The Body Psychotherapy concentration delves deeply into the history of the use of the body in counseling and psychotherapy as well as the current explorations in the field of mental health that are recognizing the critical importance of the body/mind connection in healing, learning, and growth. As one of the first universities to establish a graduate somatic counseling program, we offer a rich and rigorous curriculum in which you will holistically explore—and experience—how the body can be used to help people transform.

As a Clinical Mental Health Counseling master’s degree student with a concentration in Body Psychotherapy, you will combine the study of clinical mental health theory and practice with work in body psychotherapy. The program places great value and importance on exploring both the current understanding of multicultural competence and the historical impact on the bodies that are present in counseling. Cultural identities, power, and privilege are critical lenses for us to explore the ethical work with differences that are embodied in ourselves and the clients we work with as Somatic Counselors.

Through your studies in Somatic Body Psychotherapy, you will learn to use mindfulness training, breathwork, interceptive awareness, and other somatic techniques to help others ease suffering, support mental health, and sustain change for improved living. Naropa’s Body Psychotherapy concentration takes a very broad view of the ways that the body/mind connection in psychotherapy have been used and are being applied. This program finds some of its strength in not being dogmatically attached to any particular somatic lineage, while giving a unique solid grounding in the practice of being somatically informed as a counselor.

From this rigorous background, alumni from Naropa’s Somatic Body Psychotherapy concentration program go on to forge meaningful lives as individual and family therapists, group counselors, business trainers, mental health leaders and innovators, teachers, and writers, among other career paths.

It is possible for a student graduating from the Somatic Counseling Department to use coursework to fulfill the requirements for the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association’s (ISMETA) certification as a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT) and/or Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME). 

 

 

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  Naropa Community Counseling Center

  Provide somatic counseling to community members in your third year of graduate study as an intern at the Naropa Community Counseling Center. The center offers contemplative and mindful healing services to Boulder-area residents on a sliding fee scale.

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  Somatic Arts Scholarship Concert and Art Auction

  Participate in the student-directed Somatic Arts Scholarship Concert and Art Auction, which not only gives you the opportunity to showcase the therapeutic and creative potential of embodied performance, but also raises money for the Somatic Counseling Scholarship Fund.