Curriculum

Integral Somatic Psychology™ Professional Training

The ISP Professional Training is a premium somatic training program consisting of three four-day modules. It is shorter and more intense somatic training, offering great value.

Each morning starts with a lecture involving theory, followed by guided experiential exercises of gross, subtle, and collective body methods for expanding and regulating the body to access and embody emotions.

Note: What is known as the individual physical body in the West is called the individual gross body in the East. The individual energy body in the West is the individual subtle body in the East. Throughout the curriculum, we will use the Eastern terminology of gross, subtle, and collective bodies. However, when the reference is simply to the body, it should be understood as to the individual gross body.

Each day after lunch, there will be a live demonstration of the practice of embodying emotions, the core clinical strategy in ISP, with a class participant focused on the methods learned in the morning.

You will then be able to practice the new material during clinical practice sessions with other participants under the supervision of an experienced assistant.

ISP incorporates all of our bodies: Our individual gross body, our individual subtle body, our changing collective body of the universe, and our unchanging collective body of pure awareness, which is the basis of all of our bodies.

Therefore, ISP offers a more complete and effective somatic approach than other somatic modalities, which are limited to just one of our four bodies, namely, our individual gross body.

Module 1

In this first module of the training, we will learn the science of embodied cognition, emotion, and behavior, different types of emotions and defenses against them, the four steps of the practice of emotional embodiment, and a 7-step protocol for embodying emotions for people with low affect tolerance and high levels of dysregulation, to improve diverse outcomes and treatment times in all therapies.

Specifically, we will learn how we can facilitate greater embodiment of emotional experiences through the physiology of the muscles of the arms, legs, face, throat, and neck in the individual gross body.

In addition, we will begin to learn about the four bodies we have, two individual and two collective bodies, and how we can use them all in our work to improve diverse outcomes and reduce treatment times in all therapies.

Specifically, in module one, we will begin to learn how to work with two layers of the individual subtle body, the ether element from the throat center and the air element from the heart center.

Course Content:

1. 1. 1. The science of embodied cognition, emotion, and behavior
      2. The four steps of the practice of embodying emotions
      3. The 7-Step Protocol for working with emotions when affect tolerance is low and/or physiological dysregulation is high
      4. Different types of emotional experiences
      5. Different types of defenses against emotional experiences in the individual gross body
      6. The role of the muscular system in generating and defending against emotional experience in the individual gross body
      7. Clinical strategies for working with the arm and leg muscles in the individual gross body for accessing and embodying emotions
      8. Clinical strategies for working with the face, throat, and neck muscles in the individual gross body for accessing and embodying emotions
      9. The introduction to the model of the psyche in ISP with four bodies, two at the individual level and two at the collective level
      10. The role of two layers of the individual subtle body in emotional experience, the ether element from the throat center and the air element from the heart center
      11. How defenses against emotions can form in the layers of ether and air in the individual subtle body
      12. Clinical strategies for working with the ether and air elements in the individual subtle body to improve the practice of embodying emotions.