The Living Body in Practice: Embodied psychotherapies meeting Autumn 2025.

The Living Body in Practice: Embodied psychotherapies meeting Autumn 2025

Time: 4th October 2025, 9:30-18:00

Place: Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

Discover the Power of Embodied Psychotherapies

Join us for a one-day experiential introduction to embodied psychotherapies — an immersive exploration designed for clinicians, therapists, and anyone curious about how body-based practices can deepen self-awareness, presence, and connection.

Guided by presenters from a range of embodied psychotherapy traditions, we will engage in practices that deepen awareness of posture, breath, movement, and inner sensing — inviting us to experience firsthand how the body can be a powerful resource in therapeutic work.

The journey will explore:

· Posture & Presence – noticing how the way you sit and move shapes your responses, and how conscious choices in posture can shift perspective.

· Breath & Rhythm – cultivating awareness of natural rhythms and exploring how breath can regulate energy and emotion.

· Inner Sensing – attuning to the heart and core, cultivating embodied awareness beyond the cognitive mind.

· Movement & Connection – using gesture and movement to foster authentic expression and deeper relational contact.

· Voice & Belonging – moving from breath to gentle sound, exploring how vocal expression nurtures connection and group presence.

The day is paced with mindful breaks, reflection, and opportunities for integration. We will close with a group harvest and discussion, reflecting on how embodied practices may support both our clinical work and our own wellbeing.

This event offers a taste of the richness and variety of embodied psychotherapies —inviting you to step out of your head, come into your body, and connect with others in a fresh, enlivened way.

Programme outline

9:30 Registration and welcome

9:55 Introduction - Christos Sideras

10:00 Sitting - Richard Sims

11:00 Breathing - Jon Pearson

12:00 Lunch break

14:00 Feeling - Carlien van Heel

15:00 Relating - Linda Thai

16:00 Afternoon break

16:30 Voicing - Tina Warnock

17:30 Dialogue - Christos Sideras

18:00 Close

Detailed session descriptions and facilitator biographies

Sitting - Richard Sims

Our bodies and minds are speaking. These messages are affecting how we experience the world, and each other, people and situations around us. Sometimes these messages or signals are a whisper, other times a scream. They affect us physically and mentally, slowing or amplifying our ability to achieve our largest and smallest needs, hopes, wishes, dreams and desires. What if it was possible to gain a better understanding of what these messages are communicating, not through reinterpretation or reframing but through changing what our bodies are saying? During this workshop we will explore how intentionally using our mind and body can help us gain the ability to calm ourselves and reclaim or discover the clarity and power we need to accomplish the goals we desire. During this workshop we will explore and learn about this way through something we do every day, the simple act of sitting. This exploration is one of the many somatic approaches used by the individuals, groups and mental health practitioners Richard works with who are looking for bodymind approaches to help heal the often lasting affects of stress, anxiety, fear, pain, and trauma, while learning integrative approaches to use alongside their distress responses, intentionally adapting them instead of allowing them to become problematic. Put more simply, learning to wisely respond before, during and after a challenging event instead of blindly reacting and hoping for the best.

Richard Sims, MSME/T, CTP, is a Master Somatic Movement Educator/Therapist, Somatic, Body Awareness and Mindfulness Educator, Certified Trauma Professional and Sandan (3rd degree Black Belt) in the martial art of Aikido (the art of peace) who specializes in bringing a somatic BodyMind approach to his clients. Helping them with their stress, fear, anxiety, trauma, pain, resilience and empowerment. Some areas of his work include supporting survivors of sexual trauma (MenHealing) helping patients, survivors and caregivers of Cancer (Cancer Wellness Center) and individual and international peace building (Aiki Extensions). He is certified by the State of Illinois in the United States to work somatically with first responders and his work has been included in an ebook accessible to over 1 million incarcerated survivors of sexual trauma. As the Board President of ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association) Rich works solidifying the Somatic Profession and its place in the Whole Person Integrative Health Field. He also serves on the board of Aiki Extensions, an international organization dedicated to extending Aikido and it’s many lessons off the mat to address the challenges and conflicts people encounter in everyday life, and to enhancing every human endeavor and field of activity through Aiki. He teaches online and in person globally. He works as a private provider or as a part of a whole person integrative health team working with other mental and physical health practitioners.

https://richardesims.com/

https://ismeta.org/about-ismeta/board

Breathing - Jon Pearson

Breathing stands at the gateway between the fields of voluntary and involuntary action; we can choose to ignore our breathing regimen and allow our autonomic system to regulate the process, or we can step in and assume conscious control of the speed and depth of our respiration. Given that our breathing process strongly influences - and is influenced by - our affect, assisting our clients in learning to regulate their respiration becomes a powerful tool in helping them to regulate their nervous system, offering a powerful method for transforming knee-jerk emotional reactions into considered responses. Jon, who has taught breath work as a yoga teacher and psychotherapist for 35 years, will provide a method for enabling psychotherapists to use breath work in their personal and professional practice

Jon Skelton Pearson, CTA(P), PTSTA(P), CIP, UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Associate Life Coach (ICC), Accredited Yoga Teacher (BWY) has worked as a psychotherapist for 28 years and has supervised and taught at the Manchester Institute for Psychotherapy. He sits on the Teaching Faculty of the Paths of Transformation and acts as a consultant and trainer for the ‘Awaken As Love’ neo-tantra franchises. He has been strongly influenced by the work of Ken Wilber since 1983. He has undertaken a five-year apprenticeship with the shaman and bioenergetics teacher John Hawken in the Czech Republic. He is currently studying Nondual Shiva Tantrism with Christopher Hareesh Wallis. Jon is passionate about uncovering the deep structures endemic to ancient and contemporary mystery schools, and to the various fields of psychotherapy. He is currently weaving them into atheoretical and practical working model for integrated personal transformation. Jon lives in Hove where he works in person and online. He also runs workshops on the European mainland and in the USA with his wife.

https://jonskeltonpearson.com/about-me/

Feeling - Carlien van Heel

This experiential workshop is an Introduction to Biodynamic Psychology, a Body-psychotherapy approach developed by Gerda Boyesen (2022-2005), who was a Norwegian psychologist, physiotherapist and Reichian therapist who came to London in 1969, bringing a female perspective to Body psychotherapy. Biodynamic Psychotherapy is based in, and deeply trusting of, organic processes. It combines touch (Biodynamic Massage), with Vegetotherapy and verbal psychotherapy. Boyesen discovered that our tummy rumblings contribute to emotional processing and that listening to these tummy sounds (psycho-peristalsis) provides a key into the Autonomic Nervous system. When trauma is fully processed in body and mind, then body tissues are cleansed and there is an increased connection to our libido 'streamings', which leads to what Boyesen called, our "Primary Personality", an embodied sense of coming home to one's Essence. In this workshop I will encourage participants to have a felt sense of how body and mind are connected, listening not only to our head, but also to our heart and our gut. Exploring how, when we listen to our body, we will be guided to a deeper connection with ourselves and with the other.

Carlien van Heel, originally from the Netherlands, trained with Gerda Boyesen (1922-2005), the founder of Biodynamic Psychology and Psychotherapy, at the Gerda Boyesen Centre in London from 1984 - 1988. She has worked as a Biodynamic psychotherapist ever since and is still passionate about Biodynamic work. Carlien gained an MA in Body-psychotherapy (Anglia Ruskin University) in 2014, qualified as a Cranial-Sacral therapist (CTET) in 2020 and trained in Couple therapy through Body psychotherapy (Gabriel Shiraz) in 2021. She is a UKCP registered Biodynamic Psychotherapist and Supervisor and a Trainer and Head of Course at the London School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy (LSBP), and has a private practice in North London.

https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/therapist/Carlien-van-Heel-iAh2xAAC

Relating - Linda Thai

A Wordless Weaving from Stillness to Connection . . . In this experiential workshop, we will explore the nourishing ground of stillness, self-contact, and playful movement. Through simple wordless exchanges—beginning with small gestures and expanding into shared patterns—we’ll notice how connection emerges, shifts, and deepens. As we shift between solitude and togetherness, we’ll discover how movement and presence reveal new layers of self-awareness. Through curiosity and embodied exploration, participants will leave with fresh insights into how the self relates, responds, and transforms in connection with others. We will then harvest our insights and expanded embodied self-awareness as a group.

Linda Thai LMSW is a trauma therapist specializing in cutting-edge brain- and body-based modalities for complex developmental trauma. As an educator, she adeptly communicates on trauma, attachment, and the impact of oppressive systems. Passionate about self-exploration within groups, her experiential workshops - while evocative - are infused with the spaciousness for participant self-discovery and embodied insight. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, now living in subarctic Alaska, Linda carries within her work the wisdom of many lands and cultures, weaving them into a gentle invitation for others to remember their wholeness and reclaim their innate capacity for healing.

https://www.linda-thai.com/

Voicing – Tina Warnock

This workshop will explore what happens when the voice is added to the breath, and how the voice, residing in the body, can connect us with ourselves and others. We are all born with a voice and our relationship with it is influenced by a complex set of social and emotional circumstances, as well as cultural influences. There will be some guided vocalisations and an opportunity to sing together through song and group improvisation, followed by some time to reflect.

Tina Warnock is a vocal psychotherapist and music therapist with over 25 years’ experience. Her special area of interest is the relationship between the voice and the self and since 2016 she has been working closely with Dr Diane Austin from New York to develop the training and practice of Austin Vocal Psychotherapy. Tina’s vocal psychotherapy practice supports people recovering from cancer treatment, and people with anxiety, depression and psychological trauma in private practice. She is currently undertaking a doctoral study on the impact of Austin Vocal Psychotherapy training on a music therapist’s voice, sense of self and therapeutic practice.

https://www.aru.ac.uk/people/tina-warnock

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-warnock-39880729/