PROFESSIONAL INTENSIVE

The Professional Intensive is a one-year program designed by psychotherapists to train
licensed professionals in the specific techniques, theory, and practice of Core Energetics.

Curriculum Overview

The Professional Intensive takes place within five 4-day weekends over the course of a year. The curriculum’s intensive program features a rich, integrated mix of training sessions and process work, supervision, energy classes, and spiritual integration sessions.

Module One: In the first weekend, participants are introduced to the Core Energetics model of consciousness: mask (pseudo personality), lower self (destructive forces), and higher self (real self, truth, and love). There is also an introduction to the pyramid model of the human being, character structures and the energetic dysfunction involved with each. Energy centers and the energy field are introduced, including observation and diagnosis of the aura’s pulsations. A demonstration and practice of exercises help participants experience: charge and discharge, expansion, grounding, contraction, flooding, leaking, and stasis. In this module we explore the use of touch in the therapy: when it is appropriate, the ethics of touch, using energy as a diagnostic tool, using the 5 senses plus the 3rd eye. Here we discuss the inclusion of aura and chakra work in the therapeutic process.

Module Two: In the second weekend, participants explore the character styles of Schizoid (Fragmented) Defense and the Oral (Undercharged) Defense. Participants pair up for experiential work and learn techniques and approaches for working with these defenses in the therapy session. The theory and concept of grounding and techniques for grounding is explored, including: working with the feet, legs, eyes, and inner eye; grounding the different character structures; and grounding as the basis for a healthy ego and a healthy life. Grounding is taught as both a physiological concept and a psychological indication of one’s ability to make contact with others and be in reality. Breathing techniques are presented as tools for opening physical and emotional blocks, for spiritual and psychological development, for identifying differences among the character structures and as an indicator of growth in the therapeutic process. Particularly emphasized are staccato breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, and breathwork on the roller.

Module Three: In the third weekend, participants explore the character styles of the Masochistic (overcharged) Defense and the Psychopathic (Upper Displacement) Defense. There is an observation and diagnosis of the physical structures of these character styles and experiential work concerning the developmental factors responsible for them. Participants work with techniques appropriate for the masochistic and psychopathic character structures in the therapy session. Methods for working with resistance and anger in the upper body are taught, including Core Energetics techniques for the head, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, back and diaphragm. The manifestation of anger in different character structures and specific approaches to work with it are demonstrated and experienced by students in dyads.

Module Four: In the fourth weekend, participants explore the Rigid (armored) Defense, understanding oedipal issues and the resulting split between the heart and the pelvis. There is an observation and diagnosis of the physical structure of the rigid defense along with experiential work and approaches for working with this defense in the therapy session. Sexuality is studied in connection to the life force, blockages to that force, and the developmental process as it affects the sexuality of each of the 5 character structures. This course emphasizes exploration of belief systems developed in childhood about sexuality, gender and identity issues. Techniques for integrating sexual energy and joining the head, heart and pelvis are explored and transference and counter-transference are addressed. This weekend also introduces the principles of Core Energetic Body Readings, designed to demonstrate body reading and help participants develop this skill. The course integrates the psychoanalytic theory of development with readings of the physical body: energy, segments, blocks, chakras, and aura. Trainees explore the meaning implicit in states of the skin, body fat, eyes, height, muscles, bone length, coloring, inhalation and exhalation of breath, and overall development.

Module Five: In the final weekend, the theory of and meaning of each of the four stages of Core Therapy are explored beginning with the confrontation of the mask, followed by making contact with the lower self and transforming it. Working with the concepts of evil, denial, destructiveness, cruelty, hate, and terror (lower self expression) lead to transformation to the higher self. Work with the higher self is followed by the final phase, positive intentionality, self-responsibility and choice. The theory of Core Energetics Group Process is explored, working with energy in a group and elevating the group’s energy. The course includes: training in interpersonal processes, staying in the here and now, encouraging safety and trust, working with the mask, lower self and higher self, and techniques for working with the individual in a group process. The structure, membership, ethics, touching, clothing, and patients suitable for a Core Energetics group are discussed. Theories of development and research regarding the mind/body connection, and an understanding psychosomatics and its relationship to physiological systems in the body are investigated. The aura in illness and health, the diseases with which different character structures are associated, developmental issues connected with illness and techniques for working with the emotions that underlying specific illnesses are explored.

Training Sessions

The program’s four-day long training sessions are held five times a year, October through June, and feature didactic/experiential sessions, class process groups, and spiritual integration sessions. Trainings take place in a comfortable, country retreat setting with beautiful grounds. Healthy, well-balanced meals are offered as part of the accommodations.
As a fundamental part of the program, each weekend includes a 3-hour group process, a 3-hour supervision group, a community experience Saturday evening, and a Sunday evening educational panel or demonstration.
In keeping with professional standards, graduation requirements include the following:
• Attendance of each of the five four-day training sessions per year
• Complete reading assignments and written homework
• Submit a final project: a 20 minute video from a core energetic session
• 20 individual sessions with a Core Energetics practitioner
• 10 individual supervision sessions with a Core Energetics practitioner

Dates for the 2007-2008 year are:
October 26-29, 2007
December 7-10, 2007
February 1-4, 2008
April 4-7, 2008
June 6-9, 2008

Visit www.coreenergetics.org for more information or to download an application.

Pill to Stop Periods: Will Conventional Medicine Make Us More Sick?

(Women!  Don't be seduced by money hungry drug companies into thinking that drugs will be an easy answer to your problems)!

Shocking news! A new pill to stop periods was OK'd by the FDA recently. Medical research, combined by money making drug company research, has come up with the possibility to stop your period. This has distorted into a draconian idea that women can just choose to discontinue their monthly menstrual bleeding.

Bleeding Time: Normal Bodily Function Made Un-natural?

Shedding the lining of the uterus that is not needed because there is no fertile egg to implant, is called a period. This lining sloughs off and slowly drips out of the vagina, usually caught in a tampon or sanitary napkin. It is a natural normal bodily function. Medicine has made many normal functions into illnesses, or disease processes. Especially among women!

The following are examples of natural bodily functions made into medical issues:

Childbirth, once a normal occurrence that women learned from their grandmothers, mothers, aunts and earth based tribal customs, is now often thought to be dangerous, requiring a hospital stay. Medical assistance is the norm in our culture and unfortunately so is the currently rising and shocking incident of, in my opinion, unnecessary surgical interventions, such as episiotomies and cesarean sections. Lactation has been taken over by male doctors who perhaps never were breastfed and certainly never breastfed. The natural easy beauty of nurturing your baby from your own body has become distorted. Many hysterectomies are performed unnecessarily. It was not so long ago that mostly male surgeons were taking out uteri left and right thinking that the operation would cure everything from depression, to falling hair. It did not.

Modern medicine is wonderful in many cases: Just not all

Modern medicine has some very wonderful abilities and gets good results for certain problems. I am happy that my sister-in-law could have her hip replaced and now gets around much more comfortably. I have a friend who is well and happy, who just celebrated the 30^th anniversary of his heart transplant. He'd be dead without that surgery. My son and daughter-in-law have a beautiful, healthy 2 year old with the blessings of drug therapy.  Interferon saved my eldest son's life. A hysterectomy for fibroids that created painful profuse bleeding cured my friend.

Dark side of medicine: My apologies to Gary Larson because this is not funny

The negative side of medicine is that it most often compartmentalizes body parts and has little understanding of the whole person it is treating. It uses drugs to treat dis-ease processes that would be better treated in a more holistic way. In fact many drugs make the health of the person worse in the long run. Modern physicians usually only have time to listen to drug company sales reps about the drugs these reps are paid well to peddle without the slightest understanding of holism.  Most often the motivation for creating these drugs in the first place is the desire for huge profit margins.

The human body of women is programmed by millions of years to bleed each month starting at menarche, unless pregnant, or lactating, until menopause.

My fear is that we will only discover 10- or more likely 20 years from now, the tragedy that will occur, when stopping periods in women.  And what will the results be of using the particular drug to do so?  Remember thalidomide? That was thought a harmless drug. Too often a new drug comes on the market thought to be safe and only 20 years later do we discover its ill and sometimes disastrous effects. There are lists of those drugs taken off the market for negative side effects, that is available to research for anyone who wishes to do so.  Some women may truly benefit from pausing their periods for serious medical reasons. I just hate to think of women using this pill as a convenience before trying to cure the cause.

Too often, in physical and mental issues, physicians deal only with the surface concern.  

Painful periods are most often the result of illness caused by unnatural living conditions in modern life. Those things must be addressed first. Women need to look to natural remedies to help with uncomfortable periods. Try first, diet, exercise, stress release, and psychotherapy for childhood wounds. The wounds that particularly affect a woman's reproductive system, are childhood mental and or sexual abuse, and need to be addressed with a holistic body oriented psychotherapist.

Mothers pass on negative ideas and emotions about menstruation

Mothers who are afraid, lack the ability to teach their daughters positive mental and physical health, and pass on tension and dis-ease to their daughters. I address some of these issues in my book, Passages into Womanhood: Empowering Girls to Love Themselves. Read section for Mothers & Mentors. The Passages website is located at www.PassagesIntoWomanhood.com.

What can you do?

Rather than taking a pill for what ails you: eat what is most natural, drink the most pure water, and breathe the cleanest possible air. Live as close to nature as you can. Do not ingest, or apply any drugs to your skin unless absolutely necessary, with a clear knowledge of the known side effects, and when other more natural methods do not work. Vitamin therapy, energy medicine such as homeopathy, osteopathic care, and Core Energetics psychotherapy are all very useful to your healing process.  For more about this subject, please go to this excellent article:  www.newstarget.com/021866.html