IOSP Vision

The Institute of Somatic Psychotherapy (IOSP) aims to bring a new approach to Somatic Psychotherapy training to Australia. We provide add-on training at a post-graduate level, and professional development for current mental health practitioners looking to incorporate the relational somatic aspects of psychotherapy into their practice. With our unique Somatic Psychotherapy Training Program, we aim to train the next generation of Somatic Psychotherapists.

The “Institute of Somatic Psychotherapy” (IOSP) was established in 2020 by Veronik Verkest and Ernst Meyer, two Sydney-based somatic psychotherapists.  IOSP training considers the following as differentiating factors from current offerings:

  • Emphasising the therapeutic relationship between the practitioner and client/patient, which is at the heart of all psychotherapies. Somatic Psychotherapy is therefore seen, and practiced, primarily as a relational process. This is very different to an “expert” somatic practitioner “doing” body-related exercises with the client/patient.
  • Establishing a comprehensive training program in somatic psychotherapy that can be delivered mainly on-line.

In 2021, IOSP launched the first training program, suitable for fully trained psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers or psychiatrists looking to shift clients at a deeply felt and embodied level. In 2025, IOSP will offer training in the US timezone.

Find out more about the Full Somatic Psychotherapy Training Program

IOSP Staff

Ernst Meyer

Ernst is a Sydney-based somatic psychotherapist in private practice. He works with survivors of abuse and neglect, and in recent years has specialised in seeing first responders (former police and ambulance officers) who carry a diagnosis of “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD).

He is a clinical member and Board member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA), a full member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP), and an international council member of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IASPA).

Outside of the therapy room he is interested in philosophy, politics, and history.

Veronik Verkest

Veronik practices as a contemporary somatic psychotherapist in private practice in Sydney where she welcomes individuals to share their embodied experience irrespective of their journey, sexuality and cultural background.

In her sessions she brings in her training in self-psychology/inter-subjectivity, neurobiology, attachment & trauma theory, infant research, meditation to attune and attend to her clients’ deeply felt or buried unresolved trauma which is frequently held in the body.

Veronik is a Clinical Member of PACFA with a Diploma of Contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy, Master of Counselling & Applied Psychotherapy, an MBA, BSc (HON I Biochemistry) and extensive experience in the corporate world and life. She is also trained as a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher and an AcuEnergetics TM practitioner who combines the traditional Chinese Meridian System and Chakra System in a relational embodied manner to shift subtle energies. Find out more about Veronik on her website: www.aboutheart.com.au.

Kimberley Lee

Kimberley is a PACFA registered counsellor (Graduate Diploma in Counselling) and certified meditation teacher (1 Giant Mind) who believes everyone has the ability to heal with support and care through the healing process. Kimberley has lived experience with adoption and an interest in working with adopted people and their families. She also has experience working with LGTBQI+ issues, dating and relationships, people who work in the sex industry, and helping people understand repetitive self-soothing behaviours, like drug and alcohol use.

Kimberley is also a communications consultant with a BA Communications (Honours) working with corporations, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations in a variety of industries and sectors.
www.kimberleylee.com.au

The IOSP Story

IOSP is the brainchild of Ernst Meyer and Veronik Verkest who met in 2009 in Sydney whilst completing a three-year training course in contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy with Jeff Barlow at the now defunct Australian College of Contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy. Not only was this the start of a transformational journey for both of them, it was also the beginning of an ongoing personal friendship and professional partnership.

Veronik, originally from Belgium, has a background in science and has previously worked in the corporate space. Ernst, originally from Germany, has held careers in the police force and the IT industry. After they graduated in 2012, both went into private practice as somatic psychotherapists, staying in touch as colleagues and members of PACFA (Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia). Their paths crossed again at the Jansen Newman Institute where they both completed a Master of Counselling and Applied Psychotherapy in 2014 for Veronik, and 2015 for Ernst.

By that time, Somatic Psychotherapy found itself in an existential crisis as there was no longer an available accredited training program in Australia. In 2016, the crisis deepened when the Association of Somatic Psychotherapy Australia disbanded, and the annual conference and regular professional development events dedicated to somatic psychotherapy ceased to exist. Somatic psychotherapists were now registered under the umbrella of the PACFA, as a modality within the College of Psychotherapy. Somatic psychotherapists no longer had their own association and were no longer an entity in their own right – a tradition that had been established in Australia since the late 1970s.

This decline was both untimely and ironic. As the importance of preverbal experiences and the devastating effects of trauma on the individual started to be recognised by researchers and mental health practitioners around the world, both Veronik and Ernst noticed an increasing interest In Somatic Psychotherapy in Australia. It seemed that, right when the demand and requirement for somatic approaches to psychotherapy was growing, the practitioners with the appropriate training were starting to disappear.

That was the situation in 2017 when PACFA asked for volunteers to establish a leadership group for the Somatic Psychotherapy modality. As the previous leaders of the field – after long years of hard work – had largely withdrawn or were unavailable, Veronik and Ernst answered PACFA’s call and together with two Melbourne-based colleagues established the leadership group of the Somatic Psychotherapy Modality.

Both Veronik and Ernst agreed that the most urgent need and biggest requirement to keep the tradition of Somatic Psychotherapy alive in Australia mid to long term is to establish a training program. For that purpose, they created the “Institute for Somatic Psychotherapy” (IOSP).  The first comprehensive online training was delivered in 2021. The next training starts in March 2024.

Europe Based Guest Trainers

Guest Seminar Trainer – Kathrin Stauffer

Kathrin PhD,  is a UKCP registered Body and Integrative Psychotherapist and president elect of EABP. Originally a biochemist, she retrained as a body psychotherapist with the Chiron Centre in London and Cambridge. She works in private practice in Cambridge, offering individual psychotherapy, EMDR and supervision for psychotherapists, counsellors and complementary therapists. She teaches as a guest tutor at various institutions. She is also the author of Anatomy & Physiology for Psychotherapists: Connecting Body & Soul(W.W. Norton) and Emotional Neglect and the Adult in Therapy (W.W. Norton 2020). For more information see www.stauffer.co.uk

 

 

Guest Seminar Trainer – Gill Westland

Gill Westland is founder and Director of Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre and a UKCP registered Body Psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor, consultant and writer.  She is a full member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy.  She is a co-editor of the journal Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy.  She is the author of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy (Norton, 2015) and various articles and book chapters.  

In 2012, she wrote UK Body Psychotherapy Competencies, with Clover Southwell & Michaela Boening.  More recently, she has written on Healing trauma through embodied relating: Re-establishing rhythms of relating. (Routledge, 2020),  and Beyond Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Using body awareness and mindfulness meditation practices to research body psychotherapy.  In The Art and Science of Embodied Research Design: Concepts, Methods and Cases. (Routledge, 2021).

Guest Seminar Trainer – Sladjana Djordjevic

Sladjana MA in clinical psychology, licensed Body Psychotherapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. Holder of the National and European Certificate for Psychotherapy she has been actively involved in working with the EABP since 2014 and is the current Council Chair of EABP.

She has been practicing Body Psychotherapy for 15 years in an individual and group setting.  After the basic Body Psychotherapy training, she completed Somatic Trauma Therapy Training and Somatic Experiencing. She specialises in working with relational and shock trauma, psychosomatic issues and early development.

She has been practicing Body Psychotherapy for 15 years in an individual and group setting.  After the basic Body Psychotherapy training, she completed Somatic Trauma Therapy Training and Somatic Experiencing. She specialises in working with relational and shock trauma, psychosomatic issues and early development.

Founder and director of Body Psychotherapy Centre in Belgrade. Sladjana is the author and leader of continuous professional development courses Embodiment in psychotherapy and Trauma – path of recovery held regularly and attended by 700 psychotherapists in the entire region (Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Istra).

She wrote numerous articles about Body Psychotherapy in Serbian and English language. Some of them are: The Role of Embodiment in Therapeutic Process: A Case Study in a book Body Psychotherapy Case Studies and the chapter Body psychotherapy and trauma in the book Trauma – our story.

https://tp-centar.org/en/home-english/

US Based Guest Trainers

Guest Seminar Trainer – Susan Aposhyan

Susan Aposhyan, M.A., L.P.C., spent 45 years in private practice as a psychotherapist and trained helping professionals internationally in her work, Body-Mind Psychotherapy. Susan developed Body-Mind Psychotherapy in the 1980’s as Somatic Psychology was beginning to coalesce as a field. BMP contributes a unique commitment to embodiment and integrates a detailed understanding of neuroscience, anatomy, and physiology to the field of psychology.

Currently the BMP curriculum is available through recordings online, at www.susanaposhyan.com Susan was active in the development of the Somatic Psychology Program at Naropa University and the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy. In addition to Naropa, she has taught in all the United States degree programs offering Somatic Psychology.

She is the author of three books: Natural Intelligence: Body-Mind Integration and Human Development (1999), Body-Mind Psychotherapy (Norton, 2004), and Heart Open, Body Awake: Four Steps to Embodied Spirituality (2021). Though Susan has been a lifelong meditator and meditation teacher, only with the publication of her last book, has she focused her work through the lens of Embodied Spirituality.

Guest Seminar Trainer – Dr Rae Johnson

Dr Rae Johnson, PhD, RSW, RSMT, BCC (they/them) is a board-certified coach, somatic movement therapist, and scholar/activist working at the intersection of embodiment and social justice. Rae’s approach to their work is informed by decades of frontline engagement with street youth, women in addiction recovery, psychiatric survivors, and students in crisis.

Rae is a professor of somatic psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and played a key role in developing an online program that brought together hundreds of thought leaders, practitioners, and community change agents to help shape the emerging field of embodied social justice. Rae is the author of several books, including Embodied Social Justice (Routledge, 2018) and Embodied Activism (North Atlantic Books, 2023).

Guest Seminar Trainer – Dr Jennifer Tantia

Dr Jennifer Tantia, PhD is an author, educator, and practicing somatic psychotherapist in New York City for the past 18 years. She served on national boards and has taught psychotherapists how to conduct somatic psychotherapy in the US, Europe and Asia. Her latest book, The Art and Science of Embodied Research Design (2021) received a distinguished Marion Chace Foundation publication grant. Dr. Tantia has recently become a certified meditation teacher through Tibet House. For more information, please visit www.soma-psyche.com.