Healing with Embodied Practice (including retreat)

Helping clients heal isn’t just about what they say—it’s about what their bodies hold.

Facilitated by Robert Rees and Tamsin Olivier, this 3.5-day certificate course empowers therapists with trauma-informed, body-based methods to support deeper healing. Through live online sessions and a restorative 2-night coastal retreat, you'll immerse yourself in nourishing food, yoga, sound baths, sea swimming, breathwork, and movement practices—all designed to help you embody the work firsthand. Gain practical tools to help clients regulate their nervous systems, process emotions, and reconnect with themselves in a deeper, lasting way.

Course overview:

Healing with Embodied Practice: A Course for Therapists

Deep healing happens when clients reconnect with their bodies. Trauma, stress, and emotional struggles are not just psychological—they are stored in the body, shaping how we think, feel, and relate to others. When therapists integrate embodied practice into their work, they help clients access a deeper level of healing that goes beyond words.

Grounded in the work of leading trauma theorists such as Peter Levine, Babette Rothschild, Judith Herman, and Bessel van der Kolk, this course integrates key principles of somatic awareness, nervous system regulation, and relational safety — helping therapists move beyond trauma theory into embodied, clinical practice.

This course provides therapists with a structured, trauma-informed approach to embodiment, offering practical techniques to support clients in regulating their nervous systems, processing emotions, and developing a greater sense of self-awareness through body-based practices.

What You’ll Learn

  • How breath, movement, and sound can support emotional regulation and healing
  • A toolkit of embodiment techniques for greater self-awareness and resilience
  • The role of trauma in shaping body-mind connections and how to work safely with it
  • How to help clients develop a deeper connection to their own bodies as part of recovery
  • Consideration of social identity and how embodiment can empower clients

This course is designed to be accessible, structured, and fully supported, allowing participants to develop confidence in integrating embodied techniques into their work.

Course Structure

Online Training (Zoom)

The course begins with one live online session, offering a foundation in embodied practice within a familiar and flexible format.

  • Friday 10th October 2025

It is possible to attend just the Zoom 1-Day training, please enquire.

In-Person Retreat

Following the online training, participants gather for a coastal retreat in East Sussex from Friday 21 to Sunday 23 November 2025.

The retreat offers a chance to fully immerse in embodied practice in a supportive, restorative setting. Away from everyday responsibilities, participants can deepen their learning through experiential exercises while staying in a peaceful retreat centre with accommodation and all meals provided. The environment is designed to support full engagement in the learning process, allowing participants to absorb the practices at their own pace.

Supervision & Integration

To consolidate the retreat experience, the group meets again online for a supervision and integration session on Wednesday 26 November 2025 (6:00–7:30 PM). This session provides space for reflection, discussion, and practical guidance on bringing embodiment techniques into therapeutic work.

Why This Course?

Many therapists are curious about embodied practice but feel uncertain about how to introduce it into their work. This course provides a clear, structured approach, starting with foundational knowledge online and progressing to direct experiential learning in a supportive retreat setting.

By the end of the training, participants will have a practical toolkit of embodied techniques, greater confidence in working with the body, and a deeper understanding of how healing happens when clients reconnect with themselves physically and emotionally.

Note: Accommodation on retreat is on a shared basis, single occupancy is available on a first come first served basis (however a supplement of £100 + VAT is chargeable).

About this course

  • Course Duration:3.5 days
    (1.5 on Zoom, 2.5 in person on retreat)
  • Next intake:Autumn 2025
    (10th October, 21st-23rd November + 26th Nov 6pm-7:30pm)
  • CPD Value:25 Hours
  • Level:Certificate (Level 5 equivalence)
  • Fee:£995 + VAT
Apply
Do you have a question? Get in touch with a member of the team who will be happy to help
  • Give you greater confidence to take a more fully embodied approach to client work.
  • Enjoy an enriching retreat, to include embodied experiential skills practice weekend away on the beautiful south coast of England.
  • Learn the neuroscience, psycho-educative elements of using movement, breath and sound as a healing practice. Incorporating trauma informed teaching and polyvagal theory.
  • How to use breath, sound and movement to help a client regulate their emotional states
  • Taking an embodied approach to defences: such as resistance and ‘stuckness’
  • Using the body story in therapy practice.
  • Toolkit for applying breath, sound and movement in relation to specific mental health diagnosis.
  • Working with movement, breath and sound to integrate and transform as part of post-traumatic growth.
  • Offer a valuable mix of Zoom teaching and in-person experiential work with retreat-based skills practice.

A transformative journey into body-informed therapy.

This CPD-certified training is designed for practitioners who want to bring deeper embodiment into their trauma-informed work. Spanning three and a half days, the course offers a blend of theoretical foundations, experiential retreat-based learning, and a post-event group supervision session to support integration.

Day 1 (Online): Foundations & Frameworks

This first day establishes the essential theoretical grounding for embodied trauma work. You’ll be introduced to the models, science, and core principles that shape this approach.

You’ll learn:

The ethos and intentions of working with the body in trauma recovery
Psychoeducation on trauma, the memory system, and dissociation from an embodied lens
How trauma is stored in the body and shows up in client presentations
Models for understanding bodily held states and disembodiment
Why clients “exit the body” and how to gently bring them back
Trauma-informed reasoning for embodied practice—both intellectual and practical
Psychoeducational tools and client-ready explanations
Resistance to embodiment: how to recognise and respond
How the body naturally responds to embodied techniques
Introductory skills practice in pairs and small groups

Days 2 & 3 (On Retreat): Skills Practice

Held in a retreat-style environment, these two days are dedicated to embodied practice, skill development, and nervous system attunement. You’ll be guided through experiential methods and supported peer work that brings theory to life.

Day 2: Grounding & Resourcing

  • Assessing distress tolerance and nervous system states
  • Bringing clients into bodily awareness safely, without overwhelm
  • A wide range of grounding and resourcing techniques from both Western and Eastern traditions
  • Helping clients integrate bodily held sensations and fragmented memories
  • Skills practice in pairs and small groups

Day 3: Integration & Transformation

  • Techniques to facilitate both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ integration
  • Working with bodily memory and dissociation
  • Using movement, sensation, and breath to access held trauma
  • Mental-emotional linking with bodily experience
  • Promoting healing through deep, body-led integration
  • Continued group and pair skills practice

(Evening + Morning): Embodied Closing & Ritual

We close the retreat with embodied integration and ritual, including:

  • Optional night-time yoga or restorative practice
  • Cold water swims or morning stretches (weather permitting)
  • Bonfire ritual
  • Shared meals and reflective time
  • Final embodied group practice and gentle closing

Post-Training Group Supervision Session (Online)

After the retreat, participants are invited to join a live group supervision session to reflect, ask questions, and integrate what has emerged in practice.

Learning is absorbed by attendance and participation on the course. There is no assessment other than attendance and participation. Although a reading list is provided, there is no formal requirement for further reading – although additional reading is suggested to enhance your professional development subsequent to the course.

The award of the CPD certificate will be issued upon completion of the course, provided a minimum of 3 days attendance has been met and the course fee has been paid in full.

A digital certificate is provided as a matter of routine. Paper certificates despatched by Royal Mail are available upon request. Replacement certificates are available on request.

Here are the dates for the 2025 intake:

Day 1 on Zoom: Friday 10th October 2025

Residential weekend retreat in person at the coastal venue Florence House in Seaford, Sussex:
Friday 21st, Saturday 22nd, Sunday 23rd November 2025

(New for 2025) Extra Supervision session: Wednesday 26th November at 6pm-7:30pm. 

£995 + VAT = £1,194 payable in full or by instalments. A non-refundable deposit of £300 is payable at the time of booking to secure a place on this course. Further payments can be paid by instalments as long as the total balance is paid by the time the course begins. Details will be shown on the invoice.

The course fee includes all training materials and the CPD certificate. Travel costs to or from the venue are not included.

The course fee can also be invoiced fully or partially to an employer or funding organisation. Some reduced-fee places may be awarded depending on student circumstances, subject to availability. Please contact us for details.

Design and benefits of embodiment training

The tutors Robert Rees and Tamsin Olivier describe the design and enriched approach of embodied practice in therapy and supervision.

Richness from embodied practice

Lee - 2024 Embodiment Course

Lee talks to Robert about his experience on the 2024 Embodiment Course.

Lee talks through his experience of being at Florence House in 2024 and working with Tamsin and Robert

Hannah - 2023 Embodiment Course

Hannah talks to Robert about her experiences on the 2023 Embodiment Course.

Richness from embodied practice

View further information about the retreat venue

Florence House, Seaford, East Sussex

Click here for venue details
Florence House

View a selection of images from last years retreat

A selection of images taken of the house, grounds, bedrooms and beautiful surrounding land. Look out for the seal who occasionally accompanied us on our morning swim.

Embodiment Retreat 2023 images

Meet the trainers

Tamsin Olivier

Psychotherapist and Supervisor, MUKCP

Robert Rees

Director of The Grove, Psychotherapist, Coach

Dip (Psych, Trauma, Supvn) MUKCP MBACP

Application criteria

Applicants are expected to be qualified and experienced professionals in a mental health or helping profession, who are established in their practice. This will be covered in the application form. All applicants are expected to:

  • be qualified and experienced in their field
  • be full members of their professional body with a code of ethics and complaint procedure for public protection (such as but not limited to BACP, UKCP, COSRT, BPS, AHPP, NCP, NCS, ACC)
  • hold professional liability insurance
  • have supervision arrangements in place for their client work as well as access to support for any clinical or organisation practice they undertake during the course

Professional standards

The Grove Practice is accredited by NCIP (National Council for Integrative Psychotherapists) as a CPD training centre. As such, all The Grove’s courses are awarded NCIP accreditation for CPD (Continuous Professional Development). This accreditation provides reassurance regarding high standards of teaching and course content. The NCIP is one of the longest-established membership organisations for this profession, formed in 1971 following the “Foster Report” on the statutory registration of psychotherapists, with a national and international network of therapists.

The Grove’s courses have been successfully recognised as CPD for members of the following membership bodies: BACP, UKCP, COSRT, NCIP, NCPS, AHPP, BPS, among others. Organisations such as universities, colleges, the NHS, Relate, MIND, and Place2B have also supported their therapists in taking training with The Grove. This is a mark of unofficial validation of our courses as worthy of being listed on the CPD logs for these organisations and therapists.

This course is taught at Level 5 equivalence, for mature professionals who are established in their mode of practice. The title “Level 5” is drawn from the numbered educational levels according to Ofqual’s Regulated Qualification Framework operating in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. (Scotland has its own educational levels in place.) This is a post-qualification training which requires theoretical evaluation, self-reflection, and interpretation of how to apply the models in mental health settings such as clinical practice or multi-disciplinary teams in organisations. The Grove is setting its own courses at a training level in line with industry-wide language for setting the academic level of the course.

Our guidance to anyone researching CPD courses is to ask any training provider stating a Level, to provide the Ofqual qualification number (which looks like this 601/8674/4). If the training provider cannot give this information for their course, then the course is unlikely to be allocated an official Level by Ofqual. In our view, any other course provider should state that their course is taught “at a level equivalent to Level x but is not a qualification regulated by Ofqual”. This approach is implemented by The Grove.

About this course

  • Course Duration:3.5 days
    (1.5 on Zoom, 2.5 in person on retreat)
  • Next intake:Autumn 2025
    (10th October, 21st-23rd November + 26th Nov 6pm-7:30pm)
  • CPD Value:25 Hours
  • Level:Certificate (Level 5 equivalence)
  • Fee:£995 + VAT
Apply
Do you have a question? Get in touch with a member of the team who will be happy to help

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to hear from us about our courses, community, and events