The Connecticut Society For Psychoanalytic Psychology
presents
David Levit
Working Intra-Somatically to Enhance Psychoanalytic Treatment for Posttraumatic Dissociative States: Contributions from the Somatic Trauma Therapies
Clinical Conference
Saturday March 7, 2026
In Person & Zoom
A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the day before the event.
Conference Schedule
Coffee hour and in-person check-in 10-11
Zoom check-in 10:45
Presentation 11-1
Lunch 1-2
Location
Albertus Magnus College,
Behan Community Room, New Haven, CT
Directions and Photo
Map of Albertus Magnus College
The Speaker
David Levit, PhD, ABPP, SEP is a board-certified Diplomate in Psychoanalysis and in Clinical Psychology, and a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. He is a Fellow of both the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis and the American Academy of Clinical Psychology. Dr. Levit is Faculty and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP), where he also serves as Co-founder, Chair, and Faculty of the MIP Postgraduate Fellowship Program–West. He is an Instructor in Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and he formerly held academic appointments at Tufts Medical School and Smith College School for Social Work.
Summary of the Talk
David Levit is a psychoanalyst who trained in Somatic Experiencing®, a trauma therapy developed by Peter Levine. The somatic trauma therapies introduce ways of working with the body that are quite different from psychoanalytic modes. Dr. Levit will provide an overview of these bodily based approaches, but his primary focus will be on interweaving them into psychoanalytic treatment. He will illustrate intra-somatic interventions through clinical process with patients who suffer with posttraumatic dissociative states, and he will demonstrate how this more embodied way of working can enhance our efforts to provide psychoanalytic holding and containing.
Learning Objectives
After attending this session, participants should be able to:
1. Illustrate and explain how a technique from somatic trauma therapies can enhance psychoanalytic holding (when holding is defined as minimizing impingements).
2. Describe at least two techniques/interventions from somatic trauma therapies that would be appropriate when a patient exhibits signs of extreme autonomic over-activation or of dissociative freeze state.
3. Discuss a clinical moment with a patient and explain how they might apply a specific somatically based intervention.
Recommended Reading
Levine, P. A., Blakeslee, A., & Sylvae, J. (2018). Reintegrating fragmentation of the primitive self: Discussion of “Somatic Experiencing.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 28(5), 620-628.
Levit, D. (2018). Somatic Experiencing: In the realms of trauma and dissociation – What we can do, when what we do, is really not good enough. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 28(5), 586-601.
Ogden, T. H. (2004). On holding and containing, being and dreaming. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85, 1349-1364.
Participants
The conference is appropriate for professionals interested in the practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The instructional level of this conference is intermediate.
Continuing Education
This conference has been approved for for 2 continuing education credits by Div. 39. Division 39 maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Pending approval - 2 CECs from NASW-CT.*
If continuing education credit is desired, please mark the appropriate box on the registration page, for our records. In addition,100% attendance and a completed evaluation form is required to receive CEC certificates. The evaluation form will be sent in the form of an online survey to all registrants within a few hours after the event, and if you attend the full conference and return that you will be sent a certificate of attendance.
To Register and Pay
Members - remember to log in for member discount.
If you do not log in, you won't be recognized as a member.
All registrations must be made and paid for online.
You can pay with credit card and debit card.
If you are using a phone, you will need to register through the WildApricot app, which is designed for phone use and will allow you all the options. The app Wild Apricot for Members is available in your App Store for free. Just log in with your usual CSPP email and password.
Refunds will be given in full until the Monday before the conference. To receive a refund, cancel your registration online by going to your profile in the upper right corner, select "My Event Registrations" click on the event, then click on "Cancel Reservation." Questions/problems, please contact the registrar, Monique St. Paul.
Scholarship registrants: If you need the registration code, contact William Hartmann, MFT.
Members and Contacts - Need to update your information?
Please login to your profile, then click under your name at View Profile, to make any changes or additions, including changes of email addresses. If you have problems, contact Kelly Butler.
CSPP Membership: Membership is open to all mental health professionals ($85 annual dues); early career (10 years or less since degree, $50 annual dues); retirees ($30 annual dues); and graduate students ($20 annual dues). For further information on CSPP membership, please click here: CSPP.
Division 39 is committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in its continuing education activities. Participants are asked to be aware of needs for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them.
Please address questions or concerns to Ashley Warner, LCSW, BCD.
