Relational Traumatherapy - a psychomotor, neurocentric and systems-oriented approach.
This name places the approach in the paradigm of Relational Psychotherapy, which holds a specific understanding of the relationship between therapist and client. Here is a small introductory article about Relational Psychotherapy - written for a conference held in Cambridge in 2007. I (Merete Holm Brantbjerg) met the concept of Relational Psychotherapy there and resonated with it right away. It named what I was already working with.
In Relational Traumatherapy psychomotor and neurocentric skill-training is combined with mutual regulation through systems-oriented group-process and with training in a databased, verbal language. The 3 aspects are integrated into one methodology.
The development of the approach has - next to the roots in psychomotorwork - been inspired by Z-health, Systems Centered Therapy (SCT) and by attachment theory.
The overall goal is to establish systems (groups, couples, individuals), where dissociative patterns can open up and the emotional states, that have been held in dissociation can become mutually regulated.
You can read an introduction under What is Relational Trauma Therapy?.
In What is ROST? you find an updated exercise-manual, describing psychomotor exercises, that support six basic presence-skills. You can download the manual to use both to support yourself and to share with your clients.
In What is Moaiku? you can read about Moaiku as a poetic and visionary name behind the approach. Moaiku has been used since 2006
NEW ARTICLE:
A new article is now available - written by Merete Holm Brantbjerg 2026. The title is "It isn't only mine - it's ours. Lifting hidden trauma out of polarization into a collective container" The article describes the process from trauma becoming personalized and systemic shame occurring, when the outer context doesn't acknowledge the trauma - into the traume being lifted into a collective container. The article is based on the author's - my - personal trauma at 14-years of age, which has been a driving motivation behind the method-development in Relational Trauma Therapy.
The version you find by clicking on the above link, is the original version, that was sent in to a journal for peer-review process and submission. A revised version is now publish in the journal: "Body, movement and dance in psychotherapy", february 2026 titled: "Employing Relational Traumatherapy to lift hidden trauma out of polarization into a collective container. It is not only mine - it is ours." You can buy this version on the following link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17432979.2026.2623418
Or you can click here and download the Accepted manuscript, which is the published version. This version of the article has more references, it is shorter and it has a more academic writing-style.
The 2 versions in combination can bring the article out to a larger audience. And everybody can choose their preferred version - or read them both.
Online courses with Kolbjørn Vårdal and Merete Holm Brantbjerg in RTT Online:
Since spring 2021 Kolbjørn Vårdal and I have offered international online courses in a format available to participants from many different countries. February 25 2026 a new course will start: "Beyond Polarising - Managing Similarities and Differences Bodily and Relationally". Course-description is available here: https://www.relationaltraumatherapy.online/courses/Beyond-polarising-Managing-similarities-and-differences-bodily-and-relationally The format of the course is 7 x 3 hrs at 5-8 CET or CEST time.
,
This is a level 2 course, which means that it is required that you have participated in Including and awakening hypo-response or buy it in a special edition without live-sessions - or have been trained in working with hypo-response in other RTT courses. You can purchase the special edition course on www.relationaltraumatherapy.online and - please sign in on the website for free and find your way to the special edition course.
January 28 2026 there is a free Q&A session building up to the course on Beyond Polarising. You find information and sign up possibility here: www.relationaltraumatherapy.online/courses/free-question-s-and-answer-s-event
English-speaking physical workshops in Copenhagen with Merete Holm Brantbjerg and in 2027 also Kolbjørn Vårdal:
I offer one workshop a year in English in Copenhagen.
The next workshop is April 9-12 2026 in Copenhagen - Merete is teaching. Title of the workshop is: Shame and disgust - you sign up by writing to moaiku@brantbjerg.dk.
The workshop is full booked with a waitinglist. Untill February 1st participants who don't understand Danish have priority.
April 14-18 2027 in Copenhagen we offer for the first time a 5 day workshop on Relational Trauma Therapy - for therapists. Merete and Kolbjørn are leading the workshop together. We have run this workshop for the last 6 years in Danish - and we now offer it in English as well. The workshop gives access to the aspects of trauma-therapy we have specialised in for many years now - working with hypostates, disgust, differentiating between organised and disorganised survival-reactions - and more. Our goal is to get this knowledge and methodology spread as far out in the international traumatherapeutic landscape as possible.
Email-list: If you are interested in being on an emaillist where you will receive information about the future workshops in English, and about new material, please write to moaiku@brantbjerg.dk
Podcasts and videos
Podcasts and videos have been produced during 2020 and 2021. Most of the material focuses on how to relate to hypo-states. In stressfull situations (like the one we are all in now), it matters to reach for the parts of us, that easiest go invisible, that have most difficulty in managing stress - and learn something about how these parts of us can be included, normalised and how we can bring energy into them in a dosage that works.
Click on the Video or Podcast button to the right on this page - and it takes you to an overview of the available material.
Here are links to some articles, videos and podcasts:
A small new video - Februar 2025 - is about working creatively with colors. It shows an example of creating a digitalart picture - and how it supports my own arousalregulation and relaxation. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WTxxeBTWYvw
September 2023: Who am I when parts of me are missing?
This is the recording of a keynote-presentation at the International EABP Congress of Body Psychotherapy in Sofia. You can see the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/yWSVjdhegsk or go back to the front page and click on the video there.
The theme of the conference was: "Identity in transformative times - construction, deconstruction, reconstruction". And the presentation focuses on how hypo-states impact our identity-formation.
2 podcasts - produced summer 2022:
2 short introductory-podcasts are available here on Soundcloud og på Youtube:
The art of dosing: https://soundcloud.com/brantbjerg/the-art-of-dosing-relational-trauma-therapy - og
https://youtu.be/5NniT_p7O9U
Having a map matters: https://soundcloud.com/brantbjerg/having-a-map-matters-relational-trauma-therapy - og
https://youtu.be/fUUe0FO6_P0
The pocasts focus on 2 different aspects of working with hypo-states: Dosing and orienting.
For access to older articles please go to English litterature
Introduction to the method you will meet in the workshops:
In Relational Trauma therapy psychomotor exercises (ROST) is used to stimulate change in defensive patterns and to build self-regulatory capacity. Skills and resources held in the muscle-system are awakened and with that our capacity for regulating emotions and arousal-states can grow.
Through the process of “dosing” the body exercises are adapted to each participant, building inner authority. Negotiation between opening up or respecting and valuing defensive patterns as they are is supported.
The bodily skill training is based in knowledge about tension and low energy (hyper- and hypo-response) as defense-mechanisms represented in the muscles and connective tissue.
Regulation of low energy is being addressed first, which supports an unusual group-dynamic and inner dynamic: High and low energy behaviors are valued equally.
The goal of the method - Relational Traumatherapy - is to build a holding environment where emotions and survivalreactions can become mutually regulated, especially those states that have been held in isolation and dissociation. The psychomotor skill-training supports self-regulatory capacity – and systems-oriented group-work is used to build the capacity for mutual resonance and regulation.
The psychotherapeutic growth process in the workshops happens through active exploration, systems-oriented group-work and reflection.
Growth in your professional capacity is supported by widening your capacity for knowing and owning aspects of being human in your own body and mind – through direct experience in resonance with yourself and others.