Hakomi, Trauma & Expanded States Cultivating Innate Somatic Intelligence:

An Advanced Clinical Workshop for Mental Health Professionals

How do we help clients move beyond symptom management toward deeper embodied integration, while strengthening our own therapeutic presence in work with trauma, attachment wounds, and expanded states of consciousness?

This advanced three-day workshop invites experienced mental health professionals into an immersive exploration of ISITTA® (Innate Somatic Intelligence Trauma Therapy Approach), an integrative, body-oriented model combining the Hakomi Method, Continuum, embodied mindfulness, trauma science, and work with expanded states of consciousness.

Participants will learn practical somatic interventions for developmental trauma, attachment adaptations, dissociation, and expanded states, building confidence in embodied integration while maintaining ethical practice.

A central foundation of this training is the Therapist’s Seat: the clinician’s own regulated, embodied presence as the primary instrument through which healing unfolds. Before any intervention can be effective, the therapist’s nervous system must be organized enough to stay present within the intensity of trauma work. From there, participants build interventions that support regulation, deepen interoceptive awareness, and work with protective adaptations, within a framework favouring moment-to-moment tracking over protocol-driven technique.

The workshop also develops the ability to recognise and trust the client’s innate somatic intelligence — self-organising processes that move toward regulation when conditions allow — and to recognise one’s own protective adaptations as they arise in session. We explore how trauma organises perception, identity, and relationship around protective adaptation, situated within family, cultural, and institutional influences, through teaching, live demonstrations, supervised practice, and extended Continuum movement sessions.

Clinical skills you will develop

* Occupying the Therapist’s Seat: building and sustaining regulated, embodied presence under clinical intensity

* The Backbody Practice: a core postural and attentional stance for tracking client process without losing your own ground

* Reading the body’s implicit organisation by tracking micromovement, breath, gesture, and neurogenic patterns as they unfold in session

* Applying mindful somatic inquiry to access implicit memory, developmental experience, and embodied meaning

* Utilising grounding, orienting, titration, pendulation, breath, movement, and contact to support nervous system regulation and trauma integration

* Working with the Somatic Centers of Awareness (head, heart, and gut) to broaden clinical perception and deepen therapeutic attunement

* Becoming a Regulated Witness: staying present with dysregulation, dissociation, and expanded states without collapsing into your own protective adaptations

* Working somatically with expanded and psychedelic states by assessing readiness, supporting regulation, tracking embodied process, and facilitating integration while maintaining clear ethical and scope-of-practice boundaries

* Reading protective adaptations through a systemic lens, locating individual trauma responses within family, cultural, and institutional contexts rather than treating them in isolation

* Recognising Embodied Vicarious Growth, allowing challenging clinical work to become a source of professional resilience and ongoing development

Why this focus matters

As psychedelic-assisted therapy moves further into clinical practice, therapists’ capacity for embodied regulation matters more, given the genuine risk complex presentations carry during expanded states. ISITTA® emphasizes careful assessment and regulation rather than treating expanded states as inherently therapeutic, addressing the risk that psychedelics may reactivate dissociated material. The workshop pairs skill-building with clear discussion of ethics and scope of competence.

What makes this workshop unique

This is not simply a workshop about somatic techniques — it cultivates the therapist as the primary instrument of healing. ISITTA® is learned experientially, moving between practice, observation, and reflection, so new capacities become integrated into the nervous system rather than only understood conceptually.

Whether in private practice, trauma treatment, community mental health, or psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, this workshop offers an opportunity to deepen therapeutic presence and trust the body’s innate intelligence as a guide for healing.

Acknowledgement of Country

“We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Naarm, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay deep respect to Elders past, present, and emerging.”

Dates & Times:
Friday 27 November 2026: 10:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday 28 November 2026: 10:00am – 6:00pm
Sunday 29 November 2026: 10:00am – 4:30pm

Investment:
Early Bird:$1,230 (paid by 30 September 2026)
Standard: $1,440 (paid by 30 October 2026)
Full Professional: $1,550 (paid by 30 October 2026)
Indigenous Scholarships: Two full fee-waiver scholarships are available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants which cover the full cost of registration.

Venue:
Balam Balam Place -Room 401
15 Phoenix St (formerly 33 Saxon St)
Brunswick, VIC 3056

For more detailed information on this workshop, please see the brochure below

REGISTRATION:

To register, please click here.