Understanding and Healing Trauma
through Mindfulness, Embodiment and Connection
online or in-person educational and experiential program
with Sandrine Harris, SEP and Vamsi Koneru, PhD
“Trauma creates change you don’t choose.
Healing is about creating change you do choose.”
⸻ Michele Rosenthal (Neuro-Linguisitic Programming Practitioner & certified hypnotist)
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Learn About Trauma
Trauma is an event or series of events that is highly stressful, overwhelming and leaves traces on our minds, emotions and bodies. It is shockingly commonplace, profoundly difficult to integrate and compromises our capacity for intimacy and joy. And, healing and recovery are possible.
In this workshop, clinical psychologist and trauma-informed mindfulness teacher, Vamsi Koneru and somatic trauma and chronic pain practitioner (and sex therapist-in-training), Sandrine Harris will support you, using the lenses of mindfulness, neuroscience and embodiment, to explore and deepen your understanding of trauma, and how it can significantly impact your health and relationships, as well as engage in the compassion-filled work of healing.
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This Program
We begin by collaboratively creating a nurturing space to foster safety, exploration and connection. Following this, we encourage and support you to participate in experiential practices including meditation, gentle movement, journaling, inquiry and deep listening.
Throughout your participation, you will be invited to learn practices in trauma- sensitive mindfulness, body-centered awareness and compassion to promote greater presence, self-care and emotion regulation. This will allow you to more skillfully work with your mind and body, cultivate deeper resiliency and experience holistic trauma recovery.
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Who This Program is For
All adults (age 20+) are welcome to join this program, conducted in English. No experience with mindfulness meditation, or other practices, is needed to attend. This workshop is accessible to folx from all walks of life and mobility levels.
Past Attendees include: people in the caring professions of social work, psychotherapy, healthcare; educators; social justice activists; parents; people wishing to understand their own and others’ lived experience with more clarity and compassion.
PLEASE NOTE: This program is not a replacement for medical or mental health treatment or therapy. This is educational and experiential.
Elements of this program:
Nervous System Education
Connection
Embodiment
Compassion
Skill Development
Trauma-Informed Mindfulness
Appreciative Inquiry
What the experience feels like:
Nourishing Conversation
Learning that you carry with you
Gentle, guided movement
Mindfulness Meditation in relationship with healing
Restorative Rest and Time for Self-Care
Community Care and Deep Listening
NO TRAUMA STORIES SHARED
Formats for this experiential learning program include:
training for clinical and care professionals, including within university and healthcare centers
public program for trauma education and healing
public retreat for trauma education and healing
retreat for professional caregivers in medical and mental health, community organizers, and educators
online workshops & trainings
About Your Facilitators
Sandrine and Vamsi have been collaborating together since 2018. At the Copper Beech Institute (West Hartford, CT), their program was shared as a weekend retreat, sold out annually from 2019 through 2025 — both in person and online.
They have also offered elements from this collaboration at national and regional conferences, including hosted by: the Connecticut Psychological Association; the CT Women’s Consortium and Dept of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS); Northampton Center for the Arts; and more.
*Professional training CVs and recent engagements list are available upon request.
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Sandrine Harris is an experiential somatic (body-centered) practitioner / educator through her international practice, collectively named Emergent Nature (private sessions, group experiences and training programs).
Sandrine is a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) supporting individuals in integrating lived experience, healing trauma, stress and chronic pain. She is a Feldenkrais® Practitioner (GCFP) and somatic movement therapist (RSMT/E), a trauma-sensitive mindfulness facilitator and trainer of community facilitators, and former professional dancer who enjoys guiding people into healthy, expressive movement. She is a trained Death Doula, accompanying folks in their process of dying.
She has guided programs, including at OMEGA Institute, Grace Farms Foundation, Royal Academy of Dance (London), McCall Center for Behavioral Health, NYU Dept of Psychology (guest teacher) and Bard College at Simon’s Rock (guest teacher).
Sandrine is currently a graduate student in a Master’s program for psychotherapy, with a specialization in Sex Therapy.
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Vamsi Koneru, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice at Koneru Psychotherapy, LLC, where his work focuses on the intersection of trauma and mindfulness and he specializes in providing compassionate, evidence-based psychotherapy for adolescents, adults and families.
He is a certified mindfulness teacher with the Engaged Mindfulness Institute; a teacher with the Copper Beech Institute; and an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.
Dr. Koneru completed his MS and PhD at the University of Miami, his clinical internship at the Yale University School of Medicine and his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School / VA Boston Healthcare System.
Testimonials
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“Life-changing for me. In a very quiet, mindful, yet thunderous way.”
Martha, 2023 participant
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This program with Sandrine & Vamsi is truly amazing. Their balance of being personable and skilled professionals is remarkable. The comfortable environment they create made me feel at ease.”
Simon, 2025 participant
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*further testimonials to come!