Live Online Learning from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute®
Cardiology, Autonomic
Regulation, and Trauma:
Cardiology, Autonomic
Regulation, and Trauma:
Regulation, and Trauma:
Understanding Heart–Body Dynamics
Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Understanding Heart–Body Dynamics
Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Presented by Alessandra Ciolfi, LCP, CBT RP and Stefano Bianchi, MD
Presented by Alessandra Ciolfi, LCP, CBT RP and Stefano Bianchi, MD
Approved for 2.5 CEs
When a client says, “My heart is racing,” what might their body be communicating?
When a client says, “My heart is racing,” what might their body be communicating?
A pounding heart. Tightness in the chest. A sudden awareness of heartbeat. A sense that something is wrong —even when a medical evaluation has not identified a cardiac cause.
For psychotherapists, these experiences can raise important clinical questions:
What is happening in the body right now?
How might the nervous system be organizing this experience?
What deserves psychotherapeutic curiosity—and what requires medical attention?
Join us for an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between cardiac sensations, autonomic regulation, trauma, attachment, and present-moment experience.
Develop a more nuanced framework for responding when cardiac sensations emerge in therapy—without automatically interpreting them as anxiety or overlooking when medical evaluation may be warranted.
For psychotherapists, these experiences can raise important clinical questions:
What is happening in the body right now?
How might the nervous system be organizing this experience?
What deserves psychotherapeutic curiosity—and what requires medical attention?
Join us for an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between cardiac sensations, autonomic regulation, trauma, attachment, and present-moment experience.
Develop a more nuanced framework for responding when cardiac sensations emerge in therapy—without automatically interpreting them as anxiety or overlooking when medical evaluation may be warranted.
Cardiology, Autonomic Regulation, and Trauma:
Understanding Heart–Body Dynamics Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Cardiology, Autonomic Regulation, and Trauma:
Understanding Heart–Body Dynamics Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Understanding Heart–Body Dynamics Through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™
Presented by Alessandra Ciolfi, LCP, CBT RP
and Stefano Bianchi, MD
and Stefano Bianchi, MD
Thursday, October 22, 2026
11:00 AM–1:30 PM ET (5:00–7:30 PM CEST)
Live Online Learning | 2.5 hours | 90-Day Replay & Material Access
11:00 AM–1:30 PM ET (5:00–7:30 PM CEST)
Live Online Learning | 2.5 hours | 90-Day Replay & Material Access
Available for a limited time | Approved for 2.5 CEs
No previous Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ experience required.
What You’ll Learn
What You’ll Learn
After this 2.5-hour session, you’ll be better prepared to:
You’ll leave with a broader framework for listening not only to what clients say—but also to what may be unfolding through the body as they say it.
- Understand how stress, trauma, and autonomic regulation may shape cardiac sensations.
- Explore experiences such as racing, pounding, fluttering, and chest sensations with greater clinical curiosity.
- Consider how attachment and lived experience influence how clients notice, interpret, and respond to heart sensations.
- Distinguish between experiences that may invite psychotherapeutic exploration and those that warrant medical evaluation.
You’ll leave with a broader framework for listening not only to what clients say—but also to what may be unfolding through the body as they say it.
Available for a limited time | Approved for 2.5 CEs
No previous Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ experience required.
When the Heart Enters the Therapy Room
When the Heart Enters the Therapy Room
Clients may describe their hearts as racing, pounding, fluttering, tightening, or suddenly becoming impossible to ignore.
Sometimes these experiences accompany fear or anxiety.
Sometimes they emerge while discussing relationships, memories, conflict, or vulnerability. And sometimes their meaning isn’t immediately clear.
How can clinicians remain curious about these experiences without reducing them to purely physical symptoms?
This live learning experience brings cardiology and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ into conversation to explore that question from two distinct clinical perspectives.
Together, our presenters will consider how lived experience, stress, trauma, attachment, and autonomic regulation may shape how people experience and understand cardiac sensations.
Through a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ lens, you’ll explore how attention to bodily experience can contribute to clinical understanding while maintaining an important distinction between psychotherapeutic exploration and appropriate medical evaluation.
This Live Online Learning is for mental health practitioners who want to deepen their work through an embodied, relational approach.
Sometimes these experiences accompany fear or anxiety.
Sometimes they emerge while discussing relationships, memories, conflict, or vulnerability. And sometimes their meaning isn’t immediately clear.
How can clinicians remain curious about these experiences without reducing them to purely physical symptoms?
This live learning experience brings cardiology and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ into conversation to explore that question from two distinct clinical perspectives.
Together, our presenters will consider how lived experience, stress, trauma, attachment, and autonomic regulation may shape how people experience and understand cardiac sensations.
Through a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ lens, you’ll explore how attention to bodily experience can contribute to clinical understanding while maintaining an important distinction between psychotherapeutic exploration and appropriate medical evaluation.
This Live Online Learning is for mental health practitioners who want to deepen their work through an embodied, relational approach.
Available for a limited time | Approved for 2.5 CEs
No previous Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ experience required.
Two Clinical Perspectives.
One Heart–Body Conversation.
Two Clinical Perspectives.
One Heart–Body Conversation.
One Heart–Body Conversation.
Understanding cardiac sensations in psychotherapy can benefit from both psychological and medical perspectives.
This interdisciplinary session brings together an experienced trauma psychotherapist whose work extends into a cardiology setting and a cardiologist specializing in cardiac rhythm disorders.
Together, they offer clinicians an opportunity to consider heart–body experiences from complementary perspectives—without collapsing physical and psychological experiences into one another.
This interdisciplinary session brings together an experienced trauma psychotherapist whose work extends into a cardiology setting and a cardiologist specializing in cardiac rhythm disorders.
Together, they offer clinicians an opportunity to consider heart–body experiences from complementary perspectives—without collapsing physical and psychological experiences into one another.
Available for a limited time | Approved for 2.5 CEs
No previous Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ experience required.
About the Presenters
About the Presenters
Alessandra Ciolfi, LCP, CBT RP
Alessandra Ciolfi is a licensed cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist, SP Supervisor, and EMDR therapist with 20 years of clinical experience. Specializing in psychotraumatology and complex trauma, she has taught trauma and structural dissociation throughout Italy for more than a decade.
Her work includes collaboration within a cardiology hospital setting, supporting individuals experiencing vasovagal syncope, panic attacks, bradycardia, and arrhythmias, bringing a unique perspective to the intersection of trauma, the nervous system, and cardiac experience.
Her work includes collaboration within a cardiology hospital setting, supporting individuals experiencing vasovagal syncope, panic attacks, bradycardia, and arrhythmias, bringing a unique perspective to the intersection of trauma, the nervous system, and cardiac experience.
Stefano Bianchi, MD
Stefano Bianchi, MD, is a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist and Head of the Arrhythmology and Electrophysiology Unit at Isola Tiberina–Gemelli Isola Hospital in Rome, Italy.
With extensive clinical and research experience in cardiac rhythm disorders, his work focuses on diagnosing and treating arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias, as well as advanced cardiac electrophysiology and ablation.
With extensive clinical and research experience in cardiac rhythm disorders, his work focuses on diagnosing and treating arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias, as well as advanced cardiac electrophysiology and ablation.
A Closer Look
A Closer Look
After this live session, you’ll be able to:
- Describe key cardiology-informed concepts relevant to heart–body symptoms in stress and trauma, including how autonomic dysregulation can influence cardiac sensations and clinical presentation.
- Differentiate medical, autonomic, and psychophysiological perspectives when conceptualizing cardiac activation, supporting appropriate interdisciplinary collaboration and scope of practice.
- Explain procedural memory and procedural patterning as core mechanisms through which autonomic responses and bodily habits persist beyond cognitive insight in trauma-related presentations.
- Identify primary autonomic indicators of hyperarousal and hypoarousal using the Window of Tolerance framework, and recognize how these states shape interoception and cardiac symptom experience.
- Demonstrate understanding of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Phase 1 principles by describing how clinicians help clients build somatic resources, increase bodily safety, and uncouple somatic sensations from other central organizers.
- Describe Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Phase 2 aims and clinical reasoning for working with incomplete defensive responses (e.g., orienting/defense), including the rationale for sensorimotor sequencing and restoring active defense when appropriate.
Available for a limited time | Approved for 2.5 CEs
No previous Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ experience required.
arrow_drop_down_circle
Divider Text
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
Why Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ is a body-centered, talking therapy that integrates somatic awareness with emotional and cognitive processing. By including present-moment experience, clinicians can support clients in developing greater awareness, regulation, and connection.
What is included in registration?
What is included in registration?
Registration includes access to the live learning session on August 20th and 90-day access to the recording and downloadable course materials.
What time is the live session?
What time is the live session?
The session is on October 22, 2026, from 11:00 am - 1:30 pm Eastern Time (5:00–7:30 PM CEST). Find your timezone here >
How long is the on-demand session?
How long is the on-demand session?
The session is 2.5 hours and is offered live online. Participants will also receive 90-day access to the recording.
Will this be recorded?
Yes. The session will be recorded and made available through SPI Learning Online (SPILO) for 90 days following the event.
What if I cannot attend live?
If you are unable to attend live, you will still receive access to the recording and course materials for 90 days.
Will completing this course certify me in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
No. This course does not lead to certification in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™. Certification requires completion of SPI's professional training program.
What is the Refund Policy?
What is the Refund Policy?
Registrations may be canceled with a full refund when written notice is submitted to outreach@sensorimotor.org at least 14 days prior to the event date. SPI’s Learning events are not eligible for a refund after the session date.
Are Continuing Education credits offered?
Are Continuing Education credits offered?
2.5 CE is provided for this event through our partners at Lifespan Learning Institute and must be completed 14 days after the conclusion of the webinar.
Complete the CE Attendance Verification Form (if you attended live) OR the Post-Test (if you were absent) - must be submitted.
The Lifespan Learning Institute and SPI are cosponsors of the Continuing Education programs offered.
Lifespan Learning Institute is approved by CAMFT to offer Continuing Education Credit for SPI programs. Your eligibility for CE Credit is based upon the attendance sign-in/out sheet. You must also complete the online evaluation form(s) within one week after a module has completed.
CAMFT: Lifespan Learning Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, & LEPs. Lifespan Learning Institute maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. (provider # 050085)
Course meets the qualifications for continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
It is your responsibility to verify with your licensing board / organization that they will accept the types of CE credit we offer. Out of state LMFTs, LPCCs, LEPs, and/or LCSWs should verify with their licensing board if they will accept BBS CE. Click here for more CE information >
Complete the CE Attendance Verification Form (if you attended live) OR the Post-Test (if you were absent) - must be submitted.
The Lifespan Learning Institute and SPI are cosponsors of the Continuing Education programs offered.
Lifespan Learning Institute is approved by CAMFT to offer Continuing Education Credit for SPI programs. Your eligibility for CE Credit is based upon the attendance sign-in/out sheet. You must also complete the online evaluation form(s) within one week after a module has completed.
CAMFT: Lifespan Learning Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, & LEPs. Lifespan Learning Institute maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. (provider # 050085)
Course meets the qualifications for continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
It is your responsibility to verify with your licensing board / organization that they will accept the types of CE credit we offer. Out of state LMFTs, LPCCs, LEPs, and/or LCSWs should verify with their licensing board if they will accept BBS CE. Click here for more CE information >
What Becomes Possible
with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
What Becomes Possible
with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™?
When we include the body in our clinical work, new pathways open.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy™ offers a framework for understanding how complex trauma is organized in the body and how embodied awareness can support greater communication and cooperation among dissociative parts. By working with posture, movement, sensation, and nervous system responses, clinicians can support the development of greater safety, connection, and internal cooperation.
