Expressions Through Felt Wisdom is What Heals
LEVEL 2
Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™
Trauma, Emotions, and the Body
TUITION $2,701.13 CAD (tax included)
Now Accepting Applications for 2027
January 17th. – April 9th., 2027
40-Hrs Hybrid Experiential Training
[ 2 Days on line + 3 Days in person ]
A trauma-informed training space, transcending & enriching experiential learning expereince!
[ Accepting 10 Students ]
REFUND POLICY: Integrative Somatic Studies Institute does not issue refund for online materials once course is purchased. All rights reserved
Certificate in Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™
Component One
We heal when we feel safe in relationships, connected to our breath; aligned with body, mind, and emotions. When we feel safe, we can connect to the body and develop the capacity to open to our vulnerabilities and emotional expressions to discover our truths. Expressions through felt wisdom is what heals. After completion of Level 1 in Fundamentals in Trauma Recovery, we orient our intention to developing specialized skills for working with the body ~ Body-Mind-Emotion Self-Regulations for healing trauma.
Level 2 Certificate Training comprehensively integrates 8 core practices used in Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice for somatic processing and integration. Core Practices include the:
- wisdom of Restorative Postures
- present focus of Mindfulness,
- healing power of Breathwork,
- sacredness of Ceremony,
- resonance of resilience enhancement,
- the depth of Resilience Enhancement,
- intuitive rhythm Sound Healing
- insightfulness of Somatic processing and integration.
These core practices are designed to enhance the body’s own capacity to heal. Students will learn to apply specialized skills to help clients connect to body sensations, tensions, and holding patterns developed over time for self-protection. Learn how to support your clients to cultivate moment-to-moment awareness of body, breath, and emotions to facilitate release of body-stored trauma. “The intent is to process and integrate unconscious memories and past experiences to encourage a kinder, more compassionate way of relating to SELF; body, mind and soul”, Ratha Chek.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Describe the rationale and practice guidelines for applying practices in mindfulness, breathing techniques, resourcing, restorative postures, touch & bodywork, and sound healing in trauma recovery
- Facilitate moment-to-moment awareness of body sensations, breath, emotional energy and thought to identify and integrate traumatic memories
- Explain how core practices in ISTP™ are used for somatic processing and integration for healing trauma
- Demonstrate how to a structure ceremonial rhythms in a somatic therapy session
- Apply restorative & supported postures to engage in felt expression through safety and stability in the body
- Learn the art of invitational language and how to engage the body in relaxation response
- Utilize various props to support and release muscular tension, stress and pain held in the physical body
- Understand 3 fundamentals of breathing skills and apply techniques to mediate resilience in sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
- Identify and apply key points in trauma work
- Understand the application of an ISTP™ model in relations to “best practice” in trauma recovery
- Learn to support felt-sense experiences through tracking physical sensations and emotional charge during an ISTP™ Session
- Learn to develop a counsellor’s practice of connectedness to one’s own felt sense/wisdom to avoid taking on client’s energy and emotional charge
PREREQUISITE : Completion of Level 1
This is a 6-month certificate training consisting of self-paced online course study materials and a 5-day experiential skills-based training. The course study materials consists of 26 online modules designed to engage the multimodal adult learner. The 5-day (40-HRS) experiential training consist of two days online (via live interactive webinar) and three days in person on Vancouver Island, BC Canada.
Once students have completed the 5 days experiential training, they will gain an opportunity to apply knowledge into skills through practicum with group mentorship & supervision.
- 37.50 hrs. – 50 hrs. (25 sessions approx.) of documented practicum*,
- 15 hrs. group mentorship ***
*Documented Practicum hours can be obtained through 3 options:
- Within your training cohort (students training in your group)
- With your own clients
- With clients referred by the institute
*** GROUP MENTORSHIP & CONSULTATION
A total of 15 hours of group consultation is offered via online to provide students with an opportunity to consult, gain feedback and support from their Clinical Supervisors during practicum. Group consultation is also an opportunity for students to gain feed back from other students, learn from one another to deepen somatic therapy skills.
GROUP CONSULTATION includes 7 topics areas for discussions to reinforce skills. These topics include:
- Beginning your first ISTP™ session: Intake, assessments, informed consent, session duration/rate, liability (professional) insurance.
- Ethical Issues in Somatic Psychotherapy: Dual & multiple relationships, documentations, using touch, adequate supervision.
- Navigating internal/external resources and activation. When to stay with the resources & went to move through activation
- Exercises to restore Social Engagement when moving from activation to stage relaxation using the RARI model.
- What to do when client is activated or overactivated? How to distinguish between integrative versus eclectic practice in an ISTP™ session.
- Understanding and working with resistance. Working with transference & countertransference.
- Inner Child or Shadow work in an Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice.
3 Days In Person Training Location @ Pacific Shores Resort & Spa
(Nanoose Bay, Vancouver Island, BC)
MINDFUL INTENTION: Due to the nature of the training, the intensity of this program may be triggering for some of our students while exploring difficult emotional states originating in childhood. This program is designed to train mental health professionals as continuing education. It is not meant to be a container for personal therapy. Due to the depth of the work, we require that all students be simultaneously engage in regular personal therapy with a therapist of their choice.
In level 2, We learn skills to encourage connection & attunement to the body using the wisdom of yoga, bodywork & breathing techniques. Our intention is to promote relaxation and reduce stress by releasing tension in the body’s soft tissues through myofascial release. This practice addresses underlying causes of pain and dysfunction, rather than just treating the symptoms.
Facilitating connections through relaxation with postures that feel safe and comfortable, allow the breath to flow to different areas of the body where trauma is stored. When we create an opportunity for the body to move safely between postures, breath flows through the body to allow unconscious memories and repressed emotions to percolate and be released from the body.
Illness is thought to be the result of blocked energy. When our natural state of ease is blocked, we develop disease. Postures and breathing practices release blockages so that vital energy can flow freely, and healthy functioning can be restored
Emotions follow body postures and physical holding patterns. Releasing physical holding patterns changes one's mental patterns as well. Change is experienced on all levels. Thoughts and emotions manifest in the body and through physical releases using restorative yoga postures, we have the potential for deep emotional releases and restructuring of mental patterns as well. New connections are created in the mind and body so that patterns of tension are negatively (literally our ruts) are replaced by new groves of relaxation and positivity.
Embodiment is the art of being in the present in the body as we experience life. In our trainings, embodiment is the practice of moment-to-moment process by which participants allow awareness to enhance the flow of sensations, feelings, thoughts, images and energies through their bodily selves. We are born into bodies that travel fluidly through an infinite range of movement and feeling. Although over time, through physical and/or emotional injuries, cultural conditionings, age, and sedentary habits, our movement expression gets narrower and narrower. We forget the physical freedom we once enjoyed,
To be embodied is:
- To be aware and awake to the sensations in our physical body, the ebb and flow of our emotions, and the movements of our mind
- To be present in our life, right here and now
- To allow life force to move through our bodies in ways both familiar and unpredictable
- To live and dance with the universal spirit, expressed in the world through our soulful, one-of-a-kind self