EXPERTISE IN COMBINING
somatic experiencing
safe sound protocol
rest & restore protocol
safe sound protocol
rest & restore protocol
PATHWAYS FOR
practitioners & coaches
integrative counselors
Nervous System Healing Rooted in Connection, Sound, and Somatic Wisdom
Kate serves as a Supervisor, Elder Mentor, and Integrative Somatic Attachment Educator, offering guidance to healing professionals and mission-driven organizations.
Kate Appleton’s work is grounded in a rare and deeply integrative blend of therapeutic approaches that go beyond traditional talk therapy. Drawing from decades of experience in trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and attachment repair, she weaves together the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), the Rest & Restore Protocol (RRP), and Somatic Experiencing (SE) into a cohesive, body-based framework. These approaches work at the level of the autonomic nervous system—gently guiding clients toward safety, emotional regulation, and the capacity to engage more fully with themselves and others.
This is not a one-size-fits-all method. Kate’s ability to combine and sequence these modalities with precision, presence, and relational care is what sets her work apart.
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
A Polyvagal-Based Listening Program for Regulation and Connection
The Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, is an evidence-based auditory intervention designed to calm the nervous system and improve emotional and social regulation. Through specially filtered music that stimulates the vagus nerve, SSP helps clients shift out of chronic fight, flight, or freeze states and into a greater sense of safety and connection.
Kate incorporates SSP as a foundational step in nervous system regulation, often using it to gently prepare clients (children, adults, or families) for deeper relational and trauma processing work. Clients who struggle with anxiety, shutdown, disconnection, or hypervigilance often find that SSP increases their sense of emotional safety, reduces reactivity, and helps them access more grounded presence. In family systems, SSP can support emotional attunement between members and create space for more connected communication.
Kate also mentors clinicians and coaches in using SSP with care and nuance, helping them track nervous system readiness, adjust pacing, and integrate SSP within a broader somatic or attachment-based framework.
Rest & Restore Protocol (RRP)
A Gentle Sound-Based Process for Grief, Fatigue, and Integration
The Rest & Restore Protocol (RRP) was developed as a complement to SSP. While SSP is designed to activate the social engagement system, RRP offers a gentler, more restorative experience. It is especially helpful for clients navigating grief, chronic stress, nervous system depletion, or emotional fatigue, states that require stillness, containment, and softness.
Kate uses RRP with clients who are in emotionally tender seasons of life, such as after a significant loss, during burnout recovery, or when clients are feeling over-activated from other forms of healing work. The protocol allows for subtle shifts in the nervous system that support integration, grounding, and emotional regulation. In longer-term work, RRP becomes a powerful resource for helping clients return to their baseline of safety and rest, especially during transitions or after emotionally intense breakthroughs.
Because Kate has such a depth of experience in SSP and RRP combined, she brings an unparalleled depth of understanding to how this protocol works and how to adapt it for a wide variety of client needs, including families, emerging adults, and practitioners in need of regulation themselves.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
A Body-Based Approach to Healing Trauma and Restoring Resilience
Somatic Experiencing®, developed by Dr. Peter Levine, is a pioneering approach to resolving trauma by working directly with the body’s survival responses. Rather than focusing solely on memories or thoughts, SE helps clients complete unresolved fight, flight, or freeze responses that remain trapped in the nervous system—often beneath conscious awareness.
Kate has used Somatic Experiencing as a core pillar of her work for decades. Her approach helps clients gently build the capacity to feel and release held tension, fear, or grief without overwhelm. Through tracking sensations, slowing down, and honoring the body’s natural rhythm, clients begin to restore their internal sense of safety, reconnect with their agency, and reestablish trust in their own timing.
Kate integrates SE not only in one-on-one sessions, but also in family work, practitioner mentorship, and immersive retreats. Whether she’s supporting someone in grief, guiding a family through conflict, or mentoring a clinician on case dynamics, SE allows Kate to help others regulate from the inside out and access healing that is lasting and embodied.
WORK WITH KATE
Join Kate in the next round of, “Attachment and Somatics Practitioner Certificate” where she serves as an Educator
Kate co-leads this certification through Trauma and Somatics, you can read more and register here.
Kate co-leads this immersive training with Will Rezin, designed for therapists, coaches, bodyworkers, and healing professionals who want to integrate attachment theory, somatic practice, and polyvagal-informed care into their work. This is not just a theoretical course—it’s experiential, alive, and deeply embodied. Participants learn to feel and track nervous system states in themselves and others, understand early attachment patterns, and support clients in repairing ruptures through presence and attunement rather than protocol.
The course brings together Kate’s decades of clinical and spiritual experience with Will’s precise nervous system mapping and trauma-informed teaching. Together, they create a grounded, warm, and intellectually rigorous space where learning happens in real-time—through movement, story, sensation, and reflection.
Kate co-leads this immersive training with Will Rezin, designed for therapists, coaches, bodyworkers, and healing professionals who want to integrate attachment theory, somatic practice, and polyvagal-informed care into their work. This is not just a theoretical course—it’s experiential, alive, and deeply embodied. Participants learn to feel and track nervous system states in themselves and others, understand early attachment patterns, and support clients in repairing ruptures through presence and attunement rather than protocol.
The course brings together Kate’s decades of clinical and spiritual experience with Will’s precise nervous system mapping and trauma-informed teaching. Together, they create a grounded, warm, and intellectually rigorous space where learning happens in real-time—through movement, story, sensation, and reflection.
Attachment and Somatics is a live, in-depth professional training program designed specifically for helping professionals and caring individuals to deepen their understanding of attachment and somatics, and build the skills necessary for their work with clients who have a history of relational ruptures.
This unique program provides a solid foundation to support your clients through stressful periods of their lives using the simple and often overlooked wisdom inherent in each of us – the wisdom of the body.
Attachment and Somatics is a 30-hour certificate training which includes: 10 live training classes (three hours each) over 12-weeks (Monday’s from 11-2pm ET), 8 self-study modules of training materials, and private virtual community space for additional learning and support.
PERSONAL
testimonials
“I happened to come across Kate Appleton while looking for a Safe and Sound Protocol practitioner to work with, through SSP and the Unyte program. I had a choice of about 15 different practitioners, but was drawn very much to Kate and her biography and her experience and her background, and in short, it’s just been one of the most remarkable journeys.
I’ve come across many teachers and many masters in my lifetime, and as a practitioner and coach myself, I can identify that in her. Kate has this unique ability to hold this balance of wisdom with humor, like a great aunt or a big sister that I can nestle into and Just be heard and held.
So if you are considering a practitioner, a support, an educator, a sage and all the above, then I cannot recommend Kate highly enough.”
Richard Lubner, South Africa,
former professional tennis player & currently an integrative coach