Training Guidelines for the Training of EI-Practitioners

Guidelines for the Training of PI-Practitioners 

A. Conditions for Enrollment in Training: 

The program in Energetic Integration is for individuals interested in becoming professional holistic bodyworkers or body psychotherapists. The training is intensive and demands sufficient maturity and preparation for working with discipline, care and respect for others. Applicants are expected to have fulfilled the following:

1) Self-Experience
Deep Psychocorporal Work: The applicant should have completed a minimum of 10 sessions of connective tissue work, approved by the trainer. Energetic Integration, Reichian and Neo-Reichian sessions, Rebalancing, Heller Work, Rolfing, are examples of acceptable work. Applicants should have received at least 2 sessions in Energetic Integration. The applicant also needs to be prepared to continue to work with his/her process independently during the training.

Emotional Work: The applicant should have completed at least 10 sessions of emotional work, approved by the trainer. Gestalt, Reichian and Neo-Reichian work, Rebirthing, Primal and Bioenergetic sessions are examples of acceptable work.

In some cases, where the sessions have been wholistic work with both emotion and body the requirements for deep work and emotional work may be satisfied by the same sessions.

Practice in Physical Contact: Applicants need to have experience in hands-on bodywork, e.g. massage.

2) Statement of Background and Goals: 
The applicant is to complete and mail the application form to the trainer, giving background, experience, previous training, and reason for taking the training.

3) Agreement: All applicants should read, sign and mail the “Agreement for PI Students” received with the training catalog. This agreement clarifies the professional nature of the training, the preparation needed for the training, and the participant’s responsibility during the training.

B. The Training Program:
Energetic Integration involves working simultaneously with:
1) energetic work, including breath and movement work
2) deep tissue work
3) emotional work
4) integration of the self and into society

The EI training program consists of three phases, usually distributed over three years. The total minimum number of hours for the three phases is 700 hours. The first two phases are to be a minimum of 500 hours, usually over two years. At the end of each phase of the training the student is to submit to the trainer a report which reviews the work done, before admission to the next training phase.

Phase I: During this phase the student learns the basic tools for releasing bodymind. There is supervised classroom work with fellow students.

50 additional hours of chosen work, approved by the trainer, are required outside of class. These are courses to be chosen by the trainer and student in consultation. Possibilities are for example workshops in breathwork, bioenergetics, movement awareness, etc. A limited number of these hours may be fulfilled by work taken prior to a student beginning a training.

Core Curriculum for Phase I (in-class work): Theory, Anatomy and Physiology, Movement Awareness, Breath Work, Emotional Release and Integration, Fine Energy Techniques, Bodyreading, Contact and Communication between Practitioner and Client.

Phase II (in-class work): During the period of in-class training, before the beginning of Phase III, students will work with each other, review didactic material, keep a personal journal of their experiences, and work with training-clients under supervision.

This work is powerfull and takes time to master. The future practitioner is still in the process of being trained and is not to work with members of the public, that is with clients or with training-clients, without supervision. Also the students are not to give demonstrations or workshops of this work.

Phase III – Internship:After completion of the classroom work for Phase II, the student will work with training-clients under supervision for a minimum of twelve months.

During the internship a student should do a minimum of two hundred hours . These hours include:

1. the time the student practitioner works with a minimum of 3 training-clients for a complete Energetic Integration process
2. the supportive supervision of this work
3. the preparation for working with clients with Energetic Integration after Certification.

Supportive supervision can happen in many ways, and it is up to each trainer to find suitable and effective supervision programs. Some suggestions are: the student presenting a session in front of the training group, the student being directly supervised for some critical sessions, a professional in alternative work receiving or watching a session and giving feedback, an assistant trainer or a master practitioner supervising, small groups of EI interns or graduates meeting together to share problems and successes, show photographs, etc.

C. Certification: 

After completion of phase III the student may make an application for certification as a Energetic Integration practitioner.

1. A complete dossier of the supervised work, including photos, completed in and out of class is required by the trainer before final certification.
2. The applicant completes the ‘Application for Certification Form’ and gets it signed by the trainer
3. The applicant writes a 10-page report on the experience of working with training-clients in Phase III and includes that with with the application
4. The certificate is sent by ICPIT and The Centre for Release and Integration (ICRI) to the trainer for signature and awarded by the trainer to the graduate.

Sharing, support and supervision are important even after graduation.

 

Alternative Curriculum for Special Students

ICPIT recognizes the prerogative of Trainers to offer an alternative curriculum for students who are qualified in other areas. Some individuals who have had previous training in all or some of the major elements of Pl work (e.g. Energetic Integration training) may be given credit for work already done, and they may be offered a set of requirements for certification under the following guidelines.

1. Credit for previous training or work is clearly specified for certain areas. For example 200 hours of Gestalt, 200 hours of Reichian breathwork, 100 hours of body character study
2. A minimum of 500 hours of actual training in applied wholistic EI must be taken by the student as part of the designated curriculum.
3. Although the EI training is not necessarily a group process, the student is expected to have adequate experience in group processes. The training sessions may take the form of individual learning hours with a Trainer and his staff. (This is I not the same as receiving what is called EI Learning Sessions or Learning Therapy). When such individual study is taken by the student in combination with participation in a training group which has separate learning requirements, then the next point is applicable.
4. The position of the special student in a EI group is clarified for students of the group.
5. In case a trainer’s partner or friend seeks certification, the following guidelines may help:
   1. All the above guidelines apply
   2. The Trainer and partner or friend make an agreement about the opportunities and limits of what can be taught directly by the Trainer and what guidelines are needed when the two interact with each other. Also they may agree to use a third party for mediation.
   3. If the partner or friend is in the training group, the two may share their agreement with the group, as well as clarify what special requirements the partner or friend may be following as a special student-such as being supervised by practitioners or trainers outside the group.

Master Practitioner Training

After certification in Energetic Integration and one year minimum of practice and 100 sessions with clients as a EI practitioner, it is possible to continue professional development by going onto the Master Practitioner training.

The first block is work with the “diaphragms of body balance”: the fontenelles along the cranium, the floor and ceiling of the mouth, the thoracic inlet and first rib, the breathing diaphragm, the external pelvis. When these “diaphragms” are released, they begin to shift spontaneously and rhythmically and freely interact with one another, creating warmth and well being. The topics will include advanced sessions for working with the core.

The second block deals with the inner structures of the pelvis and the lower pelvic floor. The student learns to open layers of tissue and feeling, helping the client clear away old frustrations and to connect with others at the deep, intimate level of passion, love and joy.

For Energetic Integration practitioners seeking Certification as Master Energetic Integrator, only the first block is required in addition to a research paper.