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Two-year Modular Advanced Body Psychotherapy Training
Next Training June 2025
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The Embodied-Relational Therapy training has been running successfully for 25 years.
In 2025, the 16th intake of the training will bring together the core of the ERT tradition; embodying the 4-stage approach, Reichian character structure and ERT metaskills, and incorporating our passion for connection, movement and stillness, spontaneity, working with the embodied experience of social injustice, psychotherapy theory, wild therapy, and the impossibly complex & impossibly simple task of being human alongside other humans.
At the core of Embodied-Relational Therapy is the study of our embodied relating to self, other and environment. How are, our embodiments shaped by this meeting with the other?
In embodied encounters with clients, we seek to keep awake to our rank, power and privilege as therapist - being curious about the intersections between our own experiences of marginalisation and privilege, and how they meet with our clients' experiences of marginalisation and privilege.
Stepping into the embodied knowledge that therapy, as all areas of our lives, is political. In this training, we are integrating embodiment, relationship and social justice.
In year one of the training:
We use our embodied experiences to learn and inhabit the four-stage model of ERT: Contact, Information gathering, Amplification and Integration. We have a dive into embodied character theory. We will be exploring our own embodied marginalisation, power, and privilege – and how to work with our clients' lived experiences of marginalisation and privilege. You will work with breath, movement, internal sensation and emotion, pulsation, proximity, and the possibility of different forms of touch.
In Year Two:
We will explore in more depth specific areas of oppression, for example:- race, neuro-diversity, disability and gender diversity. We support you to deepen your skills and confidence in working physically with clients, deepening your trust in your embodied-relational work.
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We attract participants looking for a robust training in working with embodiment and relationship, and we are passionate about supporting you to become more deeply the therapist you already are. ERT encourages spontaneity, creativity, and deep trust of your own inherent competence, and of your clients and their unfolding process.
We will nurture a collective learning community of trainees, enabling a depth of trust and learning. We particularly welcome applicants from marginalised communities. Explorations will be collaborative - building trust so that complex issues and vulnerable experiences can be explored.
To watch a video of Allison and Stephen speaking about Embodied-Relational Therapy and the 2022 training – click here
For more detailed information about the ERT training and the selection process please check our website.
PRACTICALITIES
Dates:
12-16 June 2025
11-15 September 2025
13-17 November 2025
15-19 January 2026
12-16 March 2026
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28 May - 1 June 2026
ERT Trainers: The training facilitators will include Allison Priestman and Stephen Tame – the current ERT training team. At this stage it is too early to say if the team will be expanded for the 2025 training.
Venue: Eden Rise Retreat Venue – beautifully converted barns in rural Devon, close to mainline rail connection. Have a look at their website here: Eden Rise Retreat Venue
Cost: Please contact us for more details on the cost as we’re still pricing the training.
We’re aiming to offer a generous sliding scale to make the course accessible.
The full cost (inclusive of accommodation, food and all training) of Year 1 in 2022 was £3450.
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To watch a video of Allison and Stephen speaking in depth about Embodied-Relational Therapy and this year’s training – click here
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FOR REFERENCE: ERT 2 Year Modular Training 2022
If you want an experiential and theoretical model to support and develop your work as a relational body psychotherapist, then ERT could be for you.
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We will support you to be courageous, heartfelt and passionate therapists.
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We will encourage you to learn how to consult and trust your own body in the work; to inhabit your body in relation to your clients, to be willing to move towards, away, to be available, to be pushed, touched, to hold and be held.
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We will explore, through our bodies, the marginal, the excluded, and the wild parts of ourselves and our clients, waiting to be seen, heard and expressed.
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You will need a degree of robustness and self-awareness to embark on this journey, although the rewards will be great, for yourself, your clients and for the wider world.
Starting in June 2022 we invite you to come and join others in a diverse community of human and other-than-human, that will examine itself, the world of therapy, and the wider world. Many people join us who are looking for a home, a place to belong for their work. -
The residential nature of the course means that we will be living, working, cooking and socialising together, This supports a greater depth of relating in a rich community.
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Graduates of the training are eligible to join the Embodied-Relational Therapy Association – a ‘tribe’ for people working in innovative, integrative and courageous ways.
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For more information, Including the application documents please look on the Embodied-Relational Therapy website
