ISITTA Trauma Training
ISITTA
Innate Somatic Intelligence™ Trauma Therapy Approach
Developed by Manuela Mischke-Reeds, LMFT
ISITTA training works from the inside out. Beginning with the innate wisdom of the trauma practitioner’s own nervous system, this unique training integrates trauma-informed somatic therapy techniques, psychobiological models of trauma in the body, ancient wisdom from Buddhist psychology and a strong focus on the inner development of the trauma practitioner to create a sustainable foundation for trauma healing work.
ISITTA’s mission is to enable the contemporary trauma practitioner to alleviate suffering in complex therapy environments with inspiration, adaptability and intention.
If you’re looking for in-depth transformation and new ways of working with trauma, ISITTA training will provide the inner and outer tool sets you need.
Upcoming ISITTA
Trainings & Workshops
Transforming your clients’ traumatic experiences isn’t just about savvy skills and known interventions. It requires a refined inner skill set for seeing deeply into your client’s suffering and trusting their innate somatic intelligence. These skills require a different kind of training.
Developed by Manuela Mischke-Reeds, a clinical therapist and international somatic psychology teacher with over 25 years’ experience with clients and students from diverse backgrounds, the Innate Somatic Intelligence™ Trauma Therapy Approach (ISITTA) is based on the belief that the inside-out transformation of the therapist is essential in supporting the client’s journey towards a whole and self-sustaining life. We must make the journey first so we can guide our clients safely and precisely into the vast reservoir that they hold in their bodies and hearts.
ISITTA acknowledges a number of influences, including Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychology, Somatic Experiencing, Internal Family Systems, Continuum Movement, Expressive arts, Buddhism and Taoism, embodied mindfulness and compassion practices and social justice and systems awareness.
ISITTA training is designed for therapists, healers, social workers, coaches and medical professionals who are willing to be changed in order to become more effective healers. This unique training requires a commitment to learning outside of your comfort zone and beyond your intellectual knowledge, and a willingness to delve into the mysteries of the body’s healing powers.
Because contemporary helping professionals face the complexities of multiple, intertwined traumas, we need to train differently. It’s no longer enough to just learn skills; we need to become a different kind of practitioner, one that’s unafraid to sit with suffering in a deep and compassionate way. We need to become trauma change catalysts who can see beyond the stigma of trauma and support growth in our clients and the sacredness of their life journeys.
We can’t fix past traumas for our clients, but we can learn how to respond to their longing for wholeness with wisdom, skill and heart. We can support their nervous systems to regulate and help them to trust that their trauma story has deep purpose. We can learn how to ground ourselves in kind heartedness and work with our clients’ traumatic experiences as our own triggering arises. This new way of helping transcends the old paradigm of healing and delivers precise and effective tools for self-healing and transformation. ISITTA training provides a clear pathway to becoming this kind of healer.
Guiding clients through trauma processes also requires a fluid and resilient nervous system. The adaptive practitioner commits to healing their own nervous system, and uses their nervous system’s resilience to support clients towards health and new ways of being. In this training, you’ll focus on learning “from the soma up” to deepen both your cognitive and somatic understanding. In other words, you won’t just learn techniques and practices for healing trauma–you’ll learn to embody them.
Being a somatically intelligent practitioner also means understanding the current sociopolitical and societal challenges that we’re collectively facing. We need to understand not just our client’s personal trauma, but how it intersects with intergenerational and collective trauma in a society that’s rapidly changing and evolving. We will explore who we need to become to facilitate health and wellbeing in this climate of dramatic change; this requires a new mindset that can help heal deep fractures in communities, societies and in the relational realms.
In ISITTA training, you’ll learn how to work with a variety of different traumas, including relational and developmental trauma, physical trauma, and collective and systemic trauma.
You’ll come away from this training with an evidence-based clinical skill set and trauma-informed somatic techniques for self-regulation.
To honor and support the neurodiversity of the learners in this training, we’ll learn through a variety of activities, including experiential guided group practice, somatic practices, movement, small practice groups, short lectures and discussions. Because of the somatic and experiential nature of this training, participants will need to be comfortable learning through movement, breath, safe, boundaried touch and mindful interpersonal exploration.
