Essential Competences
The therapeutic process and education is organized around the below central qualities - competences and the learning objectives of our courses support their embodiment and implementation as therapeutic presence and skills. As they are taught, experienced and cultivated throughout our four-year education, they are not necessarily year-specific.
Essential qualities, or qualities of Essence, are embodied as a result of healing and corrective experiences in therapy. One may also directly cultivate these qualities in order to be more resourced and for the therapy to be more profound. For example, as a result of the therapeutic process one may become more grounded or one can work actively on their grounding for their therapy to reach deeper and be more effective.
The qualities are parts of our Essential structure, the foundation from which the Essential therapist is working. As these competences are qualities of Self, they are not necessarily quantifiable. We assess them through experience, inquiry and self-assessment as well as mirroring from the teachers and therapists. Throughout the education we cultivate these competences through meditation, exercise, therapy, inquiry, meaningful interaction – connection and other ways. Assessment is also based on live sessions and if the therapist embodies such qualities and mirrors them in the client as well.
In the following list, which is not by any means exhaustive in terms of qualities of Self, we describe each quality and then how each can be viewed as a competence and in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude of the therapist.
1.Embodiment
Knowledge:
The therapist has basic knowledge of body posture, alignment, ability to perceive the posture as reflecting inner attitude and knows somatic cues and their relevance to emotional content. The therapist knows exercises with the breath, the body, which promote embodiment.
Skills:
The therapist is able to choose and apply relevant exercises including working with grounding, different kinds of breathing, eye contact, touch, energetic work, the felt sense, expansion, emotional expression and release. The therapist also works with bringing the client back from dissociation.
Attitude:
The therapist is grounded him/herself, orienting his/her awareness to the felt sense of the body and here and now functioning, in touch with reality and his/her senses, sensations and feelings. This includes being aware of lack of feeling and disconnect when it occurs.
2. Awareness
Knowledge:
The therapist has a working knowledge of dissociation due to trauma and the signs of a dissociative state. He/she knows techniques to bring the client back into awareness. The therapist knows how to work with meditation, opening the senses and perception, on expanding awareness – consciousness, working on issues of contact and all the issues that diminish awareness, such as dissociation, splitting and other defenses.
Skills:
The therapist is a witness to his/her own sensations, feelings, thoughts and actions and promotes the same in the client. The therapist attends to his/her inner voice, sensations, inner imagery, gut feelings, direct perception without interpretation. He/she is open to and includes his/her intuition in the treatment offering intuitive perceptions at the appropriate moment, in the appropriate context and with titration, in order to support the therapy. The therapist helps the client to turn inward and meet his/her own core and to trust his/her own perceptions. The therapist commits to keep aligning with awareness, to be the witness for the client with mirroring and feedback, observation and reflection, to strive to truly see them and mirror back what they see. The therapist confronts when appropriate to bring awareness to the blind spots and denial in the personality.
Attitude:
The therapist aims to have choiceless awareness, which means perception which is as free from preference and bias as possible. The Therapist commits to being present, to showing up, to being oriented to the here and now and with reality, and the connection to himself/herself. The therapist aims to have meditative presence by maintaining a regular meditation practice.
3. Vulnerability
Knowledge:
The therapist knows what vulnerability is and that it is a precondition for any effective therapy. He/she knows interventions and exercises that aid the client in coming in touch with his/her vulnerability, for instance how to work with the inner child, with beliefs and conditioning, trust and mistrust, working with loosening defensive rigidity in the body and behavior, letting go with vibration, involuntary impulses and body movement, meditation, breaking repetitive and automatic movement and loops of conditioned thinking.
Skills:
The therapist mirrors feelings, states that the client might pass over, discard as unimportant or be dissociated from. The therapist works with client’s inner child as a means to access vulnerability, has basic training in bodywork that loosens rigidity and defenses. The therapist looks for calmness in connection, does not push or force things, can allow process to unfold, practices being versus doing, aims to be in the present moment. This includes working with tension patterns in the client’s body, regulating and releasing anxiety, working with meditation, with the breath, exercises on letting go, working with contact and relaxing into the contact, social anxiety. The therapist works towards establishing an inner sense of safety in the client and aiding them in reaching a state of social engagement.
Attitude:
The therapist is oriented towards the acceptance of their own feelings, in touch with their own brokenness and wounds, attuned to their heart, their humanness, embracing their own imperfection and sense of deficiency and orients the client towards the same. The therapist maintains a non-judgmental acceptance of the client. The therapist has a flexible attitude, is able to assimilate new possibilities and change, is able to trust, be spontaneous, able to respond in the moment and able to perceive.
4. Connection
Knowledge:
The therapist understands about attachment, about issues of connection to oneself and other. He/she has a working knowledge of exercises and interventions that promote contact and connection. He/she is aware of relational issues and ways of working with them. The therapist can explain what connection is and the defenses and issues which stand in the way of connection.
Skills:
The therapist makes attempts to establish a therapeutic alliance, to bring healthy attachment into the therapist – client relationship and to work with all that stands in the way of healthy relationships, including issues of mistrust and trust, co-dependency. The therapist is committed to reaching the client, is able to reach out and to be receptive. For that, the therapist makes contact with the eyes, with the voice, with safe and consensual physical touch, by being a safe attachment figure, and by attuning to what transpires in the relationship with the client. The therapist is sensitive to their own inner feeling of making contact. The therapist attempts to bring the client in contact with himself or herself, to aid him/her in attending to their own inner feelings and perceptions and subsequently in contact with another, the therapist themselves or other participants in a group with the eyes, the voice, the touch. The therapist pays attention to when he/she feels the lack of contact and shares this perception.
Attitude:
The therapist is always oriented towards connection, the art of true bonding, in enhancing the capacity to relate and for intimacy. The therapist endeavors to be authentic in contact, to provide a hold for the client and to be a safe attachment figure for the client.
5. Pro – life Direction
Knowledge:
The therapist knows what type of behavior, attitude and life choices promote mental, emotional and physical well-being. He/she has knowledge of interventions and exercises that promote vitality and energetic expansion, as well as owning and discharging unexpressed negative feelings that sabotage the client’s life force.
Skills:
The Therapist helps the client find his/her passion spark and works with the body to increase energy and vitality. The therapist does not encourage superseding one’s actual limits, but challenging the limitations, the barriers of the defense, being passionate and giving oneself totally to the cause of healing and integration, fostering a healthy let- go of control without going to extremes. The therapist resources the client to face and contain his/her own fear, pain and negative emotions and move forward, to find the strength to confront difficult situations, to move out of the comfort zone. The therapist works with confrontation when needed, encourages differentiation from object relations. He empowers the client to let go of depression and defeatism, emboldens him/her towards healthy autonomy, taking his/her life into their own hands.
The therapist empowers the client and creates the conditions for him/her to experience themselves beyond their defenses and pain, to experience their essence. The therapist helps the client establish faith in himself/herself through experiencing his/her essence, faith in the therapeutic process and in life, that he/she has the ability to heal. This facilitates a life-positive direction, like a pillar that supports one when in difficulty; faith becomes a resource for when one is confronted with failure and catastrophe.
Attitude:
The therapist aims to be a compass that points out to the client what is pro-life and what is self-destructive, helping the client realize their “no” to life, assign or express it where it belongs and find their “yes” to life. The therapist models that stance with their own attitude in life, by being encouraging and empowering and seeing what resources are needed for the client to move to a pro-life attitude. The therapist commits his/her energy and presence, is 100% “in”, invests themselves in the relationship and process, provides stability, inspires commitment to the therapy process, works with what stands in the way of commitment, such as fears, ambivalence, doubts, invasion wound and repression.
6. Acceptance
Knowledge:
The therapist knows that acceptance is the healing stance towards oneself and others. He/she understands that acceptance is to acknowledge reality, one’s inner reality and outer. He is aware of the defensive mechanism of denial and interventions to help the client come out of it, as well as how to work with self-criticism and judgment. criticism the judgment
Skills:
The therapist works with choiceless awareness, honesty, true mirroring and having an objective attitude. The therapist also works with the client’s denial and disowned aspects of the self, including their shadow side. He/she also encourages acceptance of the feelings and emotions of the client’s inner child, through fostering a healthy adult stance and inner child work.
Attitude:
The therapist acknowledges reality without trying to deny, avoid or alter it in any way. He/she fosters self-acceptance in the client, acknowledges their feelings, emotions and behaviors without trying to change them.
7. Mirroring
Knowledge:
The therapist knows what true mirroring is, how to recognize primary feelings, Essential states and how to mirror these back to the client. In order to achieve this, he knows about primary and secondary feelings and the qualities of Essence, their relevance to the developmental stages of childhood and the corresponding object relations.
Skills:
The Therapist responds and participates in what the client is expressing of himself or herself, which promotes self-respect and self‑esteem. The therapist endeavors to see and perceive the client’s feelings, emotions and, on a deeper level, their Essence and reflect them back to them. This cultivates self-reflection in the client.
Attitude:
In order for the therapist to be able to mirror the client in his/her feelings, emotional and Essential states, the therapist must be in touch with his/her own sensations, feelings, emotions and be conscious of the presence of Essence as well as his/her own deficiencies or lacks. The therapist is present, aware, sensitive, empathetic, supportive and compassionate, enhancing the client’s self-awareness.
8. Compassion
Knowledge:
The therapist knows the defenses that block compassion and also the compensatory mechanisms of merging with others or false sympathy. He/she has knowledge of interventions to restore feeling to the body and enable the client the reconnect with their heart and their authentic feelings.
Skills:
The therapist extends himself/herself towards the client and tries to understand the feelings of the client, to put himself/herself in the client’s shoes, to be kind towards the client’s suffering, supports the client emotionally and is receptive. The therapist aims to empathize with the client without merging with them and losing their own sense of self. He/she works with the client’s inner child. He/she aims to cultivate empathy in the client by restoring the connection to heart and emotions, by cultivating compassion towards oneself and encouraging vulnerability. He/she helps them to listen to and attune to others, teaching them to embrace the pain and vulnerability of someone else as well as their own.
Attitude:
The therapist is oriented towards the wellbeing of others, attempts to recognize and feel other’s pain, has an attitude of acceptance, empathy and care to alleviate other’s suffering.
9. Trustworthiness
Knowledge:
The therapist understands that in order for the client to feel safe, secure and to be able to form a therapeutic alliance with the therapist, he/she must be trustworthy and embody the skills and attitude that support this. He/she therefore should have a working knowledge of attachment theory and relational therapy, be able to distinguish the basic attachment wounds of the client and be sensitive to them.
Skills:
The therapist works with helping the client to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, to tolerate frustration, with self-regulation and working on being balanced. The therapist aims to contain his/her own feelings, drives and impulses without repressing or dissociating from them, not to act or react impulsively and to have a good level of self-possession. This includes establishing healthy boundaries in the therapeutic relationship, fostering containment in the client by mirroring client’s feelings and emotional states, supporting the client’s ability to contain/hold emotional – energetic charge, negative feelings and pain. In order for the therapist to model containment, he/she needs:
to be able to remain calm
to be able to recognize and accept his own negative feelings and those of others
to be able make the connection between emotions and seemingly unrelated acts, behaviors, opinions and thoughts
to have boundaries himself/herself, so that the client can feel safe when he/she is in touch and/or overcome by and expresses their difficult feelings
Attitude:
The therapist is able to inspire trust, to be relied on as honest or truthful, responsible, accountable, stable, benevolent and delivers what he/she promises. He/she establishes a therapeutic alliance, is a stable presence and a healthy attachment figure for the client, exhibiting congruency in attitude, behavior and choice of direction. The therapist remains steady in the face of difficulty and is flexible and adaptive without collapsing or giving up, is steadfast. In this way he/she models resilience for the client.The therapist is able to stay with process and not be derailed.
10. Sincerity
Knowledge:
The therapist understands authenticity and can discern between primary and secondary feelings. He/she has knowledge of the repressive and defensive mechanisms of the personality and interventions to address those defenses. He/she can explain the mechanism of the superego, its origin and effect on the client’s life energy, expression and self-awareness.
Skills:
The therapist encourages the client’s willingness to make their authentic thoughts and/or feelings known, without repressing or withholding them. This entails helping the client regain touch with and express repressed feelings, working with toxic shame, toxic fear and toxic guilt which limit expression, working with containment and creating a safe frame for expression. The therapist also expresses him/herself and does not repress himself/herself consciously. The therapist works with ego reduction in the client, helps them to accept their own vulnerability, brokenness and sense of deficiency. The therapist commits himself/herself to helping the client make the unconscious conscious, to being non-judgmental, inviting and guiding the client to come out of denial and hiding, cultivating honesty with oneself and others, cultivating the trust and courage to expose the good, bad and the ugly within.
Attitude:
The therapist is sincere himself/herself, examines and is aware of his/her own agenda, needs and opinions and does his/her best to not allow them to interfere with the therapy. The therapist maintains a modest view of his/her importance, is oriented towards humanness and is self - reflective without being falsely humble. He/she is showing up rather than showing off. The therapist admits his/her mistakes, recognizes his/her limits and aligns with the ethics of being human rather than any kind of role or image.
11. Integrity
Knowledge:
The therapist knows the defensive mechanisms of splitting and fragmentation and has an overview of psychopathology. He/she is able to distinguish these defensive mechanisms in behavior, self-image and in the body. He has a working knowledge of exercises and interventions that work with splitting and fragmentation and that promote integration of the Self.
Skills:
The therapist aids the client in moving towards an integrated sense of Self, in restoring and aligning with their conscience, which is the unifying catalyst of the Self. He/she aims to achieve this by working with the body and facilitating the client to sense his/her core, orienting the client towards becoming aware of disparate parts of the Self and integrating those parts, working with primary feelings, healing traumatic splitting and fragmentation, modeling and working with and from integrity. This implies honesty and ethos, which are synonymous with integrity.
Attitude:
The therapist cultivates in himself/herself and is oriented towards an ethical sense of right and wrong and the wellbeing of others. He/she “lives and lets others live”. The therapist strives to show one, authentic face, to be stable and consistent in his/her own attitude, thoughts and feelings, allowing the client to internalize a constant presence. He/she aims to maintain self-possession in the face of difficulty and provides a constant hold in the therapy.
12. Guidance
Knowledge:
The therapist understands that guidance springs from one’s true inner voice and can discern between this and the different manifestations of the toxic superego. In order to do this, he must have a working knowledge of the superego mechanism, interventions to address it and to foster awareness, intuition and the witnessing consciousness in the client.
Skills:
The therapist can lead and direct process when needed and at the same time be able to step back and allow the unfoldment of the client’s process, at times showing the way but not pushing one to follow it or, better put, allowing the way to appear and perceiving it. The therapist helps the client to distinguish between their inner critic/superego and inner guide/voice of conscience, turning the client towards their inner perceptions and encouraging him/her to trust them.
Attitude:
The therapist embodies the guiding principle for the client and at the same time helps the client to find their inner compass and the voice of their conscience.
Professional Competences
Our therapists are working professionals in the CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) field. The below competences are related to the professional profile of a CAM therapist and are from the description of core competencies of the NVPA therapist, a professional therapist association in the Netherlands with which we are associated and are one of their approved trainings. We use the NVPA professional profile in our training.
1. Knowledge
The NVPA therapist possesses:
advanced, specialized knowledge and critical understanding of theories and principles of the profession and/or of the knowledge domain
(specialized) psychotherapeutic basic knowledge, knowledge of methodology andinterventions (knowledge of human functioning in general, in addition to pathologies andtreatments in general cf. the Plato finals)
broad, integrated knowledge and understanding of the scope, key areas andboundaries of the profession and domain of knowledge
knowledge of important and current developments in the field
sufficient knowledge, understanding and skills in diagnostics and evaluation
sound professional knowledge of its specialism
2. Working systematically with the client
A. The therapeutic relationship
In the therapeutic relationship, the NVPA therapist is able :
build and maintain rapport in the therapeutic relationship from genuineness, unconditional acceptance and empathy to keep the client in an atmosphere of trust and safety, to be able to guide and treat
to initiate the conversation with the client and act in a stimulating and structuring way
from theoretical frameworks to identify complex problems of clients andto analyze
create conditions necessary for the provision of therapeutic assistance
to be aware of countertransference
to maintain a professional relationship
B. Formulating a request for help
To formulate the request for help, the NVPA therapist is able to:
during the intake interview to systematically collect and analyze data on the request for help,on the client's wishes and expectations, and to obtain relevant information about previous or current care and assistance activities
recognize and utilize the client's social, cultural and societal context to achieve therapeutic goals
in the contact with the client, the possibilities and limits of the methodology and the client's personal skills, and - for the client - correctly refer to these
on the basis of the above, formulate a request for help with the client or toclarify
C. Drawing up a treatment plan
The NVPA therapist is able to:
together with the client from the request for help, to a dynamic treatment plan, to implement and be able to justify and work with it
clearly formulate the intended outcome in the treatment plan
provide (process- and experiential-based) guidance from a meaning-making perspective,whereby problems are seen as challenges
involve relatives in consultation with the client
identify red flags and refer to the appropriate person or institution when this is necessary in her estimation
act appropriately in possible crisis and emergency situations
D. Deploying relevant interventions, methods and techniques
The NVPA therapist has the expertise and skill to:
clarify and analyze the problem/question
make a reasoned choice from available interventions based on the help demand and methodologies and explain them to the client
match different methodologies and forms of work to different help requests and target groups
set his/her actions against the backdrop of a methodical system, andthese argue if the client asks for it
determine which forms of appropriate treatment are appropriate to bring about the desired change in the client, while respecting the limits of one's own competences and keeping an eye on the field
use the relevant therapeutic interventions, working method, or methods and be mindful of the effects of her working method and interventions, including by asking client about the changes thereafter
E. Evaluating the treatment plan and being able to critically reflect on it
The NVPA therapist is able to :
maintain a dialogue with the client about everything concerning the request for help,including identifying with the client factors that influence the request for help. The treatment plan and its implementation can always be adjusted based on desire, reflection or consultation
evaluate the results of treatment with the client and, if necessary, with the referrer(s) and discuss
report to third parties on clients where necessary, subject to applicable rules on this matter
implement the treatment plan, adjusting it if necessary on the basis of critical reflection and complete incl. associated administration
prepare the client for completion of treatment
3. Collaboration
The NVPA therapist:
can form professional relationships with colleagues, other professionals, public authorities and other engage and develop organizations
can network (inter)disciplinary cooperation and own professional actions legitimize within this cooperation
knows how to work with the client when domestic violence is suspected and/or child abuse
knows how to cooperate with other professionals/organizations when (a) the client's safety and/or health is at stake, (b) and/or when domestic violence, (c) and/or where there is child abuse
seeks timely advice; including legal advice
4. Ethical and socially responsible actions
The NVPA therapist has the expertise and skill to:
be transparent and accountable for professional conduct and to legitimize this
shape a system of quality assurance, in collaboration with others where necessary
take responsibility for results of own work and study
adhere to the ethical rules, professional conduct, as set out in the NVPA code of professional conduct
Follow the legal frameworks of independent treatment responsibility and own powers therein
respond appropriately to incidents in emergency services
adequately inform the client about the influence of privacy legislation regarding recordsand the provision of information to third parties, applicable complaint and disciplinary laws and about the acting authorities
5. Professional development
The NVPA therapist is able to:
learn from new situations in relation to clients and the progress of treatment. She can reflect on her own professional conduct and legitimize this to others, for example byasking for feedback in peer review, supervision or mentoring in order to, if necessary, based on
adjust their behavior accordingly and thus continuously developing their own professionalism
take note of relevant scientific developments in their own field through literature, conferences, symposia, training, etc.
contribute to the further professionalization of the field by sharing their own contributions,new questions and trends, and in this way promote the broadening, dissemination an
promote development of (scientific) knowledge
follow relevant changes in society, examine the ethical aspects and scientific results and translatethe results into further development and legitimization of the profession