SOMATIC CONSENT

YEAR TRAINING SYLLABUS

Welcome to the year-long certification training for Somatic Consent Practitioners and Facilitators. 

What the training entails:

The training will be be offered through three modules of six days each, in a residential setting. Between these live modules there will be online resources, readings, discussions, Zoom calls, peer coaching and practice sessions. 

The online course Foundations of Somatic Consent is included with registration for the Year Training.

Five themes run through each module:

• Personal development:
  • Emotional fluency integrates a variety of approaches, including peer counselling, Clinton Callhan’s Possibility Management, Brad Blanton’s Radical Honesty, Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and Circling Europe. We practise getting intimate and comfortable with our own feelings, so that we can guide and hold others’ feelings as they arise.
  • Erotic fluency introduces a variety of group erotic experiences, such as erotic massage ritual, self-pleasuring ritual, 3 circles ritual and others. This is to get us intimate and comfortable with our erotic selves and fluent in group dynamics.
  • Personal development also includes mindfulness, leadership and conflict management.
• Theory of Somatic Consent: Understanding all parts of the Somatic Consent Engagement System and the theory behind it, including some neuroscience.
• Embodying Somatic Consent: Taking us ever deeper into experiencing each zone of the Somatic Consent Engagement System.
• Somatic Consent for Practitioners: How to teach the Somatic Consent Engagement System to clients in one-to-one sessions, including assessments, boundaries, legal issues, and a couple of models of coaching, including somatic coaching. You will also be coaching each other for the duration of the training.
• Somatic Consent for Facilitators: How to hold a group container and teach the Somatic Consent Engagement System to a group of participants. You start by practising with your training group!

 What makes this training different to others is: 

1) This is the deepest journey into Somatic Consent that we offer. Committing to a closed group over a year period offers unparalleled opportunity for personal and professional growth and embodiment.

2) A strong emphasis on personal development. This is first and foremost about you, deepening and developing your emotional and erotic fluency.

3) Rather than focusing on bodywork alone, this training will empower you to take your clients through every Zone of the Somatic Consent Engagement System. While it is useful for bodyworkers, it is especially suitable for relationship therapists, sex educators, sacred intimates, surrogate partners, somatic coaches, erotic educators and the like. It is literally for all facilitators and practitioners interested in empowering their clients and participants.

The reason why there is such an important focus on personal development in this training is because you can only guide people as far as you have gone yourself; you need to activate your own sensual inflow to be able to guide your clients to find theirs.

Course Outline

Assisting:

• Since Matt is teaching this alone (because he hasn’t got y’all trained yet!), he will still need assistants and support staff. Each of you will have days on which you will assist him. You will learn about holding the group container and supporting each other (and Matt).

Sharing your skills:

• Each of you come with gifts to share. In the training you will be encouraged to share those skills and there will be dedicated times set aside for you to do so. It may be informal or more structured, depending on what you offer and the needs of the group.

MODULE 1:

Emotional Intelligence and Fluency:

• Knowing how to feel what you feel
• Listening turns and basic co-counselling model (The Art of Listening)
• Radical Honesty model and practice
• Keeping interpersonal dynamics clear, through the ‘Come Clean’ group process

Erotic and Sexual Fluency:

• Get confident and comfortable with a wide range of sexual expression
• Become comfortable being witnessed in eroticism
• Rituals may include body witnessing, self-pleasure ritual and erotic massage

Self-care and Receiving:

• The importance of putting yourself first
• Get comfortable with receiving (whether ‘their action’ or  ‘your action’)

Theory of Somatic Consent:

• Differentiating between ‘want’ and ‘willing to’
• Defining ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ 
• Distinguishing between ‘who is in action’ and ‘who it is for’
• Two questions at the core of the Engagement System: “May I?” and “Will you?”
• Direct vs Indirect Pleasure
• Principle: Choosing is more important than the action  (Empowerment Massage)
• Defining Consent
• Distinguishing between offer, request, invitation
• The Base – limits and boundaries
• The four zones of the Engagement System
• The four lines of the Engagement System
• The shadows of the Engagement System
• The Apex of the Engagement System
• Science and the nervous system

Embodying Somatic Consent:

• Opening the Direct Route and somatic inflow
• Finding the click with Permission
• Finding the click with Agreements
• Distinguishing between Permission and Agreements
• Deepening the experiences of the zones
• Notice, trust, value, communicate
• Boundary setting

Somatic Consent for Practitioners:

• Distinguishing between a treatment vs a coaching session
• Where to start with a client
• Coaching skills
  • Creating the container
  • Client intake
  • Helping clients choose their experience
  • Embodiment skills for clients
  • Allowing the client to feel what they feel
• Teaching the client ‘waking up the hands’
• Teaching the client to access all four zones
• Practice coaching sessions

Somatic Consent for Facilitators:

• Identifying your target audience
• Getting clear on what you want to teach and how to market to your audience
• Facilitation principles

MODULE 2:

Emotional Intelligence and Fluency:

• Leadership in the field
  • Social activism
  • Oppression theory
  • Role of ‘sexism’ and other ‘isms’
• Callahan model, low level feelings, radical responsibility,  low drama – high drama
• Continuing with group process for clarity in the group dynamics

Erotic and Sexual Fluency:

• 3 Circles Ritual
• BDSM sampler on power, surrender and intimacy (origin of the 3-Minute Game)

Self-care and Receiving:

• Mindfulness and meditation
• Group attention/sharing

Embodying Somatic Consent:

• Deepening the experiences of the zones
• Beyond the zones (the Apex)
• Ritual Play

Somatic Consent for Practitioners:

• Defining your objectives as a practitioner
• Defining client competencies
• Assessment tools
• Understanding why it’s difficult for clients to ask for what they want
• Tree of options
• Deepening the clients experience of the zones
• Erotic charge in sessions – practitioner and client
• Client relationship management

Somatic Consent for Facilitators:

• Facilitating touch events
• Presenting the Somatic Consent Engagement System – where to start
• Creating your workshop design

MODULE 3:

Trauma Awareness and Emotional Intelligence and Fluency:

• Polyvagal Theory
• Window of Tolerance
• Continuing group processes

Erotic and Sexual Fluency:

• Erotic play
• Create your own session

Self-care and Receiving:

• Mindfulness and meditation
• Group attention/sharing

Embodying Somatic Consent:

• Deepening your experiences of the zones
• Understanding bodywork in the context of the Engagement System
• The Apex and giving your gift of power
• Demos / practice of bodywork

Somatic Consent for Practitioners:

• Creating a code of ethics
• Applying the Engagement System in other contexts – personal, professional, relationship
• Specific challenges working as a female/male practitioner
• Legal issues with sex work

Somatic Consent for Facilitators:

• Teaching practice
• Troubleshooting (what to do when things go wrong)

BETWEEN MODULE ASSIGNMENTS: 2-4 hours per week

• • Listening turns: Weekly listening with a peer from the course (1 exchange per week / 20-30 min each)
  • Self-care: Receiving body-based sessions – bodywork, energy work, Somatic Experiencing, TRE, somatic coaching, etc (1 session per month)
  • Group check-in: Monthly group zoom video calls for check-in, support, Q&A (1 call per month – 90 min)
  • Explore the zones: 3-Minute Game or longer (preferably longer) with friends, partners, clients (at least 2 hours per month)
  • Journaling: Write about your experience with each of the zones. What are you noticing and learning? about 2 hours per month)
  • Online discussion forum: Sharing your learnings, ahas, and questions (about 2 hours per month)
  • Client sessions and write up (2 sessions per month). This can be your current, actual clients, or practice clients
  • Readings
  • Peer coaching: This will begin after Module 2 and will be with a different person to your listening partner
  • Design your workshop (before the final module)
  • Teaching practice (2-3 hour evening workshop before final module)

READING ASSIGNMENTS:

The required and recommended reading list can be found here:

https://somaticconsent.com/reading-list/

CERTIFICATION AND FOLLOW-UP:

• Certification is not guaranteed. Certification depends on satisfactory completion of the training and approval by Matt.
• Once certified, you will be listed as a Certified Somatic Consent Practitioner AND a Certified Somatic Consent Workshop Facilitator and ConsentLab Facilitator on the Somatic Consent website, with a link to your own website* (It is possible to be certified in one without the other.)
• Once you are certified as a Facilitator, you are welcome to offer as many ConsentLabs and Foundation of Somatic Consent workshops as you like and promote your offerings in the Somatic Consent Community.
• You keep all the proceeds of the courses and sessions you offer.
• Ongoing supervision calls with Matt*

*Ongoing supervision calls with Matt are required (every six months) if you wish to be listed on the Somatic Consent Website as a certified Practitioner or Facilitator. A supervision call costs €250.