In the Clinical Year this work is integrated with an understanding of professional practice. Supervision, ethics, self-regulation, confidentiality, case history and record keeping are topics which are treated as an integral part of the growth process. Students are expected to be in individual therapy and supervision throughout the training.

Each of years 1-3 is composed of ten residential weekends and one 5-day residential. Year 4 is composed of five 3-day meetings.

Eligibility: This course is intended for those who may not have prior professional training or client practice. Students must have completed the Foundation Course in Core Process Psychotherapy. Please refer to other requirements listed on the Application Form.

Dates, costs and application forms

In the first year of the training the basic skills and principles of Core Process Psychotherapy are reviewed and deepened. Skills which were introduced in the Foundation Course are expanded and widened. The emphasis of the first year is towards an appreciation of our process of embodiment. Buddhist Psychology is used as a frame of reference in this enquiry. The mutuality or co-arising nature of all things is emphasised in this exploration. During the first year prenatal and birth experience is explored as we enquire into the early shaping of our personality system. The early shaping of the 'skhandas', or personality factors, are perceived as dynamic patterns of condensed and conditioned experience. During this year, we explore our early experiences and the beliefs and life statements which arose from them. These are seen as dynamic patterns which underpin our own sense of self. An understanding of shock and trauma in the human system, and how to help safely process it, is an essential understanding in this exploration The Core Model of Personality is discussed and explored in relationship to the year's work.

In the second year of the training, this exploration is extended into early childhood experience and the formation of our character strategies and modes of action in the world. The defensive strategies which we needed to form in relationship to our experience are explored. Their expressions in our lives as responses to our experience is made an active and present enquiry. These are seen in the context of previous work and are understood as dynamic mind/body processes. Awareness of the rigidification of the 'skhandas', or personality factors, into a sense of self based on defended positions and strategies of survival is emphasised. An exploration of the tendency to split this sense of self into acceptable and unacceptable aspects and the resulting dichotomy between 'Persona' and 'Shadow' is an integral part of this enquiry. Psychological processes of transference, counter-transference and projection are seen in relationship to our character strategies and in the light of Buddhist Psychology. The Core Process model of group process is introduced in this year.

In the third year of the training the exploration shifts to the subtle realms of the symbolic and transpersonal. The realms of images, dreams and the symbolic are explored in relationship to existential and transpersonal aspects of our arising process. In this work the student will explore images and symbols through visualisation, feeling tones and transformative meditational processes. The main focus of the work will be on the subtle process of our embodiment of these undercurrents within our mind-body complex. Both western and eastern understandings of these transpersonal realms will be used as filters to explore this process. The Core Process model of group dynamics and psychotherapy is further explored in this year. In the third year students will be expected to commence client work under supervision.

In the fourth year of the training, the emphasis of the course is firmly in the direction of the therapist's role. Active supervision and case studies form the core of the year's work and the student is grounded in professional practice issues and case studies. The transition from student to therapist is the emphasis of the year. The content of the Professional Training is given in more detail in the following sections.

The ethos of the training values the individual integrity of the person and holds a deep trust in the healing of conflict and suffering through the practice of open hearted awareness. The understanding of life as an interdependent and interwoven process which is mutually co-arising forms the basis of group work and interpersonal process. The collective process of the group is seen to be the vehicle for this deepening awareness and the welfare of the individual is seen to be the collective responsibility of the group. Within this setting the exploration into the nature of consciousness becomes the main focus of the work. This is seen to be an inner journey which is manifest in the relationships within the training group itself. The inter-relatedness of all beings is the matrix through which we can view our personal experience and glimpse its mystery.

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Training Dates for 2008/9

Cost: Four Year Professional Training in Core Process Psychotherapy at Karuna starting in Sep 2008

Course fee: fee £21,000 (years 1-3) plus the Clinical Year at the amount applicable when joining (currently £2,940 for 2008/2009).

Payment: Following interview and offer a deposit of £3,250 guarantees your place.

For information on financial assistance to support your learning, please visit http://www.direct.gov.uk/adultlearning/

Download Application in PDF:
Application Pack NOTE: deadline date for applications is 1 Apr 2008

Interviews will take place in during the week of 19 - 23 May 2008

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Core Process Four-Year Training - MA
Pre-requisite: Foundation Course

This Professional Training in Core Process Psychotherapy combines depth mindfulness practice and joint enquiry with an embodied knowledge of the Core Process developmental model. This provides a psychospiritual ground for working in relationship. The principles and practice of Core Process Psychotherapy integrate Buddhist understanding and practice together with Western personality theory, creating a unique approach within the field of psychotherapy.

The first year deepens trainees’ embodied understanding of key contemplative practices in relationship introduced in the Foundation Course. This includes resourcing; establishing a relational field; embodiment and inner practices including depth mindfulness as a joint practice. Basic Buddhist principles and frameworks for accessing suffering and its cessation are taught, as the basis for moving into an introduction to the depth psychospiritual Core Process model of personality development. This focuses on the arising of our ‘Being’ nature from that core aspect of our experience which is unconditioned, and the subsequent subsequent emergence of self structures and strategies which serve to facilitate our contact with others and the world. This multi-layered and interdependent nature of our arising experience is explored through sustained attention and compassionate open-hearted enquiry. The entire year is held within the context of developing group coherency, and ethical grounds for practice.

A spiral model of learning is implemented throughout the Training so that in years two to four, key basic paradigms for enquiry are repeated in new contexts, providing the opportunity for trainees to deepen and extend their contemplative and cognitive learning. The focus on clinical practice progressively deepens, enabling trainees when ready to start taking clients in Year 3. A corresponding focus on developing spiritual ground and confidence enables trainees to orient to the deeper intentionality of Core process work which is to awaken to the truth through relationship. Year Two provides further opportunity for attending to the different levels of embodied experience within the relational field and for spiritual resourcing in relationship. Buddhist frameworks are taught for accessing impermanence and that shared respect of our nature which is intrinsically sane and empty of self-limiting constructs. This ground allows trainees to enquire into the ways in which our earliest wounding can occur in relationship, and for that to be contextualised by practising the deepening of personal connections to source and wellbeing.

Year Three is essentially the year in which trainees when ready start their own professional practice and input enables them to establish confidence working in both private and public sectors. Professional practice issues, relevant Public Health Acts and an emphasis on collegiate support provide an important ground for the new psychotherapist. Challenge is provided through enquiring into the meaning of de-pathologising mental illness and exploring the edges between spiritual emergence and emergency.

To enter Year Four, a clinical year, trainees are required to have attained a minimum number of client hours. Active supervision, practised using the Core Process Supervision Model, provides the basis for a learning process involving trainees, supervisors and tutors. Theoretical input is selected to meet the clinical practice needs of the group, and to provide key updates on nationally recognized models of good practice.

Each of the Years One to Three is composed of 25 days, currently organised as ten residential weekends and one five-day. The Clinical Year is composed currently of five three-day meetings.

Course requirements include individual psychotherapy with an accredited Core Process Psychotherapist throughout the Training until Accreditation, and Core Process Supervision from Year Three onwards. Written work includes essays, case studies and a Dissertation.
Dates, costs and application forms