STARTS NOVEMBER 2026
Embodied Relational Diploma in Counselling (Levels 3 & 4)
This diploma offers a deeply relational and embodied pathway into counselling practice, shaped by a wide constellation of therapeutic, developmental, and cultural lineages that honour the complexity of human experience.
Who this diploma is for
This diploma is suited to those drawn to a practice based in the experience of presence, depth, cultural humility, and the subtle intelligence of the body and the relational field. Graduates leave with a strong foundation for trauma-informed and socially aware clinical practice and are well prepared to progress into supervised client work and professional registration pathways.
The Frameworks We Draw From & The Lineages That Shape the Programme
Relational and Somatic Foundations
We are rooted in contemporary relational and somatic approaches, including the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), Somatic Experiencing, body psychotherapy and touch-informed perspectives like biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and the Neuro-Affective Touch (NA Touch). These approaches share an understanding that healing is not imposed from the outside, but instead emerges through attuned relationship, nervous system regulation, and a growing capacity for agency, choice, and contact.
Developmental and Relational Psychology
We draws from developmental psychology, attachment theory, object relations, and relational psychoanalysis, offering a rich framework for understanding how early relational environments shape patterns of protection, identity, and connection. Rather than pathologising these adaptations, the training invites curiosity about how they once made sense — and how they may soften in the presence of safety and relationship.
Ecological, Indigenous, and Justice-Informed Perspectives
We are also informed by earth-based and indigenous shamanic understandings, wild therapy, and nature-connected practices that recognise humans as embodied beings embedded within larger living systems. These perspectives are held with respect and humility, alongside decolonial and social justice theories that invite ongoing reflection on power, culture, difference, and the social contexts in which suffering and healing occur.
On successful completion, graduates will receive a Level 4 Counselling Certificate, aligned with eligibility for membership of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), a key professional benchmark in the UK.
The diploma will:
- Stand alone as a comprehensive foundation in relational therapeutic counselling
- Provide a strong base for those who may wish to progress into the NARM® Therapist Training or other relational therapy frameworks.
Training dates
YEAR ONE
In-person training dates
There are a total of seven (7) three-day weekends in year 1 (Friday-Sunday, 8 hours/day).
2026
- 20-22 Nov
2027
- 15-17 Jan
- 19 -21 Feb
- 23-25 Apr
- 21-23 May
- 18-20 June
- 18-20 July
9 x 2 hr online theory sessions on Fridays 9am-11am on following dates:
2026
- 4 Dec
2027
- 8 Jan
- 29 Jan
- 8 Feb
- 5 Mar
- 9 April
- 7 May
- 4 June
- 2 July
YEAR TWO
In-person training dates
There are a total of 10 three-day weekends in year 2 (Friday-Sunday, 8 hours/day).
2027:
- 10-12 Sept
- 15-17 Oct
- 19-21 Nov
- 10-12 Dec
2028:
- 14-16 Jan
- 18-20 Feb
- 28-30 April
- 19-21 May
- 16-18 June
- 14-16 July
12 x x 2 hr online theory sessions on Fridays 9am-11am on following dates:
2027
- 3 Sept
- 1 Oct
- 29 Oct
- 12 Nov
- 3 Dec
2028
- 7 Jan
- 28 Jan
- 3 March
- 31 March
- 12 May
- 2 June
- 30 June
Entry Requirements/ Application Process
[INFO NEEDED]
Certification Requirements
Total Contact Hours: 450 hours (408 weekend hours + 42 online theory hours)
Programme Structure
Year 1 Theory, Experience, Integration
Creating the relational container and embodied understanding
The Approach:
Year 1 focuses on engaging with theory and integrating it experientially. We create a potent healing relational container among ourselves, for ourselves, while undertaking deep inquiry into the theories that underpin embodied relationality.
Theory is studied in monthly online sessions and the in-person weekends both integrate this theory through lived experience and create a living experience of a supportive relational container.
As such we provide an intellectual/conceptual understanding AND an experiential, felt sense of how we create the important relational elements within and between ourselves and as a group. And in doing so:
- We develop a wider belonging, a community sense and a relational field including eating together and engaging in communal activities.
- We learn how we offer holding to each other
- We explore western and non-western theories of relationality and link what we learnt to our felt experience.
- We deconstruct psychotherapy's pathologizing roots while also drawing on what is alive and supportive
We also offer an on-going grief group process held by specially trained grief facilitators as part of our experiential weekend.
Year 2: Skills, Frameworks, Clinical Practice
Bringing experience and theory into clinical work
The Approach:
- Role practicing and demonstrations of the work
- Introduction to aligned approaches and modalities: NARM, NA Touch, IFS, Somatic Experiencing, Emotionally Focused Therapy (individual and couples), WILD Therapy, Process Work, Cranial Sacral Therapy, Deep Democracy
- Students begin placement (mid-October) with supervised clinical hours
- Ongoing grief process and community meals continue
Skills & Capacities You'll Develop
Throughout this training, you will cultivate:
Presence & Holding
- Being present without doing or efforting
- Trusting the life force and what needs to emerge
- Holding belief that repair is possible and clients are not broken
- Willingness to be changed by the relationship
- Comfort with the pause and the unknown
Relational Skills
- Listening with your whole being
- Open-heartedness
- Tracking connection, disconnection, expansion, contraction
- Attuning and resonating
- Supporting clients to titrate their experience
- Co-creating space that enables vulnerability
Embodied Awareness
- Grounded presence in your midline and adult self
- Capacity to listen through your body
- Understanding how you feel, know, and make sense
- Being comfortable with transitions
- Centering aliveness and pleasure
Clinical Capacity
- Tracking processes in the relational field
- Noticing, reflecting, asking with curiosity
- Saying truth, seeing truth
- Being okay with missteps
- Developing "eagle eye" - seeing the whole picture
- Tending to grief and supporting emotional completion
Ethical Stance
- Decolonizing approach - eye to eye, not superior
- Reinforcing client agency
- Holding many imaginations without reductive thinking
- Living the work authentically, not just practicing it
- Compassion for both clients and self
Theoretical Foundations
We draw on a rich tapestry of theories, all held through a relational lens:
Relational & Developmental
- Attachment Theory – understanding the biological need for secure attachment
- Object Relations Theory – how we internalize early relational experiences
- Developmental Psychology – what's needed at each stage of life
- NARM (NeuroAffective Relational Model) – non-pathologizing approach to developmental trauma
- Ray Castellino's Principles – creating environments that support unfolding from conception
Body & Neurobiology
- Polyvagal Theory – neurobiological basis of connection, safety, and threat
- Neurobiology & Somatics – understanding trauma and healing in the body
- Implicit Relational Movement & Continuum Theory – pre-verbal, embodied development
- Cranial concepts and aliveness
Historical & Critical
- History of Psychotherapy (Freud, Otto Rank, Ferenczi) – deconstructing pathologizing frameworks
- Social Justice, Abolitionist & Decolonial Frameworks (bell hooks, Albert Woodfox, Silvia Federici) – understanding "mental illness" as response to oppression
- Transformative Justice – community-centered healing and repair
- Indigenous Perspectives – soul loss, rewilding, earth-based wisdom
Integration
By exploring and integrating all these diverse relational approaches, we create something new: a relational, non-pathologizing framework that honours Western therapeutic wisdom while centering decolonial, indigenous, and justice-oriented perspectives.
Our Pedagogical Approach & Core Principles
Our pedagogy understands education as a relational, ethical, and a political practice. Learning is not the transmission of expertise from teacher to student, but a co-created process that supports becoming more fully human together. We reject extractive, hierarchical models of education in favour of dialogical, engaged pedagogy rooted in dignity, critical consciousness, and care.
Our core pedagogical principles:
- Learning happens through relationship, not control – Knowledge emerges through dialogue, presence, and mutual influence. Authority is held transparently and accountably, not denied.
- The whole person is the site of learning – We engage mind, body, emotion, and spirit. Lived experience, embodiment, affect, and imagination are legitimate sources of knowledge.
- Pleasure, aliveness, and safety are conditions for depth – Growth does not require chronic suffering. We design learning environments that support regulation, play, and joy alongside discomfort and challenge.
- Consent, choice, and power are central - Consent is ongoing and revisable. Power is named, examined, and worked with rather than hidden. These practices model ethical therapeutic relationships.
- Learning is emergent, nonlinear, and collective – Growth unfolds through small, relational moments. Confusion, rupture, and repair are expected parts of the process. Collective intelligence is prioritised over individual performance.
- Critical consciousness and context are essential – Personal experience is always situated within social, cultural, historical, and systemic contexts. We explicitly engage questions of power, oppression, and location.
- Grief, pain, and uncertainty are honoured – Grief, fear, and despair are signs of connection, not failure. We cultivate the capacity to stay present to suffering without hardening or withdrawal.
- Hope is an active, relational practice – Hope is grounded in values, relationship, and action under conditions of uncertainty.
- We practice the world we are teaching toward – Our pedagogy is fractal: how we teach reflects the therapeutic and ethical world we are helping to create.
Core Principles
Drawing on Ray Castellino's work and relational psychotherapy principles, we create a field that embodies:
- Building and enhancing bonding and attachment
- The welcoming - honoring the unique conscious being, the birthright of welcome, reverence to life
- Mutual support and cooperation – respect, non-competitiveness
- Choice to move at own pace – space to say no; "no" is welcome and honoured
- Self-regulation and pause – self-care, rest, sleep that supports individuation
- Consent at every level
- Non-hierarchical relating – eye to eye, not power over
- Decolonising the lineage – moving away from individualism toward community context
Core Beliefs We Hold
- We are not broken
- Repair from rupture is always possible
- Healing is not linear
- The problem is absence of belonging and relationally healthy spaces, not the diverse human experience
- Connection is fundamental
- Vulnerability is strength, not weakness
- Trust in the life force
- When you have belonging and community, you can hold it all
Booking Information
Duration: 2 years (Nov 2026 to June 2028)
Online: Monthly group calls, 2hrs. (see drop-down for dates)
In-person: 15 x 3-day in-person weekends across 24 months (see drop-down for dates)
Location: The Centre for Science and Art (CSA), Stroud, Gloucestershire
Join our waitlist and we will keep you updated on enrollment details.