The 1-year Foundation Training in Deep Bodywork provides an introduction to modern Reichian bodywork combining intensive personal experience with theoretical and practical training. This course is therefore suitable for both practitioners and non-practitioners alike.

For practitioners interested in bodywork and wishing to develop professional expertise in this area, for therapists in body or related disciplines and for practitioners in the helping professions this course can be a powerful supplementary training in process-oriented bodywork to enhance their current practice. It is an intensive process of transformation for all participants in their personal life and in their role as practitioners.

Equally, this foundation training can be taken as an intensive 1-year course just for personal growth and development.

Aims of the course

The primary goal of the foundation training is to train effective skills in contacting the bodymind and in encouraging awareness and aliveness in the body in a safe and respectful manner. These skills are useful for personal work and for professional work with others.

The secondary goal is to help students go deeper in their own process of change, development and transformation. There will be opportunity in the group context for work with individual issues.

Philosophy of the course

The training philosophy of this course is based on an integrative and holistic approach to personal development and therapy. It acknowledges each person's freedom and right to develop their potential as a human being - to become more fully individuated and self-actualized. Moreover, individual development and growth are seen as creative processes involving bodily, emotional, intellectual, psycho-sexual, interpersonal and spiritual levels of being. Deep Bodywork assists this maturation process.

Training Methods

The methods in the training combine experiential, theoretical and practical work into an integrated web which supports the student's learning process. Experiential sessions, theoretical presentations and discussions are interwoven with practical demonstrations, work in the group and in small groups.

Independent work between training sessions will be done individually and in small groups, and will include reading and written assignments as well as practical assignments. A training workbook and an experiential diary will be kept by participants.

Throughout the training, opportunities will be given for participants to work with individual issues. It is also expected that participants will continue their self-development outside the training including a period of individual therapy with an experienced practitioner.

In this manner theory is grounded in experience and practice, and experience can be integrated into developing intellectual clarity and emotional maturity.

Facilitation of the courses

The Deep Bodywork 1-year Foundation Training will be facilitated by Silke Ziehl.

Curriculum of the Deep Bodywork 1-year Foundation Training

Getting to Know Body Energetic Processes:
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1) The Energetic Cycle - working with the body’s rhythms and energetic processes to increase aliveness and integration
• breath and pulsation
• recognizing charge, charging, discharging and    harmonizing charge
• phases in the energetic cycle
• blocks in the cycle
• patterns of breathing, including hyperventilation
• techniques of working with breath.

2) Emotional and Energetic Processes – exploring the web of energy, movement and emotion
• getting to know oneself in relation to others
• focusing in the body; energy and emotion; working with emotions
• dialogue with the body
• accepting and expressing roles
• psychodramatic methods.

3) The development of character - re-experiencing the stages in child development and understanding character structure influences in current patterns of behaviour
• Introduction to character analysis: experiential and    theoretical
• developmental structures and character structure:    exploration of the fragmented, oral, psychopathic,    masochistic and rigid structures
• energetic processes in the body and character    structures
• the role of character analysis in working with self and    others.

4) Segments of the Energetic Body – tracing the formation and nature of a hardening, a loss of flexibility (armour) in the body tissues and structures
• pulsation, counterpulsation, segmentation
• learning to work with segments (from eyes to pelvis)
• trauma and its consequences in the structures.

5) The body as the basis of projection – clarifying projection, transference and countertransference in bodywork
• contact and projection
• communication and transference processes
• transference meets countertransference.

Dates, Location and Costs

The training comprises 24 days in 6 four-day blocks, Friday to Monday: The dates for the 6 units in the 2007 Deep Bodywork Foundation course (’08 dates provisional) are:

Oct 3-6 '08
Nov 28-Dec 1 '08
Jan 30-Feb 2 '09
March 27-30 '09
May 22-25 '09
July 17-20 '09

All workshops will take place at The Open Centre in London.

Tuition fees for the Deep Bodywork Foundation Training are £1250. A deposit of £250 is required to secure a place, the rest is payable in instalments: cheques to be made payable to `Silke Ziehl‘.

Application Procedure for the Deep Bodywork Foundation course

Please apply with a brief personal statement which includes information on the following questions plus anything else you want to share:

a) Your name, address, telephone/fax number, e-mail address, and your date of birth.
b) Your current and past occupations.
c) The story of your body, your emotions, your mind, your spirit.
d) Your reasons for wishing to do the course.
e) Your experience in self-development work, therapy, bodywork, both individual and group; please give details of when, for how long and with whom you worked.
f) Brief medical history, including any psychiatric experiences.
g) What you can bring to the training course.
h) What you hope to gain from doing the course.

Please send in your application, together with a passport-sized picture, to:-

Silke Ziehl, Entelia Institute at The Open Centre, 3rd floor, 188 Old Street, London EC1V 9FR, Tel: 07764 200113, Fax: 020 7681 1992, e-mail: