From Trauma Machine to Glorious Body
Neuroscience, hands-on bodywork, embodied philosophy, and archetypal imagination in the work of healing. Explore the book, the training, and the live encounters where ideas become practice.
From Trauma Machine to Glorious Body
Neuroscience, hands-on bodywork, embodied philosophy, and archetypal imagination in the work of healing. Explore the book, the training, and the live encounters where ideas become practice.
From Trauma Machine to Glorious Body
Neuroscience, hands-on bodywork, embodied philosophy, and archetypal imagination in the work of healing. Explore the book, the training, and the live encounters where ideas become practice.
Embodied Philosophy in Clinical Practice
The embodied philosophers asked what a body can do. I bring that question into clinical touch, fascial anatomy, imaginal inquiry, and the life of a group, where an explanation matters through what it helps us perceive and make possible.
Explore Dr. Tierney’s Work
Visionary Somatics: Embodied Resilience in the Age of Trauma
A transdisciplinary adventure through trauma neuroscience, language, clinical touch, and the forces that give bodies form.
The Book Becomes a Field of Practice
Study with the founder and expand your practice beyond standard trauma models. This two-year training for therapists, bodyworkers, and coaches brings trauma re-sequencing, clinical touch, embodied philosophy, and archetypal depth into a shared field of practice. Cultivate perceptual skill, disciplined imagination, and the capacity to work creatively with individuals and groups.
Group Fieldcraft & Social Artistry
Work with the roles, relationships, and collective tensions that shape our lives. Visionary Somatics brings archetypal inquiry, embodied improvisation, and creative ritual into group practice, with room for grief, conflict, pleasure, and the emergence of something unrehearsed.
Where this work is being talked about
Magazine features, podcasts, summits, and conference stages where Dr. Tierney discusses embodiment, clinical neuroscience, and somatic play.
The Book Is a Beginning
New writing, Boundless Body conversations, book events, and invitations to explore the work in person and online.
Visionary Somatics: Embodied Resilience in the Age of Trauma
A transdisciplinary field theory of trauma and becoming.
Brian Tierney brings affective network neuroscience and clinical practice into conversation with Deleuze, Jung, and Wilhelm Reich, following the forces and meanings that shape bodies from ion channels to archetypes.
Eight Ways into the Body of Everything
The eight facets offer connected routes through the book.
Choose a facet to explore.
A Somatic Atlas of Forces, Meanings, and Living Fields for Healers, Thinkers, and Seekers.
A Somatic Atlas of Forces, Meanings, and Living Fields for Healers, Thinkers, and Seekers.
A Somatic Atlas of Forces, Meanings, and Living Fields for Healers, Thinkers, and Seekers.
A Somatic Atlas of Forces, Meanings, and Living Fields for Healers, Thinkers, and Seekers.
A Somatic Atlas of Forces, Meanings, and Living Fields for Healers, Thinkers, and Seekers.
The Book in Motion
Octahedral Topocosm photoshoot: artistic direction by Phillip Byrne. Photos courtesy of Sylvia Feliz Sewell.
The Octahedral Diamond Body A tensegrity map of the Archetypal Self.
Explore the opposing tendencies of Lover and Warrior, Magus and Royal. This topocosm of forces provides a way to consider fragmentation, the distribution of tension, and the development of wholeness in individuals and groups.
Choose an archetype, then explore its patterns of tension.
A note on the poles: The top is the Active position of the Archetype (+) and the bottom is the Passive or Receptive (-) position of the archetype
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A note on the poles: The top is the Active position of the Archetype (+) and the bottom is the Passive or Receptive (-) position of the archetype
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These descriptions invite archetypal inquiry. They are not fixed identities or diagnostic assessments.
The Big Four is an elaboration of Robert Moore’s archetypal model, developed in dialogue with Jung, Theodore Millon, affective neuroscience, comparative mythology, and Deleuzian philosophy.
When Trauma Discourse Becomes Traumatizing
When a therapeutic description becomes an identity, its explanatory power can also become a constraint. Visionary Somatics works with trauma while questioning the codes that make suffering the whole story.
The Glorious Body names a wider possibility: resilient, improvisational, and able to hold sensation, symbol, relationship, and complexity without submitting to a single explanation.
What You'll Take Away
Inheritance, Rupture, Reinvention
Anthropology, psychoanalysis, bodywork, embodied philosophy, and neuroscience meet in productive disagreement. The book follows what each makes possible and what becomes thinkable between them.
The Craft of Working with Bodies
Each approach is explored on its own terms, questioned where needed, and brought into the wider practice of Visionary Somatics.
The eight facets of embodied resilience
The same eight facets, presented as interconnected entry points into the book.
Visionary Somatics follows the forces and meanings through which bodies, selves, and social worlds take form. The same achievement that makes representation possible also incubates codes of identity. With José Gil and Deleuze, Visionary Somatics asks how meanings acquire a viral life, how magical capture fixes them, and how ritual and imaginal practice might reopen their possibilities.
Morphospace names a field of possible forms. The book connects the formation of selves and social worlds with a wider inquiry into the forces that give bodies form. Creation and constraint belong to the same unfolding process.
The Visionary Somatics Trauma Re-Sequencing Process
The book addresses trauma and dissociation through scene construction, shifts of perspective, mental imagery, movement, breath, sound, and clinically appropriate touch. Assessment and pacing guide what happens next.
Chapter 8 develops the clinical framework. Practitioner training develops the perceptual and relational skills needed to work with it.
From Regulation to Revelation
An invitation to rethink the body and the practice of healing
Brian Tierney, PhD
Brian Tierney, PhD, is a somatic psychologist, neuroscience educator, and founder of Visionary Somatics. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of hands-on bodywork, he brings clinical practice into conversation with embodied philosophy, archetypal inquiry, and the arts. He serves as adjunct faculty at Meridian University, teaches internationally, and hosts the Boundless Body podcast.
“After many years, Somatics is becoming part of the therapeutic mainstream. At the same time it is still an emerging discipline. In this unique exploration Brian Tierney has extended our understanding of the complex intricacies of the various systems making up soma and psyche. These include the underlying molecular, and neurological mechanisms towards enhancing our understanding of the roots of empowerment and resilience.”
“This is a Renaissance book in the true meaning of revival and reimagination of the human body. And Brian Tierney is the Renaissance artist who wields a brush more than a pen with a palette of diverse colors and forms from the microscopic to the cosmic. The continued degradation of the human body is well documented in our culture and every epoch such as ours brings forward a correct healing method which is Visionary Somatics. No element from science to magic is left unturned, examined thoroughly and integrated into a new map of creativity for what a human body is and how it can heal. Brian shows us how to enter the mystery without the need to solve it. From theory to clinical hands-on, I have never read a book of this import in my life. To save our planet is to save our body and this book is the Royal Road for that journey.”
“Visionary Somatics is an exhilarating work of philosophical audacity and clinical imagination. Brian Tierney refuses the deadening binaries of reductionism and mysticism alike, inviting us instead into the living intelligence of the body, where affect, bioelectricity, and becoming converge in a genuinely transformative vision. This is an important contribution to contemporary somatic psychology: fearless, deeply learned, and animated throughout by the Deleuzian conviction that life is always greater than the identities we impose upon it.”
“Visionary Somatics is a transdisciplinary inflection point for practitioners. Like the book or not, it can, will, and should transform conversations about somatic psychology, individual and collective trauma, as well as the fate of civilization in the shadow of generative AI. Developmental practitioners will find this book soon and the conversation that ensues could itself be generative and transformative. Be there!”
“Brian Tierney’s Visionary Somatics: Embodied Resilience in the Age of Trauma is brilliant, provocative, eminently readable, and ― as the subtitle suggests ― timely. It is a tour de force, with so much to teach us. This is a book that is needed, certainly by anyone in the healing professions, but also one that many from further afield will enjoy and find immensely edifying.”
“Brian’s work provides an excellent synthesis of fields that normally remain highly fragmented. By combining high-resolution knowledge maps of developmental biology with Deleuzian philosophy, he bridges these realms in a way that is not only educational but also deeply evocative for the imagination. Bringing the lens of a somatic practitioner, he tethers this rich theoretical landscape to something tangible: the lived experience of the body.”
The Book Is a Beginning
New writing, Boundless Body conversations, book events, and invitations to explore the work in person and online.
Visionary Somatics Practitioner Training
A two-year field training in trauma re-sequencing, affective network neuroscience, therapeutic touch, depth psychology, and group fieldcraft.
Study the book with its author. Put the methods into practice. Learn to read bodies and fields with clinical precision and disciplined imagination.
From Regulation to Revelation
Nervous system regulation belongs in the work, but it is only a beginning. Train perception, imagination, and technical skills to meet the person in front of you, while making room for pleasure, vitality, and responses neither of you had rehearsed.
What This Training Brings Together
Course Architecture
The Living Field Is the Lesson Plan
The book is the atlas, and the cohort is the transformative learning adventure. Anatomy and neuroscience ground the inquiry in a shared plane of reference; the group’s lived tensions and collective imagination shape an evolving curriculum.
Format and Entry
Five in-person intensives and eight live online studios across two years. The book is the primary text; manuals guide practice and integration.
Capped at 15 participants.
People with relevant foundations in clinical, somatic, educational, coaching, artistic, or community practice. Admission considers experience, scope, and readiness for experiential learning.
Touch requires explicit, ongoing consent. Participants may decline touch or opt out of any exercise.
Graduates may apply for a separate, assessed teaching apprenticeship to develop the craft of teaching Visionary Somatics.
Start with a Conversation
Tell us where you want to take your practice. We’ll discuss studying with the founder, developing your work with individuals and groups, and the two-year commitment. For those drawn to teaching, we’ll also explore the separate, assessed teaching apprenticeship for graduates.
Book a Free ConsultationCompletion and Teaching Pathway
Visionary Somatics Practitioner Certificate of Completion
The certificate recognizes completion of the program’s educational and practice requirements. The training does not confer a professional license or authorize practice beyond the participant’s existing scope.
Teaching Visionary Somatics
Group facilitation is part of the practitioner training. Graduates who wish to teach Visionary Somatics may apply for a separate, assessed teaching apprenticeship. Teaching authorization requires successful completion of that pathway and is not conferred by the practitioner certificate.
Brian Tierney, PhD
Brian Tierney, PhD, is a somatic psychologist, neuroscience educator, and founder of Visionary Somatics. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of hands-on bodywork, he brings clinical practice into conversation with embodied philosophy, archetypal inquiry, and the arts. He serves as adjunct faculty at Meridian University, teaches internationally, and hosts the Boundless Body podcast.
More about Brian →FAQ
Do I need to know Deleuze?
No. The ideas are introduced through reading, discussion, and practice; relevant experience and readiness still matter for admission.
Is the training fully online?
No. The planned program includes required in-person intensives.
Is this psychotherapy?
No. This is professional and experiential education, not a replacement for personal therapy or crisis care.
What does founding cohort mean?
The inaugural group studies directly with the founder and helps shape the learning through its questions, experience, and collective practice.
Where are fees and requirements?
Book a free consultation to discuss tuition, additional costs, and the full commitment.
Will completing the training qualify me to teach Visionary Somatics?
No. Teaching authorization requires successful completion of a separate, assessed teaching apprenticeship after graduation. Admission to the practitioner training does not guarantee admission to the apprenticeship.
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Brian Tierney, PhD
The Question Behind the Work
I am interested in the point where a useful explanation becomes an enclosure. That question follows me through neuroscience, hands-on work, and the ways we talk about trauma. It also leads into language, archetypes, and the social field, where meanings shape bodies and the worlds we make together.
Visionary Somatics puts this question to work. The book, the teaching, and the conversations on Boundless Body keep the inquiry moving between clinical precision and the capacity to be surprised.
Brian Tierney, PhD, is a somatic psychologist, neuroscience educator, and founder of Visionary Somatics. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of hands-on bodywork, he brings clinical practice into conversation with embodied philosophy, archetypal inquiry, and the arts. He serves as adjunct faculty at Meridian University, teaches internationally, and hosts the Boundless Body podcast.
The Book Is a Beginning
New writing, Boundless Body conversations, book events, and invitations to explore the work in person and online.
Where this work is being talked about
Magazine features, podcasts, summits, and conference stages where Dr. Tierney discusses embodiment, clinical neuroscience, and somatic play.
Bring Visionary Somatics into the Room
Keynotes, book conversations, and experiential workshops bringing trauma neuroscience, embodied philosophy, and archetypal imagination into contact with the questions of your audience.
Prefer email? somaticdoctor@gmail.com
Download the Speaker ProfilePDF · 2 pagesMagazine Features
Conversations & Interviews
On Stage & On Screen
Work with Dr. Brian Tierney
In-person sessions in Saratoga and Santa Cruz, California. Somatic Coaching and Visionary Somatics mentoring online, worldwide.
In Person & Online
In-person sessions in Santa Cruz.
Video sessions for clients and practitioners anywhere in the world.
In Their Words
“Dr. Tierney is a remarkably talented mental health care provider, worthy of the highest recommendation. He brings wisdom, humor and deep insight to his practice. His therapeutic care helped me overcome the debilitating effects of a severely traumatic event. It enabled me to move forward in areas of my life where I had been intractably stuck. The positive and transformative outcomes of therapy with Dr Tierney continue to reverberate throughout my life. I’m deeply grateful to have received the care of such an outstanding mental health professional.”
“Dr. Brian was absolutely instrumental in guiding me through one of the darkest times of my life, providing a safe container for healing and the support I needed for the “heavy lifting” we did together. The work we did greatly impacted the woman I am today and I’m immensely grateful.”
“Dr. Brian hands down has been the best therapist I have worked with. My partner and I have worked with Brian for over 3 years, now and he’s been such a support and beacon of growth for us. He’s seen us evolve as humans and is not afraid to challenge us because that’s how growth happens! Without his knowledge and expertise we would not be the people or couple we are today. Brian is not just a therapist but a coach and supportive person. We’ve learned and keep learning so much from the frameworks and tools we’ve learned with him. Do yourself a favor and work with this man!”
“Dr. Tierney has been a perfect fit for us. He is able to filter out any “noise” and go straight to the core of the matter at hand. He definitely knows his stuff and his levity is always a nice touch. We can’t recommend him enough! We have gone from unable to work through issues because of communication hurdles to moving forward to the next phase in an open, loving way.”
“Dr. Tierney is a fantastic therapist. He is compassionate, intuitive, a great listener and overall just a wonderful human being. He helped me get through many challenges in my life as well as from my past, and supported my growth along the way. He is very wise and excellent at what he does. I truly cannot recommend him more!”
“Dr. Brian exemplifies a leadership style that prioritizes the well-being of those under his guidance rather than simply assuming authority. His empathetic nature and strong values allow him to create an environment that is both productive and positive. He is open and transparent, which fosters trust and encourages open communication. Additionally, his sensitivity and attentiveness to others’ needs enable him to respond appropriately to various situations. He is confident in his abilities and does not shy away from admitting his shortcomings. He is passionate about his work and eager to share his knowledge generously. He values collaboration and the power of collective learning and growth. Overall, his leadership style is one that embodies empathy, transparency, collaboration, ethics, and sensitivity. These qualities allow him to cultivate meaningful connections with the people he leads and encourage a sense of unity among them.”
“I had the good fortune to study Psychopathology under Dr. Tierney. I can say without reservation that it was one of the highlights of my educational career. Dr. Tierney was able to take a potentially dry subject and present it in a way that was dynamic, thought provoking, and personally enriching. He has an ability to use language in such a way that when the words are brought into the room, all the dust is shaken off of them, and they can be heard and understood in a way that is fresh and alive. Psychopathology is a subject that requires one to explore both the heavens and the hell realms, Dr. Tierney demonstrated that he sits at the foot of a tree of learning that has branches extending far into the sky, and also has roots that descend into the darkest depths. Dr. Tierney skillfully weaves the qualities of the warrior, lover, magician, and trickster into his teaching style which makes for a very engaging style of learning, while at the same time creating a container that feels safe and held by the greatest care.”
“I have been sitting in circle with Brian for nearly two decades. As a facilitator of transformative experience, the way he weaves his multidisciplinary knowledge, psychological perspective, wisdom, and commitment for truth is unmatched. His present moment awareness and ability to see beneath the surface and illuminate the underbelly in the room is extraordinary.”
“I cannot express enough gratitude towards Brian for his guidance and support during the most difficult time of my life, following the loss of my child. With Brian’s kind guidance, and after just 5-10 minutes “in the circle” during our men’s group meeting, I was able to cry more deeply than I have in over 20 years. With my tears came a feeling of peace, surrender, and deep kinship. I highly recommend Brian and his men’s groups to any man who is looking for more support and guidance in processing stuck grief and emotions.”
“Dr. Tierney approaches my issues in a variety of novel ways. The best endorsement comes from my spouse. She offers to send him flowers almost every time I come from a session with him.”
“I have had the great pleasure of having Brian Tierney as both a teacher in the Biodynamic CranioSacral Program and as a practitioner for one-on-one Craniosacral sessions. The depth of Brian’s knowledge, his compassion and presence have been hugely helpful to me as I moved through the layers of self-healing in the Biodynamic program. Brian’s skills as a therapist and teacher have inspired me and given me unique insights into both myself and my own role as a therapist. I highly recommend Brian as a teacher/mentor, and as a therapist for those who want to experience healing and self-awareness at a profound level.”
“As a third-year grad student, I’ve been extremely lucky to be a part of classes, trainings and group facilitation with Dr. Tierney (or Brian or Dr. T, whatever works best for you). It’s pretty rare to come across brilliant teachers who embody humility, skill and a profound ability to connect. Dr. Tierney has always led with his huge heart and an incredible passion for his work and for supporting people. This is what you get with Dr. Tierney, an experience of being held, pushed and deeply supported, all at the same time.”
“I’ve been a student of Dr. Brian Tierney in both Neuroscience for Somatic Psychology and Psychopathology. I left each class feeling invigorated and inspired. Dr. Tierney has a way of taking challenging material and enchanting it, and in the process, making science an art. I was academically challenged and managed to have a lot of fun along the way. Truly some of my favorite graduate courses. My experience of learning alongside Dr. Tierney is that there is truly nowhere my mind could go that Dr. Tierney could not follow. That perhaps was the greatest gift he could offer any student: freedom.”
“Brian is a brilliant therapist and I’m incredibly grateful to have found him. I’ve had many therapists in the last 20 years and he is truly the most effective and compassionate therapist I’ve had. He has helped me identify the root cause of many of my struggles in ways that other therapists have not been able to and his depth, kindness, and ability to “hit the nail on the head” on what is beneath your challenges is astounding. He’s provided me with a framework and practical tools for moving toward healing and he truly listens, is free of judgment, and makes you feel like you can truly conquer another day, even when things are really difficult. He’s the best!”
“I have worked with Dr. Tierney for almost three years now, and he has been the catalyst for so much of the happiness, success, and self-awareness I find myself experiencing today. Brian helped me transform my life at a time when I didn’t think it was possible. If you suffer from the exhaustive effects of trauma or shame I wholeheartedly recommend him. In short, over the last three years, Brian has supported me in my growth from a drugged-up, high school drop to a Stanford University student well on their way to making a positive impact in the world. He is adept with many different methodologies of treatment from EMDR to psychodynamic therapies and even types of integrative or holistic therapies. On a personal note Brian truly is one of the most wholesome, caring, open, kind, and accepting people I have encountered in my life and I am beyond grateful to have his support on my journey moving forward.”
Associates Under Supervision
Hello! It is my belief that life is best lived inside a body! It is from this place that we can access the richness of life—where our chests expand with joy, our stomachs clench with grief, our arms stretch wide in the freedom of surrender. Each expression of the body offers us invaluable insight into who we are, where we come from, where we wish to go next, and what’s getting in our way. The body is our roadmap—always offering guidance that nudges us along our personal paths of becoming.
But for many of us, the body has not always been a safe or easy place. Early trauma, wounding, and relational ruptures can dissociate us from our immediate experience, causing parts of ourselves to withdraw or escape. Culturally, as well, for those of us who grew up in the West or Westernized cultures, we’ve been taught to engage the world from our thinking minds, where to trust our gut or to follow our heart is seen as naive, rather than a very intelligent form of guidance.
I know first-hand both the joys and challenges of choosing to return to the body. My work is slow, gentle, and oftentimes playful. Together, we will rely on the intelligence of your body to direct us toward those areas that are needing a little extra care and attention. My style weaves together dialogue, mindfulness, parts work, and relational inquiry within somatic approaches to help you explore and get to know your inner world. Throughout this work, you become something like the conductor of your own experience—able to hear the signals, soothe the activations, follow the wisdom, savor the sensations, center in your inner knowing, and for the times when you do become overwhelmed, disoriented, or collapsed (because all of us do), you’re able to more easily find your way back home.
I welcome folks of all ages and backgrounds and feel especially called to work with teens and young people (20s/30s), eager to explore their sense of identity, purpose, and meaning-making within the context of ecological and social upheaval. I honor the complexity of our times and the disorientation of rapidly changing norms. I welcome you exactly as you are and am eager to witness your incredible unfolding.
I would love to hear from you! If reading this evokes your interest or curiosity, I invite you to schedule a free consultation. Feel free to call, text, or email.
Start with a Conversation
One conversation to find out whether this work fits you. Send a note, or call or email directly.
Associates in training also see clients under Dr. Tierney’s supervision.
Meet our trainees ↑Join the Newsletter
New writing, Boundless Body conversations, book events, and invitations to explore the work in person and online.