Prenatal/Birth/Attachment
Professional Training
Providing professional education for issues from preconception to early childhood, including the prenatal, birth and attachment periods.
The Professional Training prepares students to work with babies, children and their families in the resolution of early traumatic imprinting, thereby supporting secure attachment. It also prepares students to work with adults wanting to do their own healing from early family experiences.
Trainees come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and skills. They include craniosacral therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, nurses, medical doctors, doulas, midwives, childbirth educators lactation consultants, regular and special education teachers, occupational therapists, child/youth and adult counselors, preschool teachers, infant development specialists and child care providers.
This training is also suitable for people who want to do their own personal work in a safe, secure container that continues for two+years.
This training model was originally developed by Dr. Ray Castellino, and Myrna has continued to evolve the model. Myrna completed the Castellino Training, and assisted it twice. She has also studied extensively with Dr. William Emerson and other leaders in the field. Myrna has taught several trainings related to body/mind/spirit therapy throughout the past 20 years. She has completed teaching several successful prenatal/birth/attachment professional trainings in the USA and Canada. She has years of experience as a therapist in trauma resolution with individuals, families and groups.
Myrna brings this depth of experience to the training process and with it a wealth of up to date scientific information and evidence based research. She is a dynamic teacher, well organized, and graceful with the group process. The training time over the ten modules is divided approximately into one half experiential and one half cognitive learning.
Depending on the trainee's background, this training is a beginning preparation that will require supervised practice and participation as a trainee in the Strengthening Families program or similar program to practice independently.
If the student is already an experienced child/youth or adult therapist this training will develop the necessary expertise to provide prenatal/birth/attachment therapy for all ages of children and their families and /or adults.
This training is very useful to all professionals who work with families during pregnancy and the early years of children's life, and it will add depth and breadth to any current practice, including those that involve only adults. Myrna will outline the clinical practicum opportunities through the Strengthening Families program in the Training.
The Professional Training is a strength based model that will teach or enhance your skills in:
- creating therapeutic presence
- tracking somatic, energetic and biodynamic rhythms to assess and facilitate resolving prenatal/birth/attachment stress and trauma
- identification of your own prenatal and birth issues so you can use your own activations effectively and compassionately in the facilitator role
- relating the client's present experience, behavior and emotional states to prenatal/birth/attachment imprinting in function and structure
- recognizing prenatal/birth/attachment imprinting in the body language, body structure, movement, personality and character structure in babies, children, and adults
- developing the client's internal resources so they may effectively explore and resolve early traumatic imprinting
- facilitating infants, children and their parents in family sessions
- establishing and maintaining clear and effective therapeutic boundaries in the context of prenatal/birth/attachment therapy
- using therapeutic verbal, energetic and touch skills in the context of prenatal/ birth/attachment therapy
- using sandplay and art therapy in the context of prenatal/ birth/attachment therapy
- making contact with others from your own experience, and identifying and working with your own prenatal/birth/attachment patterns
- facilitating adults/parents in small group Birthing Your Self Process Workshops
- learning from the inside out
NOTE: This model does not involve ANY coercive verbal or holding interventions.
Current Professional Training started in October 2009 will be finished in February 2012.
Next Training will start January 2013 in Charlottesville, VA and Vancouver, BC. Please contact Myrna at myrna[at]myrnamartin.net to show interest and to receive more details.
Nelson Professional Training
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Dates |
| M5 September 23-27,2010 |
| M6 November 18-22, 2010 |
| M7 March 31- April 4, 2011 |
| M8 June 9-13, 2011 |
| M9 October 13-17, 2011 |
| M10 February 9-13, 2012 |
Application Forms
Application forms for professional trainings are available in both
Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats.
Components:
The training will be 10 modules of 5 days each spread over 2+ years, plus the additional requirements listed below.
- Four Process workshops:
At least 1 is required before application to the training program, more are recommended.
At least 2 to be taken after beginning the training.
At least 3 to be taken with Myrna Martin.
- 5 day Introduction to Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy or an Introduction in Somatic Experiencing or Somatic Trauma Resolution.
- Creative Home Projects between the training modules.
- The admission criteria can not be waived by either the school or the applicatant, because of PCTIA bylaws.
The Modules
Each training module covers a specific area of learning. The curriculum is designed to give you an overview of the work and to build specific therapeutic skills in a progressive and layered manner using didactic instruction and personal experiential exploration. Skills for facilitation of adults in small groups and families in infant/child-centered settings are emphasized throughout the training.
Module I and II
The Health Model: Establishing Safety Within and Without: focus is on building skills for grounding, tracking, supporting and resourcing self and others. Participants will be introduced to pre and preinatal psychology and attachment through the lifespan, and begin the process of learning safe, effective ways of early trauma resolution. We will build therapeutic verbal skills to support self and clients to resource and connect with the strengths/health that is present. This health model will emphasize developing the structure to support safe therapeutic regression whilst staying connected to adult resources so integration can occur. Participants will establish the skills of connection with healthy boundaries, differentiation, and somatic tracking of sensations and emotions. We will develop tools for working with belief systems, and energetic strengthening techniques. Tools for tracking disowned parts of the self and creating dialogue and integration of these aspects will be studied.
Module III
The Preconception and Conception Journey: covers the embryology and imprinting in this period and further develops the internal reference structure for prenatal/birth/attachment therapy. The skills introduced in this module orienting, tracking autonomic cycling and related fluid tide dynamics, modulating therapeutic pace, recognizing the therapeutic leading edge, and differentiating between trauma and shock imprinting.
Module IV
Attachment: covers the attachment process from early prenatal through post-birth time. The issues of connection and separation are primary themes. This module covers:
- The neurobiology and stages of attachment from preconception to age 2.
- How early imprinting affects future relationship formation, individual motivation patterns and somatic patterns.
- Prenatal implantation dynamics.
- Birth dynamics and newborn self-attachment behaviors.
- The baby's ability to attach to her mother emotionally and the establishment of healthy nursing patterns.
- Specific therapeutic protocols for resourcing, resolving and repatterning attachment trauma and establishing nursing with babies who are having difficulty with nursing.
- Child and parent attachment styles.
- Strategies to support secure attachment development and repatterning of disordered attachment in the early years.
- Adult attachment work.
Module V
Birth Imprinting: covers the vaginal birth process, birth stages, pelvic types, cranial molding, birth movement patterns and an introduction to infant craniopathy. It introduces tracking stage specific birth movement patterns. By the end of the module, students will describe their personal birth passage to a small peer group. The birth passage session will be videotaped and students will receive a copy for their personal studies.
Module VI
Chemical Imprinting: covers imprinting from anesthesia, induction drugs, nicotine, fetal alcohol and drug syndromes. We will look at the effects of chemical imprinting on prenates and babies' psyches, movement patterns, energy patterns and the development of the central nervous system. Specific protocols for resolving and repatterning of chemical imprinting are covered. Chemical imprinting affects the function of the craniosacral system. Students' understanding of the embryonic development of the central nervous system will be enhanced so that you can use your visualization, energetic sensing, craniosacral skills and bodywork skills to support the resolution of traumatic chemical imprinting.
Module VII
Surgical Imprinting: covers forceps, vacuum extraction, cesarean section and prenatal and infant surgery. Students will learn how to identify signature cranial molding patterns, movement patterns and psychological impacts of each birthing style. The cranial impacts of forceps and vacuum extraction as well as specific treatment protocols for each type of surgical intervention will be studied. We will explore the effect of these procedures on physical structure and on the expression of the body's energy and craniosacral systems.
Module VIII & IX
Double Binds: covers life/death/loss and other double bind imprints. Double bind imprints create the most complicated dynamics in the pre and perinatal field. Double binds amplify practitioner counter-transference issues and complications for facilitating groups and families. This subject matter is saved for the eighth and ninth Professional Training modules because the dynamics of these imprints provide the practitioner with the greatest counter-transference challenges in the prenatal/birth/attachment therapy field. The curricula of the first seven modules is designed to build the trainees' understanding, perception, presence and therapeutic skills so that they are more prepared to explore the effects of double binds in effective and compassionate ways.
Module VIII
Focuses on ancestral influences, twin dynamics and twin loss. Ancestral influences on individuation are explored to differentiate twin and ancestral imprinting. Twin embryonic and placental development are correlated with twin behavior later in life. Lost twin syndrome affects on singleton behavior is covered. Students will learn to identify twin psychological imprinting, the counter-transference/transference issues involved and twin dynamic therapeutic protocols. Breech birth presentation is covered in this module because a high percentage of breech presentations occur during twin births. Assisted reproductive technologies and their impacts are studied.
Module IX
Focuses on adoption, previous abortion and miscarriage, abortion attempts, traumatic impacts of death in the family during pregnancy, stillbirth and infant sibling loss and NICU experience. The skills for facilitating double bind dynamics are further developed and refined in this module.
Module X
Family and Group Dynamics is designed to transition the practitioner from foundation skill building into a model for family and small group practice. Module X covers:
- The structural components for a process session both with adults in a Process Workshop setting and with families in infant/child-centered family settings.
- Each trainee will give and receive a supervised process session in a small group setting.
Contact Myrna at myrna [at] myrnamartin.net if you need more information about the training modules.
"Myrna's Professional Training has been a huge blessing to me both personally and professionally. It has really 'connected the dots' for me in so many ways in my Craniosacral Therapy practice, especially in my work with pregnant women and small children. Myrna is a gifted and generous teacher, and her many years of experience in the Perinatal field really show in the depth and breadth of her training program."