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Training Details

The Training

The Aliveness Training in Somatic Process™ Certification Program is a course of study that bridges body-centered processes and nature reconnection exercises to teach foundational life skills needed for psychological health, as well as deep transformative processes for Somatic Soul work. Two concentrations of study, BodyWay and the Aliveness Intensive, are available. Students in both specialty areas receive the overall curriculum acquiring techniques for overcoming struggles with: relationships; symptoms of extreme stress such as addictions and codependency; the emotional impact of life-threatening disease; work challenges like burn-out, overwhelm, or boredom. The life skills imparted include practical, step-by-step techniques drawing on research from the fields of ecopsychology, energetics, and somatic psychology to facilitate optimal states of functioning.  Additionally, the somatic soul work draws on indigenous, shamanic and expressive arts practices to facilitate an individual’s deep connection with the calling of their Soul.

The BodyWay concentration’s focus is on somatic processes for healing areas of non-chemical addictions, eating disorders, and codependency, as well as related areas of dysfunction.

The Aliveness Intensive concentration’s focus is on accessing the somatic soul through pre-symbolic activities and experience which results in co-creative, cooperative and flow-based living.  Somatic processes are augmented with creative and heart-based modalities. 

The training program consists of four learning modules of three months duration each.  Aliveness Intensive students additionally attend, at minimum, one 4-day in-person retreat in Portland Oregon. BodyWay students with an interest in eating disorder or weight related issues receive a fifth learning module that focuses on the specifics of eating and body image issues.  All learning modules are delivered via teleconference format.  A student may take one, two, three or all four modules.  Certification requires, however, that all four modules plus additional focus work is met.

Who Should Attend?

Mental Heath Practitioners
Mind-Body Therapists
Expressive Arts Therapists
Executive, Personal Growth Coaches
Occupational Therapists
Nurses
Pastoral Counselors and Ministers
Massage Therapists and Bodyworkers
Marriage and Family Therapists
Drug and Alcohol Counselors
Crisis Intervention Counselors
Weight Counselors and Weight-loss coaches
Nutritionists
Eating Disorder Therapists

Learning Object and Outcomes

Aliveness Professionals’ Certification Training includes these program elements for both specialties

Professional’s training tele-conferences, support materials, & training manuals;
BodyWay program teleclasses and support materials;
Additional focus work
Practicum
Project demonstrating mastery
Pre-graduation assessment and consultation

Learning Segments

Module: Embracing Wholeness—Training for the Treatment of Culturally Induced Disconnection and Fragmentation


The Aliveness Institute contends that so called “normal functioning” in our culture is founded, on a state of disconnection and fragmentation. Further, that success is often measured by an individuals’ ability to disconnect from their own body rhythms and inner/broader states of knowing.  Institutions are built on a framework that disowns the somatic, nature-based rhythms of the individual, and the innate need for belonging and community. Traditional behavioral and cognitive psychotherapies, while well-intentioned and often temporarily successful, focus on solving client problems within the framework of this fragmented or disconnected state of the modern mind, leaving the client’s somatic heart and soul as empty as it was to begin with.


Embracing Wholeness addresses the fragmented states brought on by the dysfunctional family system as well as the disconnected industrialized culture we are raised in.  Students will learn effective heart-based and somatic interventions that recapture the wholeness inherent in the client.  Methods for identifying disruptive cognitive and emotional states underlying addictions and eating disorders as well as “normalized” addictions such as too much doing, spending, and giving are explored with step-by-step processes for recapturing the needs and recognizing the underlying truth of the client.  Length of training: approximately 25 hours.

Curriculum (Embracing Wholeness)


Accessing Safety & Building Safety Resources
When to Strengthen Safety and When Not To
The Role of Ego Death in Soul Emergence
The Embodiment of Well-being
Wounding and the Body
Characterlogical Systems that protect us from the Pain of the Wound
Culture of Never Enough—Consumerism and Nature-Deficits
Releasing Attachment/Addiction—Facing the Pain of Emptiness
Letting Go of Control—Facing the Pain of Powerlessness
Embodiment of Core Strength
Surrender
Healing Fragmentation
The Embodiment of Being—releasing mental concepts.
Operating from Wholeness
Sense-awareness
Trust
Heart-Based Knowing and the Unknown

Module: Loving Nurture--Training for the Treatment of Self-Sacrifice, Codependency, Burn-Out and Doing Addiction


Our success-based culture has produced generations of adults who consistently and persistently rely on perfectionistic, production-based results and accumulation to measure self-worth. The mindset of “never enough” has pervasively invaded the psyche’s of the American soul, resulting in burn-out, overwhelm and continual states of stress and unrest.  Loving Nurture addresses the habit of self-sacrifice that denies core Being.  It guides the practitioner through the experience of deep terror that is at the root of this defense strategy, and embraces that experience with the highest heart-based states of compassion and self-respect.  Length of training: approximately 25 hours

Curriculum (Loving Nurture)


The Somatic Experience of Self-Sacrifice
Giving, Doing and Caring as Coping Mechanisms
Essential Components of Loving Nurture
The Somatic Experience of Nurture
Sense-based Awareness
Nurturing Rituals for Balance, Health and Well-being
Debunking Myths of Nurture
Cycles of Darkness, Body Constrictions and Shadow-States
Therapeutic Strategies for working with Polarities:
Over-Pleasing and its Underlying Rage
Over-Giving and its Underlying Terror
Accessing the Intelligence of the Heart
Modulating the Body’s Ability to Hold Increasing States of Pleasure
Nature-Reconnection Exercises to strengthen States of Pleasure
Working the Somatic Edge between Pleasure and Pain
Living in Flow:  the Dynamics of Heart-based Action