Although the practices we teach are grounded in gentleness - using pendulation, titration, and nervous-system-informed pacing—they can be profoundly powerful. The body is where truth, aliveness, and unfinished experience reside. Our work invites these truths to emerge, to be felt, and to be integrated.
Rather than following a manualised, step-by-step protocol, the training supports therapists to follow what arises in the moment. We provide guidelines, demonstrations, and opportunities for practice, alongside somatic resources that you can draw on to help clients (or yourself) to feel safer in their bodies and to strengthen the “muscle” of awareness of moment-to-moment experience.
For therapists whose background has been primarily in structured, skills-based, or manualised approaches, this style can initially feel disorienting. It asks us to sit with not knowing - to allow space for what needs attention to show itself, rather than directing the process too quickly. This may stir discomfort, avoidance, or even our own unfinished material, and that is part of the learning – we are all human and have our own embodied material, both supportive and otherwise!
Importantly, this training is not just intellectual. It is experiential and reflective, meaning your own embodied experience as a therapist becomes central. You may begin to gently notice your own patterns, parts, and somatic responses within the learning process. What you bring into the experiential components is part of how you come to embody the work.
We aim to provide a safe, emotionally held environment in which participants are encouraged to be with whatever feels ok within the context of a training, and to move away should the answer to the question ‘is it ok to be with this?’ be a ‘no’, just as we practice with our clients.
Presenters:
Dr Kirstie Missenden, Somatic Psychotherapist
Karen Doherty, Accredited Social Worker
Disclaimer:
The content of this endorsed CPD course is provided by the external course provider. Attendees are encouraged to approach the material with an open mind and consider diverse perspectives, particularly those from lived experiences related to the topics discussed. For feedback regarding the course, please contact the course provider directly.