Interfulgent

Two-Year Diploma in Neurosomatic Psychotherapy

From Cell to Soul

A training that combined neuroscience, physiology and psychotherapy, for people working with clients. Neurosomatic psychotherapy gives particular attention to what the body and the brain contribute to the emotional, psychological and spiritual side of therapy. The training ran as a single cohort over two years, co-directed with Bernd Leygraf.

Front cover of the course handbook: a yellow flower growing from cracked ground
Dates
January 2021 to November 2022
Format
Weekends in London and a residential retreat each year, with online tutorials between the weekends
Contact hours
420
Co-director
Bernd Leygraf

Year One: Human Development

The first year followed Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, from infancy to late adulthood, stage by stage.

  • Infancy and early childhood: trust and autonomy, with ethics, contracting and building trust.
  • Preschool and school age: initiative and industry.
  • Adolescence: identity, with an introduction to Gestalt.
  • Young adulthood: intimacy.
  • Middle adulthood: generativity.
  • Maturity: integrity, with an introduction to spiritual counselling.
  • The later years: the stages run in reverse, and gerotranscendence.
  • A retreat on identity statuses and on the therapist’s own self-care.

Threaded Through the First Year

  • Attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology.
  • Interoception and alexithymia, with neuropsychology questionnaires.
  • Ethics, and reflective practice.
  • Skills practice in pairs and in threes.
  • Presentations drawn from DSM-5.

Year Two: Difficulties Met in Practice

The second year was organised by the presentations a therapist meets in practice, with an introduction to a therapeutic approach beside several of them.

  • Neurodevelopmental and conduct disorders, with epigenetics and an introduction to hypnotherapy and CBT.
  • Anxiety and depressive disorders.
  • Trauma and dissociative disorders, with an introduction to trauma therapy.
  • Borderline personality disorder.
  • Somatic symptom disorders, with an introduction to body psychotherapy.
  • Narcissism, eating disorders, self-harm, OCD and social anxiety.
  • A retreat on bipolar and psychotic disorders, constellation work, group process, ritual and ceremony.
  • Behavioural and chemical addictions.
  • Sexual disorders, with an introduction to relationship and psychosexual therapy.
  • Sleep disorders, endings and graduation.
  • Student presentations on themes each student chose, throughout the year.

Cohorts That Ran

  • 2021–22
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