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University Programs

One of the founding programs in body-oriented psychotherapy in the U.S., the M.A. in Counseling Psychology/Somatic Concentration, at California Institute of Integral Studies is a professional graduate education in psychotherapeutic practice from an integrative, whole-person model. READ MORE

 

Naropa University is a Buddhist-inspired, student-centered liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. A recognized leader in contemplative education, Naropa’s undergraduate and graduate programs emphasize professional and personal growth, intellectual development, and contemplative practice.

Through rigorous academics, faculty mentoring, contemplative practice, and community engagement, Naropa students develop the abilities to think critically, to communicate effectively, and to know their hearts and minds. The result: graduates who live deeply fulfilling lives working to improve people’s lives and the condition of our planet.

 

Students in the Somatic Studies specialization integrate the insights of depth psychology with a somatic perspective in order to bring body and soul into the evolving conversation about what it means to be human. Focused on real world issues across a range of academic and professional domains, students develop new understandings and create innovative practices with the potential to transform the communities in which they live and work.

 

 

Training and Certification programs in Somatic-Based Practices, Inquiry and Psychotherapy

TRAINING INSTITUTIONS

 

Bodynamic Institute USA, The Bodynamic system of Seven Developmental Stages is a very detailed and accurate description of childhood psychological and somatic development, and the links between them. It describes both what healthy development looks like and what happens when there are developmental disruptions. It contains precise knowledge that we have learned to teach in a user friendly format. This knowledge often allows you to resolve client issues in the context of the developmental stage in which the disruption occurred. And this leads to quicker and more lasting integration of new behaviors into a client’s life. READ MORE

 

 

The Center for Somatic Studies was founded and is directed by Ruella Frank, Ph.D., who has been teaching in the field of movement education since the mid-1970s and has taught gestalt psychotherapy theory and practice since 1986. The center reflects an interdisciplinary path that many schools of psychology and body-oriented therapies have been exploring to further their understanding of human development through a variety of courses, workshops, and the two-year Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy training program. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

John Pierrakos, MD developed the Core Energetics Evolutionary Process and is the founder of the Institute of Core Energetics. Core Energetics theory comes from the premise that emotional, mental and physical disturbances are symptoms of blocked energy due to an individual’s adaptive responses to environmental deficits or injuries in childhood. The work brings consciousness to how we block our energy and recreate defense patterns adapted in childhood that keep us limited and disempowered.    READ MORE

 

Karyne Wilner’s Core Energetics offers a certificate program for mental health professionals and body workers based on the world-renowned Core Energetics method plus principles of humanistic/existential psychology and holistic counseling theory. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Since 1981, Hakomi Institute has pioneered mindfulness and somatics in experiential psychotherapy. “Dynamic” mindfulness is an integral part of the therapy session, and when Hakomi’s body-centered techniques are introduced with the mindful client, key core material is accessed rapidly, yet safely. This includes the unconscious beliefs and experiences that shape our lives, often without our knowledge. Once conscious and directly experience, these patterns are available for transformation and re-integration. Hakomi can also be integrated with many therapeutic modalities.READ MORE

 

 

Integrative Body Psychotherapy (IBP) is a more efficient and effective way of working with clients that leads to deeper more meaningful work in less time with lasting results. IBP treats the whole person, integrating the body, mind, emotions and spirit. IBP unifies the best approaches to mental health and human evolution including: Psychoanalysis, Object Relations Theory, Gestalt therapy, Reichian therapy, Self Psychology, Bioenergetics, Feldenkrais, Transpersonal Psychology, Eastern philosophies and practices, and more. All these therapeutic approaches are unified in a single non-invasive somatic implementation model that is simple, powerful, efficient, effective and comprehensive.   READ MORE

 

 

Rooted in the work of Wilhelm Reich and founded by Alexander Lowen, Bioenergetic Analysis is a specific form of body-psychotherapy – based upon the continuity between body and mind.  Bioenergetic Analysis basically combines a bodily, analytic and relational therapeutic work, based upon an energetic understanding.  READ MORE

 

 

The Realization Process is a somatic approach to psychological healing, relational healing, and nondual spiritual realization. It is a series of practices for attuning to foundational consciousness pervading our body and environment as a unity. These practices cultivate an experience of internal cohesion, authenticity, increased vitality, and the integration of cognition, emotion and physical sensation. Combined with verbal dialogue, specific Realization Process practices apply foundational consciousness to the release of somatically bound protective patterns that were formed in response to early traumatic relationships. Teacher certification trainings focus on the embodiment, nondual meditation and psychological healing aspects of the Realization Process. Advanced certification training focuses on recovery from trauma. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Seattle School of Body-Psychotherapy offers a three-year training program which can be taken for both personal transformation and professional development. The program at SSBP incorporates the work of Wilhelm Reich and Core Energetics with contemporary therapies and indigenous practices. With the understanding that pure life force emanates from the Core of every being and always remains intact, we study how to track the blocks that obscure it over time and through the life cycle. We learn techniques to free the expansive life energy in order to use it on behalf of our life, our interpersonal experiences, and to reconnect with our joy. The result is as spiritual as it is psychological, opening our perception and that of those with whom we work, to the greater world around us as well as to our own unique offering which we call “Referencing From the Self”. READ MORE

 

 

SPI is a professional educational organization that designs and provides the highest-level trainings and services to serve a global network of mental health practitioners, and for the public at large. Seeking to enhance human relationships, our paradigm is substantiated by interpersonal neurobiology and impelled by mindfulness applied in interactive contexts.  READ MORE

 

 

SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® (SE™) is a potent psychobiological method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application.  READ MORE

 

 

We at The Somatic Therapy Center hold the conviction that the BODY is the Keeper of Truth, the Holder of Wisdom and the Way-shower to Wholeness and Health. For over 30 years, the founders Joe Weldon and Noël Wight, have been touching people and transforming  lives. Their work, Transformative Touch, is the touch of gentle, gracious guidance.  It is an approach that combines touching with their hands, touching with their hearts, and touching with their words. Transformative Touch is a conversation that fosters and forges a healing dialogue in which the client fully participates- body, mind, heart and soul.  READ MORE

 

Co-founded by Anna and Daria Halprin in 1978, Tamalpa Institute is an internationally recognized nonprofit organization that offers movement-based expressive arts training programs and workshops for healing, education, and social transformation. Our innovative work has been brought into classrooms, businesses, hospitals, mental health care settings, hospices, prisons, and disadvantaged communities, among others.   READ MORE

 

 

 

TRAINING RESOURCES

Alexander Lowen Foundation

 

 

 

The Breema Center is a profound understanding —of the underlying unity of all life, expressed in a dynamic and practical philosophy that can be put into practice in any situation. What Is Breema Bodywork? It is a direct expression of Breema’s Nine Principles of Harmony through touch and movement. The practitioner’s movements and quality of touch communicate directly with the recipient’s body on both physical and energetic levels. This initiates a return to physical, emotional, and psychological harmony and balance. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Guided Self Healing, founded by Andrew Hahn, Psy.D.  draws from the four historical traditions in psychology plus an emerging fifth tradition.  The Guided Self Healing Training Institute exists to facilitate the process of integrated presence and growth through individual and collective healing, experiential workshops and training courses. The Institute also promotes the growth of Guided Self Healing as a specific healing modality. We do this by developing and supporting trainers and practitioners, collaborating with other organizations, and expanding the development of the work itself. GSH is established as a service organization committed to doing its part to bring peace, compassion and understanding to the world. READ MORE

 

Center for Healing Shame with Bret Lyon, PhD and Sheila Rubin, LMFT, RDT/BCT – Their Training Workshops are designed to help therapists show clients how to recognize shame, work through it and move on. We will become more sensitive to the shaming often implicit in the therapy situation and learn how to counter shame in therapy. We will be able to help clients separate feelings of shame from other emotions. And we’ll learn how to take clients back to early shaming situations and reverse the outcome – helping clients move their energy powerfully outward rather than turn it against themselves.  READ MORE

 

 

Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) considers every approach to psychotherapy as valuable and understands them all as components of a broad unifying framework built on Eastern and Western psychologies. It offers clinicians from diverse therapeutic modalities the possibility of increasing treatment efficiency through greater embodiment of all the bodies that constitute the psyche. READ MORE

 

 

 

 

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) addresses attachment, relational and developmental trauma by working with early, unconscious patterns of disconnection that deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. Integrating a body centered (“bottom-up”) and psychodynamic (“top-down”) approach, within a context of interpersonal neurobiology, and grounded in mindfulness and a non-western orientation to the Self, NARM offers a comprehensive theoretical and clinical model for working with complex trauma. READ MORE

 

 

 

The Radical Aliveness Institute curriculum combines training in somatic psychotherapy, container building for cultural awareness and sensitivity, and deep emotional process work. The element that makes this work unusually fresh and powerful is the Radical Aliveness Process, a cutting-edge technology for group facilitation and participation providing a quantum leap in the healing capacity of groups. It fosters the development of individual leadership through group dynamics; cultivates the ability to be inclusive and collaborative, even in the midst of personal upheaval and chaos; and it furthers the capacity to create healing on the world and social levels.   Read More

 

 

Soul’s Body® Center, developed by Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., MFT, BC-DMT, provides a unique integration of Jungian Depth Psychology and embodied practices including Authentic Movement, Marion Woodman’s BodySoul Work®, Somatics, the Creative Arts Therapies and other conscious practices that engage body, brain, psyche, and soul. Programs involve ongoing groups, week-long intensives, workshops, and consultation – re-inhabit your body, engage your authenticity, and live your soul’s journey!  READ MORE