Beginning on April 18th, 2024
Embodied Parts-Work Academy
Somatic Inner Relationship Focusing for Practitioners
A journey to the core essence of therapeutic work: the art of discovering Inner Wisdom with Compassionate Presence.
Bring greater embodiment to your life
What happens when we let go of what ‘we know’ in favour of what’s present?
In the heart of each of our lives, presence echoes.
Inner Relationship Focusing isn't about amassing more knowledge for how to heal.
It's an embodied tool kit that allows us to set aside our certainties, and create space for the fresh insights that are already present in the mind & body.
Sometimes, the most profound healing moments arise not from our expertise,
but from our ability to listen deeply, embody compassion, and uncover inner wisdom.
If you’re struggling to integrate…
the parts of you that are reactive to yourself & your clients….
Know that this is only natural. All of us — even helping and healing professionals — get triggered into partial self states all the time, and very often, it’s against our professional training to feel okay about it or to own it.
Interpersonal interaction is very alive, it’s not sanitized. We’re not always coming from 100% calm, curious, centered places, and it wouldn’t be a very productive session if we were. The push and pull is how everyone grows, and makes the process all the more natural, all the more human.
Have you ever heard the expression, “weebles wobble but they don’t fall down?”
We don’t want to get so far off-center that we lose our ability to balance our needs with the needs of the session.
This is where Somatically informed Inner Relationship Focusing (SIIRF) illuminates the path. It continually nudges us with a gentle question: how are you showing up for all the parts of yourself?
A toolkit for compassionate care
Every one of us, including our clients, carries a universe within — realms of thoughts, feelings, and somatic experiences.
We can embrace both the cognitive narratives and the quiet wisdom echoing from the body's depths.
This course is a tender invitation to explore such integration. Marrying the insights of Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) with the embodied wisdom of Somatic Experiencing creates a nurturing space — a space where every thought, every sensation, is seen, heard, and validated.
SE, in combination with IRF (SIIRF) also makes safer and more trauma informed, and a better tool for regulation (both for yourself and for clients).
Inner Relationship Focusing:
Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) is a gentle technique of accessing and developing relationships with our inner states.
First learned in our own bodies, this technique can be integrated into psychotherapy practices to develop greater awareness and compassion for our own and our clients states. This method was initially developed by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin as a result of her work with Eugene Gendlin.
Somatic Experiencing®:
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. It is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settingsfor healing trauma and other stress disorders.
It has been clinically applied for more than four decades, and is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.
‘I can be with all of you - and also all of me.’
How settling is that to hear?
Your clinical practice will benefit from a...
Holistic Integrated
Approach to Healing:
Together, SE and IRF offer a 360° approach to healing. While SE taps into the body's wisdom, revealing stored traumas and emotional responses, IRF provides the means to dialogue with these revelations, fostering deeper self-understanding for yourself and your clients.
Diversified
Intervention Strategies:
With SE's focus on somatic responses and IRF's relational depth, you'll have a richer palette of interventions. Whether you're navigating a client's trauma or helping them build self-awareness, you'll have tailored strategies at hand.
Enhanced
Presence over time:
IRF equips you to be truly present with your clients, creating a space where they feel seen, heard, and deeply understood. This amplified presence can lead to breakthroughs in sessions, transforming resistance into insight.
Toolkit for more
Authentic Client Relationships:
IRF emphasizes authentic connection, allowing clients to build a trusting relationship with their inner selves. In turn, this deepens the therapeutic relationship, creating a safe space for exploration and growth.
Tools for
Resilience:
As therapists and coaches, our own well-being is paramount. The combined methodologies not only enhance our professional toolkit but also offer personal strategies for self-care, ensuring we remain resilient and centered.
Community of
Empowered Practitioners:
Learning alongside others in the field can be one of the most profound experiences possible in the therapeutic realm - this course is a reminder of just how much we need each other.
To truly serve others, I must first offer myself:
The gift of compassionate care.
I wrestled for years with the challenge of understanding the boundaries around my own emotional fluctuations and triggers in clinical practice. It wasn't until I embraced Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) that I discovered a transformative path forward.
Compassion for self and others is a lesson hard-learned. It goes against the grain, contradicting the cultural mantra that echoes, "You have a problem? What are you doing about it?" This approach often leaves us feeling stuck or immobilized by the relentless pursuit of change.
The more we push against our struggles, the tighter they grip us.
IRF offers a graceful acknowledgment of the knots within, and an intimate exploration that doesn't seek to force change but gently invites it. In embracing this kind of unraveling, we find the freedom to move, to evolve, and to get unstuck from the narratives that tell us we don't deserve more unless we do more.
Even as therapists, we can so easily lose touch with the natural rhythm of our own bodily knowing.
Our limited capacity to know and trust our parts, can make life into a constant battle to inspire and motivate ourselves toward change.
When there’s a persistent problem, the first
(counterintuitive) step is to stop trying to change it, and pause.
Pause and truly be with it.
The How of that is what IRF so beautifully supports
— your embodiment of compassionate care.
The program offers immense healing on an individual level:
When paired, SE and IRF form a holistic approach to:
Peaceful Coexistence: By understanding and releasing the body's reactions to inner states, and building compassionate relationship with the internal voice (IRF), we cultivate a peaceful inner environment.
Joyful Self-Acceptance: With the critical voice in check and our body's reactions balanced, we open the door to self-acceptance and joy. We start to appreciate ourselves, flaws and all, leading to a more authentic relationship to our joy.
Authentic Living: By addressing the inner bodily state and feeling, we can free ourselves from limiting beliefs, and live more authentically. Make decisions based on our true desires rather than fear of criticism.
Overcoming Procrastination: The inner critic is often the voice behind procrastination, whispering its fear of inadequacy or failure. By addressing root causes both physically (SE) and emotionally (IRF), we dismantle its power, and pave the way for action and progress.
Achieving and setting Goals: With understood parts, our path to achieving goals becomes clearer. We're no longer held back by self-doubt, and with reduced anxiety, we pursue our dreams (and daily lives!) with renewed vigor.
‘‘
Her knowledge is exquisite with the material.”
— Shideh Lennon, Ph.D., SEP, Faculty Member, SEI
Curriculum —
This program is split into two parts.
You can choose to complete them both or just begin with Part 1.
The first part is 9 sessions, and is focused on internalizing this model for yourself.
The second part is an additional 9 sessions and is an intermediate level of training that walks you into the role of companioning another, and opens the door to certification in the IRF model.
Part 1 | Thursdays from 2-4pm EST
Internalizing the model
Beginner Level
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You will develop:
The ability to bring attention into the body (body sensing) and to describe bodily felt experiences without judging or labeling them.
The ability to use the phrases “I am sensing” and “something in me” with emotional states and feel the difference between “I am” and “I am sensing something in me”.
Being able to set aside what is already “known,” and sense freshly.
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You will….
Be able to start with a life issue and get a “felt sense” of it, bringing together experiences that include emotion, sensation, image, memory.
Once in contact with “something,” being able to sense how *it* feels from *its* point of view, especially *its* emotion.
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You will…
Be able to stay at the unclear edge without breaking away or coming up with what it means.
Develop the ability to understand that an attitude of interested, curious, compassionate. Listening fosters secure attachment with self
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You will…
Knowing how to cultivate Self-in-Presence by:
Being aware of body grounding
Using Presence language
Saying “I am here” to your “somethings”
The ability to understand the relationship between self in presence and social engagement, a condition for the development of a secure base and potential bonding
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You will develop…
The ability to understand how slowing down fosters the possibility of availability to self for an interested, curious relationship with all self states, including those we are uncomfortable with.
The ability to notice when you are identified with a feeling or a part and to dis-identify (using Presence language, time, space and support).
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Learning to support the process of others as a Companion, listening for and saying back the Focuser’s presently felt experience (rather than what is not felt, and rather than past feelings)
As Companion, changing the order of what the Focuser said, so that the presently felt experience – including descriptions of emotions and body sensations
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Knowing the difference between a “reflection” and a “reminder”;
And that reminder is an invitation to take a next step.Being able to add a “cushion” to a reminder to make invitations gentler, and easier in IRF to adapt or ignore.
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The Bottle Model allows one to know where one is in the session so that when something doesn’t go well, one can go back up the Bottle to a previous stage instead of trying to go further.
Trouble or feeling stuck in any stage usually means that the previous stage wasn’t given enough time.
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The Not-Wanting/Wanting Process is a way to offer empathy for the deeper needs and feelings of parts that avoids getting caught in the parts’ repetitive strategies.Knowing how to phrase the sequence of Not Wanting invitations (“going down the stairs”) so that each one goes deeper.
2. The Not-Wanting/Wanting Process can lead to the transformation of the Protector from “critic” to “ally” and even to its dissolution.
Knowing how to phrase the sequence of Wanting invitations, starting with “You might sense what it is wanting for you from _____________.”
Part 2 | Thursdays from 2-4pm EST
Move into companioning
Intermediate Level
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Being able to define Close Process as having easily felt emotions and a tendency to get overwhelmed and to support with greater access to self.
Being able to define Distant Process as feeling very little or having feelings that easily disappear, and to support with greater time and space.
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Being able to recognize when someone doing IRF has a Feeling About a Feeling
Being able to offer a reflection that includes both a Feeling and a Feeling About a Feeling, and being able to give appropriate reminders for a Focuser who is aware of two “somethings”
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You will…
Learning to describe and discern between Presence and partial Self states.
Learning how to create relationship with different types of parts
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An inner criticizing part, which we call a “Protector,” can show up verbally (seeming to be a thought), or through images, or through body constriction.
Being able to acknowledge a Protector part with: “I/you are sensing something in me/you says…”Being able to invite a Protector part to reveal what it is worried about.
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You will learn…
How to notice and disidentify from worried and concerned and frightened states.
How to create relationship with worried states and protective parts.
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How to notice and disidentify from bodily felt and non-verbal partial self states.
How to create relationship with non-verbal parts
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How to notice and disidentify from them
Being able to add a “cushion” to a reminder to make invitations gentler, and easier in IRF to adapt or ignore.
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The Not-Wanting/Wanting Process can lead to the transformation of partial self states and even to their dissolution.
Knowing how to phrase the sequence of Not-Wanting invitations, starting with “You might sense what it is not wanting for you from _____________.”
Identifying ways to offer empathy for the deeper needs and feelings of parts that avoids getting caught in the parts’ repetitive strategies.
Recognizing and empathizing what each of these states is not wanting for the person to go through
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The Wanting Process can lead to the transformation of partial self states and even to their dissolution.
Identifying ways to offer empathy for the deeper needs and feelings of parts that avoids getting caught in the parts’ repetitive strategies.
Knowing how to phrase the sequence of Wanting invitations, starting with “You might sense what it is wanting for you from _____________.”
Recognizing and empathizing what each of these states is wanting for the person to be able to experience
Integrate it into your current practices and see what shifts.
In time, you can use IRF as a powerful addition when integrated with your other healing modalities, such as psychotherapy, coaching, art therapy, or addictions work.
As a practitioner, I’m sure you know that no two clients are the same, and so you’re never going to bring embodiment to a session in the exact same way.
It takes time beyond the walls of this course, to be able to truly bring embodiment to yourself, let alone others. There are resources available to you to help apply what you learn in this program for years to come.
It’s really up to you how you engage, shift, and mold this model to fit your world and work. There is so much freedom available to you after you’ve spent the time understanding this model.
Pricing
The goal of this program is to give you the time and breadth of knowledge to fully integrate IRF in your own body and mind, as well as community and support for challenges you may face with clients.
You have the option to purchase the IRF part 1 only. Meaning you can go through 9 weeks of foundational training. Or you can choose to purchase part 1 and part 2. Completion of both parts enables you to meet the requirements to pursue certification in IRF and allows for a more advanced level of comprehension.
Cancellation Policy: 91+days, 90% refund, 61+ days, 75%, 31+50%, less than 30 days, no refund.
Please note: If you previously have completed some parts of work and are wondering how to engage with the new 2 part format, please hit reply and let me know. I will help you out
Part 1
9 Sessions
Internalizing the model
Part 1 is offered in weekly sessions from April 18th - June 27th
Receive the IRF toolkit and practice embodying this skill for yourself
You’ll receive the live sessions & weekly recordings & community platform
$1100
Payment Plan Available
Part 1+2
18 Sessions
Internalize the model & practice companioning
Completion of both parts 1 & 2 opens the door to IRF certification
Part 1 is offered from April 18th - June 27th - then there is a break before beginning Part 2 from Sept 19 to Nov 21
You’ll receive the live sessions & weekly recordings & community platform
$2200
$2000
Payment Plan Available
Part 2
9 Sessions
Practice companioning
Part 2 is offered in weekly sessions from Sept 19th - Nov 21st
**You must Part 1 in order to register separately for part 2
You’ll receive the live sessions & weekly recordings & community platform
$1100
Payment Plan Available
‘‘
It brought a lot more vitality to my own work.”
— Lisa Smith, LCSW, Clinical Social Worker
Profound change is possible when we…
Practice bearing witness to, and being with.
Reflect back the internal process without influencing it or jumping ahead of it.
Listen and notice before making a part of us “wrong” or “bad”.
Return to the sensation present in the body and relate to it.
Immerse ourselves in understanding.
Take steps away from a life mired in inner conflict
This is about developing relationship — so that the fear you feel, the uncertainty you’re immobilized by, and all the reasons not to — can be heard, understood, related to, and transformed.
Transformed into what?
Self assurance. Trust. Compassionate awareness.
And ultimately, access to (and action on) your goals and dreams.