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 RBCZ therapist, a complementary care professional registry in the Netherlands.

1. Knowledge

The therapist has advanced specialized knowledge and critical understanding of theories and principles of the profession or domain of knowledge. He/she has broad, integrated knowledge and understanding of the scope, main areas and boundaries of the profession and knowledge domain.In addition, this therapist has knowledge and understanding of important current topics and specialisms related to the profession and knowledge domain of the psychosocial or CAM therapist.

2. Working systematically with the client

2.1 The therapeutic relationship

• The therapist is able to initiate and stimulate interaction processes and therein to act in a structuring way. 

• The therapist is able to build and develop a therapeutic relationship with a client. He or she intervenes in the therapeutic relationship and has an eye for the effect of these interventions. 

• The therapist can map out and analyze complex problems of clients from theoretical frameworks. 

• The therapist can create conditions necessary for the delivery of therapeutic assistance. 

2.2. Formulating a request for help

• The therapist is able to analyze the social, cultural and societal aspects, the context in which a client finds himself/herself and within which the therapeutic assistance takes place.

• The therapist can explore and analyze the clients’ central issue and on the basis of this, formulate a request for help.

2.3. Drawing up a treatment plan

• The therapist can draw up a care plan in consultation with clients or make an offer of help to clients. 

• The therapist can refer to other individuals or institutions as needed. 

• The therapist can support the client in identifying improvement opportunities;

• The therapist can draw up a treatment plan based on the request for help and the client’s needs. 

2.4. Deploying relevant interventions, methods and techniques

• Based on the request for help, the therapist can make a substantiated choice from the available interventions and methods. 

• The therapist is able to identify the relevant therapeutic interventions, method, or methods and has an eye for the effect of his interventions. 

2.5. The evaluation of the treatment plan and the ability to critically reflect on it

• The therapist is able to communicate results with the client and, if necessary, the referrer(s) and discuss the treatment.

• The therapist can report to third parties about clients where it is necessary. 

• The therapist can identify factors with the client that influence the stated request for help. 

• The therapist can implement and finalize the treatment plan and, on the basis of a critical reflection, adjust this plan if necessary. 

• The therapist is able to implement treatment plans in a qualitatively responsible manner.

3. Professional development

• The therapist is able to continuously develop his/her own professionalism, learning from new situations in relation to clients and the progress of treatment. He/she can reflect on her own professional actions and justify them towards others. 

• The therapist is able to systematically collect data on the professional practice, to investigate it and to translate the results into consequences for professional practice.

• The therapist is able to make relevant changes in society on an ethical level, to investigate aspects and scientific results and to evaluate the results thereof translate into the further development and legitimacy of the profession. 

• The therapist actively contributes to the development and profiling of the profession and is able to record his/her results in professional journals. 

• The therapist is able to contribute to the scientific foundation of the profession. 

4. Collaboration

• The therapist is able to establish professional relationships with colleagues, other healthcare professionals, governments and other organizations and to develop them further. 

• The therapist can work together in a network, interdisciplinary and personal, legitimizing professional action within this collaboration.

• A therapist may have conditions within the collaboration with other organizations necessary for the provision of therapeutic care.

5. Responsibility

• The therapist is able to account for his/her professional actions and their validity.

• The therapist is able to shape a system of quality assurance and where it is necessary to cooperate with others.

• The therapist is able to take responsibility for the results of his/her own work and own study.