Psychotherapy & Somaticism

Unconscious Patterning and Therapeutic Approaches on Body-wisdom and Alignment

25th & 26th July, 2026
9:00am to 6:30pm
Mumbai (Live-Online)

This two-day workshop approaches trauma through a somatic lens, where the body is understood as the primary site of storage and expression of experience and personal history. Rather than focusing only on narrative memory, it responds to emotions and sensations encoded physiologically; which in-turn shapes posture, tension patterns, breath, and internal chemistry. Memory is not static; it is reconstructed over time and influenced by who we become, which means that what is held in the body often remains more consistent than the stories we tell about it. When these stored experiences remain unprocessed, they surface indirectly through patterns such as misalignment, chronic tension, disrupted movement, or stress responses, demonstrating how internal states translate into physical structure and behaviour.

“Memory changes with time, but the body still holds the imprint.”

The workshop explores how roles, relationships, and contexts shape psychological experience, and how these influence biochemistry, perception, and interaction. Drawing from Gestalt psychotherapy and somatic approaches of breath and movement, participants will develop the ability to build rapport with unconscious processes, recognise the signals of the body, and work with physiology, behavioural strategies, congruence, and belief systems in an integrated way. As part of the Integrated Program of Trauma Studies, yet open to all without prerequisites, this program is designed as an experiential practice space where individuals engage directly with their own patterns, understand how suppressed or unprocessed material operates beneath awareness, and learn methods to facilitate release and reorganisation. Through structured exercises and applied frameworks, the course supports the formation of new neural pathways and the installation of new behaviours, while holding space for secondary gain and underlying positive intentions, enabling participants to shift from habitual, conditioned responses toward more adaptive, regulated, and health-oriented ways of functioning. It is suited for practitioners across health and wellness disciplines as well as coaches, counsellors and individuals seeking to deepen their personal understanding and effectiveness in the roles they inhabit.

How health practitioners benefit from this course:

If you are a coach, counsellor, or practitioner, this workshop will refine how you listen, observe, and intervene. You will learn to support your clients with what is operating beneath their conscious narrative by identifying unconscious patterns, behavioural strategies, and inner representations that shape their experience. The work focuses on recognising incongruence between what is expressed and what is embodied, and on bringing forward material that is suppressed or operating indirectly. You will develop the capacity to work with secondary gain without disrupting the client’s ecology, while staying aligned with classical counselling principles. This enables you to support clients with greater precision, tracking both verbal and non-verbal communication, and facilitating shifts that are not only cognitive but physiological and behavioural.

If you are attending for your own self, the workshop offers a direct encounter with how your body holds and communicates experience. Physical symptoms, recurring discomfort, or patterns of tension can be understood as expressions of unprocessed material rather than isolated issues.

You will begin to recognise these signals as meaningful communications from the unconscious, reflecting areas where the system is overburdened or misaligned. The process involves building a working rapport with these internal parts, learning to engage with them rather than override them. As you develop this awareness, you will be able to work with resistance and internal conflict more effectively, accessing creative resources within the system. The orientation is not to fix the body, but to relate to it differently, with enough clarity and curiosity to allow new possibilities of experience, behaviour, and health to emerge.

Six-Step Reframing: Core Process in This Workshop

A defining feature of this batch is the explicit learning and application of Six-Step Reframing, a classic intervention emerging from the clinical influence of Milton H. Erickson and later formalised within NLP by Judith DeLozier.

Works directly at the level of the unconscious, beyond narrative explanation.
Treats symptoms and behaviours as signals with positive intent, not problems to eliminate.
Enables precise elicitation of secondary gain while maintaining full system ecology.
Facilitates communication between conscious and unconscious processes.
Generates alternative behavioural choices without internal conflict.
Highly structured, yet adaptable within classical counselling frameworks

This process becomes the bridge between insight and transformation, allowing change to occur where patterns are actually organised.

Pre-work

Upon enrolment, you receive access to a focused pre-work module designed to prime your learning. It introduces key concepts from psychoneuroimmunology and how it affects the poly vagal nervous system, supporting you to understand how mind, body, and immunity interact, so you enter the workshop prepared to engage deeply, integrate faster, and extract far greater value from the experience.

Program Structure

Day 1 {Somatic Awareness, Alignment, and Relational Intelligence}

Embodiment and the Intelligence of the Body
developing sensitivity to physiological signals as carriers of psychological meaning
Entrapped Judgements and Neurological Organisation
understanding how fixed evaluations shape internal alignment and behavioural rigidity
Attunement and Systemic Alignment
refining the capacity to perceive and regulate self–other dynamics
Unconscious Communication and Rapport Formation
building precise connection beyond verbal content
Neuroception, Safety and Regulation
applying principles from Polyvagal Theory to understand connection, defence, and healing

Day 2 {Integration, Repatterning, and Behavioural Transformation}

Psychoneuroimmunology in Practice
examining the interplay between cognition, emotion, and immune response
Inner Narratives and Linguistic Patterning
analysing how language structures subjective experience and identity
Non-Content Reframing
working at the level of process rather than story to enable ecological change
Somatic Syntax and Movement-Based Inquiry
decoding posture, gesture, and movement as expressions of neural pathways and autonomic states
Health Modelling and Behaviour Generation
designing adaptive patterns through integrated physiological and cognitive shifts
Intention, Resistance, and System Ecology
understanding the structure and purpose of resistance to facilitate sustainable transformation

Certification

Learner Outcomes - What You Will Be Able to Do

By the end of the programme, the learners will be able to:

Differentiate narrative from somatic data, identifying how experience is organised across physiology, perception, and behaviour
Establish functional rapport with unconscious processes, enabling access to patterns that operate beyond conscious awareness
Calibrate and elicit bodily signals with precision, understanding symptoms as structured communications within the system
Track incongruence and secondary gain, and intervene in ways that preserve ecological balance while facilitating change
Work at the level of process rather than content, applying reframing and somatic techniques to reorganise responses without over-reliance on story
Utilise language and interaction deliberately, shaping inner representation, regulation, and relational dynamics in real time
Design and install adaptive behavioural patterns, integrating physiological, cognitive, and contextual variables
Engage clients with stability and clarity, maintaining presence while working with resistance, complexity, and ambiguity

This set of competencies positions participants to work with both self and others at a level where change becomes structured, repeatable, and sustainable.

Skills Lab

Building Rapport and Attunement
Creating trust, connection, and sensitivity to both verbal and non-verbal communication
Calibrating and Working with the Body
Recognising physiological signals, tension patterns, and symptoms as meaningful communication
Accessing and Working with Unconscious Patterns
Identifying habitual responses, incongruence, and underlying intentions
Facilitating Change and Integration
Applying simple, structured techniques to support new behaviours and more adaptive ways of functioning

Clinical Applications in Psychotherapy and Somatic Practice:
This work is particularly relevant in contexts where patterns persist despite insight, including chronic stress and psychosomatic conditions, repetitive behavioural rigidity, client processes where cognitive understanding does not translate into change, and situations involving resistance, relapse, or inconsistent follow-through.

Methodology and Pedagogy
This programme integrates principles from Gestalt therapy, somatic psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and process-oriented interventions to work at the level where patterns are organised. Learning is experiential and practice-led, combining live demonstrations, guided partner work, and facilitated group processes. Participants receive real-time feedback to refine observation, intervention, and presence, ensuring concepts are translated into usable skills rather than retained as theory.

Application and Impact

Approaches working at the level of perception, belief, and physiological response have been applied across clinical and therapeutic settings where change is required beyond insight alone. Research in psychoneuroimmunology demonstrates that psychological processes directly influence neural activity and immune function, affecting health outcomes and recovery patterns. Interventions involving reframing, guided imagery, and unconscious-level communication have shown the capacity to reorganise behavioural and physiological responses, supporting more adaptive functioning across stress, health, and relational domains.

Upcoming Batch in July 2026

Date: 25th - 26th July, 2026
Time: 9:00am - 6:30pm

Location: Mumbai & Online (Zoom)
Intake: 40 participants
Eligibility: Graduate in any discipline from a recognized University.
Entry requirements: No previous training or experience in Counselling or Counselling Skill required.

Fee: INR 22000 (all incl). Early bird registration fee for first 20 participants INR 18000/- (all incl).

Apply Now

Faculty & Chair

Aarti Asrani

Aarti Asrani is a therapist, coach, and facilitator whose work bridges Buddhist philosophy, Gestalt inquiry, and the science of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Her teaching and practice arise from an integration of spiritual insight and psychological depth, grounded in 28 years of Buddhist practice and shaped by 24 international certifications in mind–body healing and energy modalities.

Her formative influence comes from Dr. Daisaku Ikeda and the writings of Nichiren Daishonin, which continue to inform her understanding that awareness itself is both the path and the destination. This foundation is complemented by the transformative philosophies of Louise Hay, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Eckhart Tolle…..each illuminating a unique dimension of consciousness, presence, and healing. The living teachings of Abraham and Esther Hicks further deepen her inquiry into vibration, thought, and the art of deliberate creation.

For Aarti, healing is a pause…..a still moment where cognition softens and the body’s innate intelligence restores balance. Her orientation weaves awareness, energy, and body language as natural gateways through which transformation unfolds

Anil Thomas

Anil Thomas is a trainer in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a Gestalt practitioner, and a mentor with the International Journal of Neurolinguistic and Gestalt Psychology (IJNGP). His teaching and writing arise from a lineage that bridges scientific inquiry with contemplative understanding.

His foundational training was under Dr Richard (Dick) McHugh SJ, whose integration of awareness, language, and silence continues to inform Anil’s orientation to both psychotherapy and mindfulness. After McHugh’s passing, he deepened his study with a few of Dick's mentors like Judith (Judy) DeLozier, Robert Dilts, John Grinder, etc., refining his grasp of modelling, relational process, and the ethical dimension of transformation.

His orientation is also shaped by Fritz Perls’ Gestalt philosophy and its dialogue with Zen, by the contemplative work of McHugh and Father Tony de Mello, and by Jung’s study of archetype and psyche within the Mahāyāna understanding of the conditioned mind. These influences converge in Anil’s continuing work on grief, loss, and renewal, where mindfulness, empathy, and presence serve as ways of knowing, an inheritance from teachers who believed that to engage the psyche is to serve awareness itself.

Cancellation/ Refund Policy

Psychotherapy & Somaticism

Fees paid is non-refundable & it cannot be transferable to another batch.
You can transfer the enrolment to another participant provided the pre-work has not been shared.
15 days prior to the main session there will be no cancellations or transfer.