobiological, body-oriented approach to healing trauma and other stress-related disorders; restoring the authentic self with self-regulation, relaxation, wholeness, and aliveness.

  • Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning (DAR)

    This is a modality that helps clients develop stronger and more Secure Attachment Patterns, resulting in more successful and happy adult relationships.

  • Relational Bodywork & Somatic Education (BASE)

    This is a body-oriented approach that helps clients overcome the effects of trauma using relational touch, movement and somatically-oriented interventions.

  • Transforming the Experience-Based Brain (TEB)

    A modality based on the idea that when there are ruptures during early platform development, they continue to disrupt a person's life. TEB incorporates presence, regulation, and relationship to repair these ruptures.

  • Somatic Resilience and Regulation (SRR)

    A form of somatic psychotherapy that supports recovery from developmental trauma by improving your resilience and self regulation of your own nervous systems. ... It is not massage therapy, but a somatic approach to trauma recovery.

  • Brainspotting

    A powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms.

  • Additional Trainings

    Level I & II EMDR, Certified Brainspotting Therapist at level III and Masters level including Addiction & Trauma and Generational Brainspotting with a professional intensive directed by David Grand, Certified Somatic Experiential (CSP), Level I & II Gottman Couples Therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with additional trainings.