Healing Comes From The Wisdom We Feel
LEVEL TWO
Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™
Trauma, Emotions, and the Body
TUITION $3,897.50 CAD
2027 COHORT
Starting April 3rd., 2027
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
A 4-Day Professional Development Training Immersion
The body may be understood as a sacred threshold, opening the way to deeper wisdom and profound transformation. Within it reside stories, memories, and a quiet knowing that extends beyond the limits of the intellect. When we honour and fully inhabit our physical being, we open ourselves to change that is genuine, enduring, and whole! As body and spirit come into sacred communion, the inner self comes more clearly into view, and a sense of balance is gently restored. In this way, the body becomes a living vessel of revelation, disclosing dimensions of our being and of the universe that often remain veiled in the patterns of ordinary life. In ISTP™, we attend to the body’s knowing, trusting its quiet wisdom beyond the reach of the intellect!
Welcoming 10 Participants for 2027
Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™ Certificate Training
Healing occurs when we experience safety within relationships and foster a connection to our bodies, breath, and emotions. This process is fundamentally linked to the nervous system, which is inherently structured to support healing through relational connections. When a secure environment is established, we are more likely to express our vulnerabilities by sharing personal thoughts, fears, and insecurities, facilitating a deeper self-understanding and emotional connection. Healing comes from the wisdom we feel.
Embodied Spiritual Development
Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™ weaves the body into the process of spiritual growth, laying a grounded base for deeper connection, insight, and transformation. This approach goes beyond symptom management, encouraging self-awareness and understanding of how internal experiences impact well-being. Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice bridges psychological, emotional, and spiritual growth within a trauma-informed path of healing and transformation.
Healing comes from the wisdom we feel!
Fundamental Principles and Objectives
Healing Through Wholeness
In Level Two, trauma healing is held within a sacred vision of wholeness and interconnectedness that honours the full breadth of human experience. Practitioners learn skills to walk alongside clients as they cultivate moment-to-moment awareness of the body, breath, and emotions, opening a gentle and reverent space in which held expressions may soften, unfold, and begin to release. Held expressions are physical or emotional patterns carried within the body through past experience. This work invites a tender and compassionate relationship with the body, supporting a healing process that is integrative, enduring, and restorative.
Nine core Practices
To support this process, ISTP™ includes nine Core Practices. Each one offers a distinct contribution to healing and spiritual development:
- Mindfulness: Cultivates attentive awareness of bodily sensations and present-moment experience.
- Restorative Postures: Encourage relaxation and support nervous system regulation.
- Somatic Bodywork: Help release physical tension and emotional holding patterns.
- Ceremony: Creates sacred space for reflection, healing, and transformation.
- Breathwork: Deepens connection to the self and supports emotional regulation.
- Resilience Enhancement: Strengthens inner capacity and supports adaptive responses to stress.
- Ancestral Reverence: Honours lineage and explores inherited patterns (intergenerational burdents) that may shape present experience.
- Sound Vibration: Uses auditory resonance to support healing and deepen awareness.
- Bioenergetic Unwinding: Releases held energetic patterns & muscular armouring, allowing the body to soften, discharge tension returning to it’s natural flow of vitality (Chi).
- Somatic Processing and Integration: Brings conscious attention to physical and emotional experience to support holistic healing.
Through body-oriented practices that support nervous system regulation, individuals are invited to rest more fully into present-moment awareness and an embodied sense of being. In this state of awareness, sensations, thoughts, and emotions may be received as they arise with tenderness and reverence without the need to explain, analyze, or hold them too tightly.
In level 2, We learn skills to encourage connection & attunement to the body using the wisdom of restorative postures, somatic bodywork & breathing techniques. The intent 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.
Therapy is simple when working with the body. It is the mind that keeps things complicated!
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- Explain the reasons and guidelines for incorporating mindfulness, breathing exercises, resourcing, restorative postures, supportive touch, ceremony, and sound healing into trauma recovery practices. This includes recognizing how each modality contributes to the facilitation of felt expression, safety, and stability in the body, as well as promoting relaxation, resilience, and the release of stress and tension
- Facilitate moment-to-moment awareness of bodily sensations, breath, emotional energy, and thoughts to support the identification and integration of traumatic memories.
- Explain how core practices in ISTP ™ support somatic processing and integration for trauma healing.
- Demonstrate effective structuring of ceremonial rhythms within a somatic therapy session.
- Apply supported postures to facilitate felt expression and promote safety and stability in the body
- Learn and use invitational language to engage the body in a relaxation response
- Utilize props such as blankets and bolsters to support the release of muscular tension, stress, and physical pain
- Learn the three fundamentals of breathing techniques and use these skills to build resilience within both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
- Recognize essential aspects of trauma work and apply somatic techniques to release held expressions
- Explore how ISTP model called “RARI” can be applied to align with best practices in healing trauma
- Learn to facilitate the release of held expressions by tracking physical sensations, observing emotional charge, and applying resourcing techniques during an ISTP™ session
- Cultivate a counsellor’s embodiment practice to avoid absorbing the client’s energy and emotional intensity.
- Describe the rational for incorporating ceremony into clinical practice
- Complete approximately 25 sessions of practice in ISTP with mentorship and guidance
SUITABLE FOR
- Counsellors, Psychotherapists, Social Workers
- Personal Coaches, Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Workers, Holistic Practitioners
- Yoga Therapists, Registered Bodyworkers
- First Responders, Energy Healers
ADMISSION CRITERIA: Integrative Somatic Studies Institute is not a licensing or accrediting body. For this reason, ISTP™ training is offered as continuing education for those who are already rooted in the mental health, health and wellness fields, rather than as entry-level preparation. These programs are intended to deepen, refine, and build upon existing knowledge and clinical skills, offering advanced training than foundation instruction. Many of our students are established clinicians, coaches, and mental health practitioners who feel called to weave ISTP™ into the scope of their existing professional practice.
Trainings are designed to support mental health and wellness professionals—including personal coaches, yoga therapists, and registered bodyworkers—in deepening the specialized skills needed to bring ISTP™ into their work with greater presence, care, and integrity. Our intention is to support the ethical, legal, and professionally aligned application of ISTP™ in practice.
Admission to ISTP™ Training: Our admissions policy reflects our role as a provider of specialized continuing education. These trainings are intended for individuals who are qualified and legally credentialed to practice in mental health, health, or wellness professions. This policy offers clear guidance for admission into ISTP™ training and helps uphold the ethical integrity of those we serve. It is rooted in the program’s learning intentions and in the professional standards that support responsible clinical and mental health practice within the ISTP™ & ISBP models.
TRAINING FORMATS
Level Two Training is delivered through two complementary learning components: Online eLearning and a Land-Based Immersion. Together, these components provide the theoretical foundation, practical skills, and experiential learning necessary to deepen competency in Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™.
COMPONENT 1: Online eLearning
Includes:
- Self-study online learning modules to be completed prior to live webinar start date
- Live interactive webinar: 5 instructional hours
- Online Group mentorship & consultation: 8 instructional hours
Dates, 2027
- Webinar Start Date: April 3rd. at 9:00am PST
- Registration Deadline: January 1st.
COMPONENT 2: Land-Based Immersion
The Land-Based Immersion is a five-day experiential training designed to bridge online learning with hands-on practice. Participants engage in real-world applications of Integrative Somatic Therapy Practice (ISTP)™ within a supportive land-based environment. Through direct experience, guided instruction, and collaborative learning, participants develop practical skills, deepen their understanding of therapeutic processes, and build confidence in the application of ISTP™ principles.
Includes:
- Four-day immersive training
- Therapeutic applications of ISTP™: 12 instructional hours
- Skills-based practice facilitated by instructors, graduates, and peers: 12 instructional hours
- Independent practice and integration activities
Dates, 2027
- April 10th. – 13th.
- Arrival April 9th.
- Registration Deadline: March 1st.
Training Location
The Land-Based Immersion is offered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Please Note: Accommodation and meals are not included in the tuition fees.
* Online Group consultation and mentorship offers guidance in the following areas:
- Building confidence and practical skill in the nine core practices of ISTP™: Mindfulness, Restorative Postures, Touch and Bodywork, Ceremony, Breathwork, Resilience Enhancement, Ancestral Healing, Sound Vibration, and Somatic Processing and Integration.
- Preparing for your first ISTP™ session, including intake, assessment, informed consent, session length and fees, and professional liability insurance.
- Exploring ethical considerations in somatic psychotherapy, including dual and multiple relationships, documentation, the use of touch, and appropriate supervision.
- Learning to navigate internal and external resources and activation, including when to stay with resources and when to move gently through activation.
- Practicing exercises that help restore social engagement when moving from activation into more settled states, using the RARI model.
- Strengthening your ability to respond when a client is overwhelmed (activation or overactivation).
- learning to discern the difference between integrative and eclectic perspectives in a counselling session
- Developing a deeper understanding of resistance, transference, and countertransference, and how to work with them thoughtfully in practice.
- Learning how to integrate touch and bodywork into somatic psychotherapy with consent, care, and clarity.
5 Days Land-Based Immersive Training Located @ Pacific Shores Resort & Spa
(Nanoose Bay, Vancouver Island, BC)
MINDFUL INTENTION: Because this training explores difficult emotional states rooted in childhood, some participants may find the program triggering. This continuing education program is designed for mental health professionals and is not intended to serve as personal therapy. Given the depth of the work, all students are required to be engaged in regular personal therapy.
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