Healing with Embodied Practice (including retreat)

• 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.