What is Somatic Psychology?
Somatic Psychology combines traditional approaches to counseling, including dream work, talk, interpretation, and reflection, with experiential explorations. The underlying insight in somatic psychotherapies is that human beings enact self-feeling, identity, and connection with others through bodily means.
Somatic psychotherapists are trained to help clients explore the bodily means by which they conduct their daily lives. Through the use of breath work, movement exercises, touch, and explorations of feeling, sensation, posture, gesture, and expression, clients learn to understand how they shape particular identities and interact with others.
Somatic psychotherapy has been found to be particularly effective when working with attachment challenges and disruptions, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, identity issues, and emotional regulation. They are effective in both group and individual settings, and are especially useful as aids for self-reflection and the development of new ranges of emotional and behavioral expression.
Why Somatic Psychology at CIIS?
The Somatic Psychology program at CIIS is one of three accredited graduate programs in the United States that prepares students to use both conventional and body-oriented approaches to psychotherapy.
Will this program lead to licensure?
Yes, our three-year program meets and exceeds national norms for training in counseling and fulfills the educational requirements of California's Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) license and the national Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC). CIIS graduates boast a 92% pass rate on the MFT licensure exam and have held the #1 position in California for pass rates over the last six exam cycles.
I want to be licensed in a state other than CA after I graduate, will my education at CIIS cover the requirements for other states?
While CIIS is based in CA, and we must meet CA standards, often our state standards exceed those of other states and no further training is required for you to move to the state of your choice. That said, in some cases certain states will require an additional class or two or a shift in how you approach your post graduation internship hours. Luckily, you will have the full support of an advisor in the Field Placement Office who will help you understand the specific licensure requirements.
Questions? Contact us.
We are here to help! If you have any questions about applying to a program or registering for an Info Session, please reach out to the Admissions Office.
