Are you interested in delving into the realm of somatic therapy? Explore the available options for professional Somatic Therapy Certification Training.
Somatic therapy, a practice rooted in various traditions and disciplines that blend elements of psychology, philosophy, and body-centered practices, has evolved into a recognized and potent approach for healing trauma. This body-based modality offers profound benefits, influencing mental and emotional well-being. As the field of somatic therapy advances, it introduces transformative methods that go beyond conventional trauma therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Exposure Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).
Today, the most impactful forms of trauma therapy involve body-based approaches, with somatic therapy at the forefront. These methods not only have deep-rooted historical significance but also provide advanced and lasting healing for individuals coping with trauma. The recognition of the effectiveness of somatic therapy has led to a global acceptance of this field, with trained practitioners contributing to various wellness professions, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, physicians, nurses, emergency medical technicians, teachers, Holistic Health Coaches, Life Coaches, and Yoga Teachers.
Selecting the right somatic therapy training program can be intricate and overwhelming. This article aims to guide you through the process, helping you understand your options and confidently choose the best training program for your needs.
To facilitate your journey into advanced somatic therapy, here’s a curated list of top schools offering Somatic Therapy Certification Training. These institutions provide a solid foundation for those seeking a more profound and powerful approach to trauma healing.
What’s important when choosing a somatic training?
Before committing to a somatic training program, it’s essential to weigh several factors. The world of somatics is expansive and lacks comprehensive regulation, offering numerous career paths. Programs vary widely, ranging from weekend immersions to multi-year mastery courses, some at the university level.
Each program has distinct entry requirements, contributing to the complexity of the decision-making process. This article is a great resource to help you navigate all your options as you enter into the world of somatics and trauma.
Types of Therapies in Training:
Various programs present diverse approaches to somatic therapy, requiring a clear understanding of the training you’ll undergo and the modalities involved. Distinctions exist, with some programs emphasizing cognitive-behavioral therapy, while others adopt a more body-centric approach. Program durations also vary, ranging from brief 12-15 hour overviews tailored for continuing education credits to more extensive single-modality courses spanning up to 500 hours of training.
It’s crucial to ensure that the chosen program remains current with the latest research and techniques in the field, reflecting ongoing advancements in somatic therapy. This awareness ensures that participants receive up-to-date and relevant training, contributing to a comprehensive and informed educational experience.
Budget:
A crucial aspect to contemplate is the financial commitment required. You must weigh whether you’re prepared to invest in a comprehensive 3-year, $9,000 mastery program or if you prefer starting with a shorter, introductory course to initiate your journey. Typically, concise continuing education courses are priced under $1,000, while in-depth explorations of specific modalities may entail costs exceeding $10,000. Opting for shorter overview training initially is a prudent approach, allowing you to discern the trajectory you’d like to pursue as you navigate the field.
The Environment (online vs. in-person):
Presently, the majority of somatic training is conducted online, although there are options for in-person training. Somatic training environments vary, with some leaning towards clinical and educational settings, while others adopt a more spiritual approach, often conducted as group experiences. It’s crucial to verify that your instructors in the somatic field are not only experienced and qualified but also authentically embody the teachings they impart. Choose a program that not only sparks inspiration but also aligns with your intuitive guidance.
Considering these factors collectively will ensure you select the most fitting somatic therapy training program for your specific needs. By taking all these elements into consideration, you can confidently choose a somatic therapy training program that resonates with your aspirations and aligns seamlessly with your personal and professional goals.
1. The Aura Institute – Integrative Trauma Practitioner™ Training
This stands as our top recommendation, presenting a well-crafted program tailored for coaches and therapists aiming to elevate their expertise in somatics.
For those seeking certification in somatics, a common challenge is finding training that strikes a balance between brevity (10-20 hours) for an educational introduction to somatics or specific modalities like Somatics or EFT, which demand extensive training (hundreds of hours) only to certify in one modality.
The Aura Institute emerges as an excellent choice for somatics training, offering a comprehensive general overview of somatics and practical training in 3-6 different modalities. The training spans 60 hours for level 1 and 70 hours for level 2, allowing a gradual immersion. Renowned therapists, including Hala Khouri and Stephanie Scarminach, lead the sessions, ensuring top-notch instruction.
Geared towards coaches, therapists, and holistic practitioners, the curriculum provides practical somatic modalities immediately applicable in one-on-one client settings.
Embark on your journey by enrolling in the Aura Institute training to become a certified Integrative Trauma Coach and Practitioner. The nine-week introductory Level-1 training guides you through live lectures, break-out rooms, practices, and real-time demonstrations, introducing the most integrative, body-based approaches, such as Trauma-Informed Breathwork, Somatic Therapy, and the Body Trauma Liberation™ method. Through firsthand experience, you’ll forge a personal relationship with these modalities, embodying their power and serving as a living example for your clients. The Aura Institute fosters a supportive, empowering atmosphere, designed to infuse excitement as you bring new gifts, tools, and techniques into your life and practice.
Certification: Integrative Trauma Practitioner (Levels 1 & 2)
Continuing Education: 40 Continuing Education (CE) credits
Length: 9 weeks (level 1)
Price: $2,800
Website: https://aurainstitute.org/
2. Somatic Experiencing Professional Training
The Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Training, led by Somatic Experiencing International, is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of Somatic Experiencing (SE), a body-oriented approach to healing trauma, as well as the skills and tools necessary to effectively use it in practice. The program is divided into online and in-person learning that consists of training modules, workshops, and seminars spaced out over 2½ to 3 years. The Trauma Healing Training covers topics such as the neurophysiology of trauma, the Somatic Experiencing approach to working with trauma, and the application of SE in various clinical settings.
The program includes a variety of techniques, such as mindfulness, body-based practices, and self-regulation skills, to help individuals learn to manage their stress and emotions. You’ll receive an in-depth, holistic understanding of this deep healing, and develop the skills and knowledge to effectively address the physical, emotional, and psychological effects of trauma.
The facilitators of this program work closely with you as you develop the skills and confidence with the SE technique in a hands-on setting. You’ll complete this training ready and eager to bring this beautiful modality into your practice and career.
Certification: Somatic Experiencing Practitioner
Continuing Education: 22-36 Continuing Education (CE) credits per module
Length: 3 years
Price: $9,530 (total)
Website: https://traumahealing.org/professional-training/
3. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma Training
This comprehensive Level-1 trauma training is available in an online, hybrid, or in-person format, catering to the accessibility needs of mental health professionals. The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma training program aims to equip mental health professionals with the expertise to effectively apply Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP) in trauma treatment. SP is a somatic, evidence-based psychotherapeutic approach that emphasizes the correlation between physical sensations and emotions. Over the course of this 9-week program, participants will delve into the theory and practice of SP, acquiring the knowledge and skills to seamlessly integrate its techniques into their clinical work with clients.
The program encompasses a blend of lectures, experiential exercises, and supervised practice sessions, ensuring a thorough mastery and the development of expertise. By engaging in this training, participants will cultivate the necessary skills for adeptly assessing and treating trauma through Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Furthermore, the program provides the knowledge and tools to create a safe and supportive environment for clients, facilitating the effective integration of SP into clinical practice.
Certification: Sensorimotor Psychotherapist Level 1 (SP-L1)
Continuing Education: 80-93 Continuing Education (CE) credits
Length: 80-93 hours
Price: $3,500
Website: https://sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org/curriculum/trauma/
4. Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy Professional Skills Training
Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy is an elegant, comprehensive, and uniquely effective approach to psychotherapy, human development and change.
Level 1 of the hybrid-model training includes live-online meetings and home-study materials over the course of a 10-month journey. Brief online video talks and demonstrations are brought to life in interactive, experiential training weekends.
The goals of the Training are to provide students with: first, a deep understanding of the principles of the Hakomi Method and the ability to work within them in an attitude of loving presence. Second, an understanding of the techniques of the Hakomi therapeutic process and the ability to use these precisely and appropriately. Third, an understanding of the organization of personality and character into patterns that reveal developmental and cultural wounding, and the ability to use this understanding discriminatingly. Fourth, an understanding of one’s own inner organization and the process of using self as an instrument for therapy.
Keep in mind, Professionals Skills Trainings are primarily open to professionals practicing psychotherapy, counseling, and social work, and may accept graduate students in these fields.
Certification: certificate of completion
Continuing Education: 60.25 NBCC CE hours
Length: 10 months
Price: $3,995
Website: https://hakomiinstitute.com/workshopstrainings/trainings
5. Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certification
The Embody Lab’s Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate program is a distinctive and comprehensive 3-month initiative grounded in the latest research and evidence-based approaches to somatic therapy. This program equips participants with the necessary tools to facilitate the healing of trauma in their clients, fostering the development of essential skills and knowledge for effective intervention.
This program is characterized by its highly interactive and experiential nature, covering a diverse array of topics. These include trauma-informed care, somatic approaches to healing, and the integration of mindfulness and body-based practices. Additionally, the curriculum delves into the neuroscience of trauma, exploring its effects on both the body and mind. Recognizing the significance of self-care for practitioners, the program emphasizes skill development and competency within a safe and supportive environment. Participants not only acquire theoretical knowledge but also engage in practical applications, enabling them to integrate learned skills seamlessly into their professional practice.
The best part? This program is designed to be inclusive and accessible to practitioners from all backgrounds, including those without prior experience in trauma therapy.
Certification: certificate of completion
Continuing Education: CEs possible
Length: 60-hours
Price: $1,487
Website: https://www.theembodylab.com/schedule/somatic-trauma-therapy-certificate
6. Somatic Coach Certification
The Somatic Coach Certification – with Strozzi Somatics – teaches you the somatic practices, distinctions, and presence required to offer paradigm-shifting work to clients. Not only will you become a more effective coach, but you will also deep-dive into your own embodied learning journey.
The training uses body-based practices, mindfulness, martial arts, action-oriented communication, and generative conflict training to identify conditioned patterns that limit performance and create new neural pathways and new possibilities.
Through their Embodied Learning approach, learn to empower individuals to more effectively fulfill their commitments, to work more skillfully with others, and to embody new, generative ways of being.
In-person trainings currently takes place in California, Washington, D.C., and Italy.
Certification: Strozzi Institute Somatic Coach Certification
Continuing Education: 119.5 Continuing Coach Education (CCE) hours
Length: 8 months
Price: $14,950
Website: https://strozziinstitute.com/certificate/
7. Certified Feldenkrais Method® Teacher/Practitioner Training Program
Whether for the therapist, teacher, performing artist, athlete – or simply as a human being – the Feldenkrais Method offers a simple and yet a sophisticated and profound means for discovering physical and emotional resilience, strength, and self-possession. In the Feldenkrais Teacher Training Program, you’ll learn two core formats: Awareness through Movement® and Functional Integration®.
Awareness Through Movement is done by participants as means for attaining personal benefit – be it to deal with injury or pain, to improve physical skill, or to come to a deeper understanding of themselves in relationship to their past and present life. Functional Integration is the one-to-one form of the work, and it is the art and craft of combining specific and precise instructive touch with verbal cues to effectively organize another person’s learning.
There are 5 major educational tracks in the training and they consist of: kinaesthetic-sensory, “seeing”, perceiving through touch, interactive communication through touch and the spoken word, and cognitive education.
Great for students who are interested in the performing arts and medicine as well as massage, fitness and body work.
Certification: Certification as Teacher/Practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method
Continuing Education: CEs possible
Length: 15 days
Price: $1,725
Website: https://feldnet.com/
8. Somatic Therapy for Trauma Treatment
In this unique online course, offered by PESI, master therapists will guide you to apply SE® interventions to create a vibrant experience of resilience and wholeness, integrate Sensorimotor Psychotherapy skills to masterfully resolve traumatic memory, work with your client’s nervous system to rebound from trauma and overwhelm, leverage Hakomi’s gentle interventions to overcome emotional defenses from trauma, recognize the stress signs and symptoms of racialized trauma, identify emotional and somatic numbing as a trauma survival skill that can be overcome with compassion and care, and expertly identify and reduce traumatic triggers.
Through exclusive dialogues, real-world therapy demonstrations, and experiential training sessions, you’ll learn key interventions that work with today’s complex cases including early developmental trauma, collective trauma, racialized trauma, trauma numbing and shutdown, and more!
Certification: certificate of completion
Continuing Education: 13.5 CE Hours
Length: 6 hours
Price: $719
Website: https://catalog.pesi.com/sales/bh_c_001726_somatictherapyfortrauma_ppc-645415
9. Somatopia: The Relational Skills Trauma Certificate Program
The Relational Skills Trauma Certificate training program from Somatopia incorporates interventions backed by leading-edge discoveries in the field of trauma, including embodied relational psychotherapy, trauma-informed group therapy, family constellation work, epigenetics, attachment theory, polyvagal theory, and interpersonal neurobiology.
You’ll understand how the brain processes trauma, including revolutionary new discoveries in polyvagal theory, and the science of safety, love, and connection. You’ll learn how to use interpersonal contact, co-regulation and the “relational felt sense” to help stabilize, metabolize, and integrate experiences of trauma. And you’ll enhance your learning by practicing step-by-step individual and group skills, including tools you can use with your clients, yourself, and those you love.
The program is composed of four separate, but interlocking courses: Foundations of Relational Trauma Therapy, Embodied Relational Skills, Trauma-Informed Group Work, and Healing Relational Trauma.
Instead of working strictly from an individualistic approach, a relational integrative trauma treatment model uses the power of connection — within oneself and with others — to help guide us out and through.
Certification: Relational Skills Trauma Certificate
Continuing Education: CEs possible
Length: 3 months
Price: $987
Website: https://www.somatopia.com/relational-skills-trauma-certificate-program
10. Integrative Somatic Practitioner Certification Course
The Integrative Somatic Practitioner Certification Course trains and equips coaches to help people more effectively deal with stress, anxiety, depression and trauma through effective tools and techniques that empower individuals to increase their capacity for stressors, process and release stuck stress and trauma and even better understand and re-write the neural pathways (behavior patterns) that have developed as a result of current and past stuck emotions.
This certification can be practiced as a stand-alone business or can be easily integrated into any mental health, life coaching or body work practice. that will transform your business! Plus, there are no prerequisites for this course.
Certification: certificate of completion
Continuing Education: none
Length: 60-hours
Price: $1,200
Website: https://iwacoaching.com/somatic-practitioner-certification/
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