SomaSoul®: Somatic Therapy Training
SomaSoul®: Somatic Therapy Training
The core of SomaSoul Somatic Therapy is about deepening our capacity to truly listen to our bodies. Specifically, our capacity to listen to our emotional body. As we learn to be more connected to the somatic experience of our emotions, we can ground ourselves in our embodied experience of our emotions This practice is the beginning step to somatic-emotional processing that is the cornerstone of SomaSoul Somatic Therapy.
Somatic-emotional processing provides a new pathway toward a deeper intimacy with ourselves and others, relating to our emotions versus the habitual pathway which is to relate from our emotions. Relating from our emotions often means we make decisions that can increase our pain or say something that deepens interpersonal conflicts. When we learn this somatic processing model and connect with and listen to our embodied emotional experience, we gain access to the wisdom and guidance of our emotional experience allowing us to relate to life with more self-awareness.
The SomaSoul Somatic Therapy Training Program is both a deep immersion into one’s personal growth and healing and, for those who chose it, a training program for therapists and healers to expand their skill set, as well as for individuals who want to become Registered Somatic Movement Therapists through our institute.
People who come to SomaSoul Training are in tune with their spirit and soul’s desire to grow and transform by tending to their physical and emotional body in healing ways. People also come to SomaSoul Training because they are drawn to providing compassionate support toward the healing and growth of others whether through their current therapy/healing practice or simply be of healing support to others in their life.
Learn more about why our bodies are important tools in healing our psychophysical pain.
The field of somatic therapy and somatic psychotherapy is based on the premise that our mind’s awareness and body’s experience, where our emotions live have suffered from a type of rupture or disconnect.
The emotional body is contained within our physical body. Visceral feelings and reactions (viscera means organs) are at the core of our emotional experience. Our emotions live in our hearts, our lungs, our guts! For instance our heartbreaks, heavy hearts, lightheartedness, gut feelings and gut instincts, even the ability to stomach the criticism someone delivers to us are examples of this.
Our muscles may tighten against or collapse around feelings that emerge from our visceral experience as ways of self-protection. Our nervous and muscular systems have learned this primitive support process because, in our formative years, we may have experienced a lack of attunement and support for our emotions from our families of origin and within our culture.
In SomaSoul Somatic Therapy Training, you learn how to reconnect the mind’s awareness with the body experience as you tend to the psycho-physical process that we all go through!
SomaSoul® has been shaped by a number of unique approaches to mending the rift between our body and mind, and healing trauma stored in our psyche, body, and nervous system. Our integration of these approaches to healing includes the work from:
- Hartford Family Institute’s Body-Centered Psychotherapy, which integrates mindfulness and spirituality, Gestalt Psychotherapy, and Bio-energetics. Leven Institute Founder, Dan Leven was on the faculty of Hartford’s Professional Training Program for 18 years and other Leven Institute faculty members now teach in this program.
- Deb Dana’s elaboration on Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory focuses on working with our nervous system as it relates to healing trauma and emotional dysregulation.
- Martha Eddy’s Dynamic Embodiment™ integrates Body-Mind Centering® and Laban Movement Analysis.
- Expressive Arts Therapy through the lens of Alice Rutkowski’s Motional Processing which is based on Anna Halprin’s Life/Art Process®.
- Qigong is a way to access the spirit and life force that prompts both physical and emotional healing through the influence of Ken Cohen, Robert Peng and Djie Han Thang.
What To Expect
Learn to connect with your psycho-physical nature.
Discover the emotional body as it lives within your organs or viscera.
Learn an intuitive process that helps you receive information and guidance from your emotional body.
Experience how muscle tension and weakness are primitive protection responses that reveal the nervous system’s challenge in making space for your visceral-emotional feelings.
Find deep soulful expression and freedom in SomaSoul’s unique expressive arts process that safely guides you in expressing your psychophysical experience.
Deepen your somatic intelligence, embodied presence, and energy flow through SomaSoul Somatic Yoga.
Discover your body more deeply as you learn how your nervous system is the foundation upon which all lived experience is built.
SomaSoul Training Timeline
The SomaSoul training is a two and half year training program.
Year One: Foundations
Foundations supports students’ personal inner growth through SomaSoul healing principles and therapeutic processes. As you deepen your own personal growth, you intrinsically learn how to lead others in this work.
What’s included in Foundations
27 -2 hr live sessions via Zoom Thursdays at 4:30pm ET
Somatic Movement videos
Support work practices provided each week to help you bring the teachings into your life
27 weekly small group mentoring sessions with your personal faculty mentor to help you deepen and integrate your learning
2 Individual SomaSoul sessions with your mentor
Year two: Clinical Training or Inner Development Program
In year two we focus on taking the foundational learning experience from year one and expand and deepen it with a particular focus on facilitating sessions with clients. In year two we also offer the option to continue entirely for your own personal development as these skills are also vital to being in fulfilling relationships with others.
What’s included in Clinical Training and Inner Development Program
39 weekly webinars
20 biweekly small mentorship groups
3 individual SomaSoul sessions with your mentor
Individual feedback and support on 10 sessions with practice clients (Clinical Students only)
Beyond Graduation
We offer opportunities for Graduate Study and Client Supervision to continue to grow as a SomaSoul Therapist beyond graduation
Tuition for SomaSoul® Somatic Therapy Foundations Training is $1850
Payment plans are available
Registration closes September 30th, 2023
What I’ve learned in my two years of SomaSoul training has helped me, in a deeply embodied way, to make sense of my life, my experiences, and my childhood trauma. As a scientist, I was initially skeptical that trauma was still, many decades later, very much alive in my nervous system –yet talk therapy had only gotten me so far. What I’ve learned in SomaSoul, from the layers of human experience to putting polyvagal theory into daily practice, has given me the tools I need to live my life with more joy and compassion for myself and for others. Thank you!
Enroll Now – Year 1 – SomaSoul Somatic Therapy Foundations
Thursdays at 4:30pm ET, October 19th, 2023- May 16th, 2024
Registration closes September 30th, 2023