Embodied-Relational Therapy (ERT)

Integrating Embodiment, Relationship and Social Justice

15-16 February 2025 – Exeter, Devon
Allison Priestman & Stephen Tame

Supporting you to explore working relationally with the embodied experience of being alive

What is Embodied-Relational Therapy? How do we work simultaneously – with our client’s embodiment, with our own, and with the relationship that arises between us?
How do we work with social inequality in embodied, relational ways?

Embodied-Relational Therapy training and practice has been developing for the past 25 years. Initiated by Nick Totton, it has been developed by the ERT training team, and all the clients, trainees and supervisees who meet it.
More recently, Stephen Tame and Allison Priestman have been integrating working more directly with embodied oppression, power and privilege in ERT.
On this experiential workshop, we will:
• Have a deep dive into ERT
• Support you to work with the embodied relationship between yourself and your client(s), to get mobile, breathing, sensing, and feeling – working directly as bodies in a therapeutic space together.
• Invite you to pay compassionate and curious attention to the embodied experiences of power, privilege, and oppression – exploring the reality that therapy has political and social dimensions.
• We encourage risk taking, within the safely held container of the workshop, to find the edges of your own process and related work – to experiment with new, embodied ways of working with clients.
This workshop is suitable for anyone working one to one in a therapeutic setting i.e. psychotherapists, counsellors, coaching practitioners, body/physical/massage therapists, homeopaths etc.
It is also a good taster for the Embodied-Relational Therapy Training starting in June 2025.

Cost: £240 – £120 Sliding scale -Please pay as much as you can afford, to help us keep workshops accessible for those on low income.
Venue: Exeter, Devon

Download the booking form here

Embodied-Relational Therapy

2 Year Modular Training 2025

Welcome,
This is an introduction to the 16th training in Embodied-Relational Therapy, beginning in June 2025, at the meeting place of relational, body, process, and social justice psychotherapy.

We are specifically aiming this training to appeal and be accessible to a wide range of practitioners, including practitioners from marginalised communities, who are currently underrepresented in this field of work. We are particularly interested in working with practitioners from BIPOC, LGBTQ+, neuro divergent, and disabled communities who wish to train in an embodied and relational approach.
We continue to undertake the work needed to become more inclusive in our work.

We are also particularly interested in hearing from practitioners who might like to join the training, then join us on the Training for Trainers modules. We hope we and you will be collectively inspired to co-create a new diverse ERT Training Collective.
We acknowledge that the current narrow base of lived experience of the training team, and of the field more generally, needs to widen, to meet the needs of trainees, and clients of trainees.
We also want to take some action towards redressing the simple injustice of the extra barriers faced by skilled and experienced practitioners from minoritised communities who wish to work as trainers in the field.

The History of ERT
Embodied-Relational Therapy (ERT) has its roots in Reichian body work, process approaches including Process work, psychodynamic psychotherapies including Hakomi, and earth centred spirituality. We acknowledge the influences and contributions of many traditions and practices from around the world, including, amongst others: Buddhism, Pagan spirituality, Daoism, American indigenous practices, communitarian anarchism, African spiritual thinking, Shamanic practices, Somatic Abolitionism, 5 Rhythms dance, Radix, person centered counselling…

Initiated by Nick Totton and Em Edmondson in the late 1980s, ERT has continued to develop through the contributions of past and present ERT trainers; Nick Totton, Allison Priestman, Emma Palmer (author of Meditating with Character), Stephen Tame and Jayne Johnson, and the community of ERT trainees and graduates, our own trainers, supervisors, supporters and clients, and the rich wider contributions of movers, thinkers, writers and feelers whom we continue to learn from…

At the core of Embodied-Relational Therapy is the study of our embodied relating to self, other and environment
Find out more about ERT here

The Approach of the Training
ERT is an experiential, residential based post-qualification training, which focuses on the trainee’s own work on their embodied relating with self and other, now and in the past, before encouraging them to apply this with their clients.
The theme of relationality runs through the whole course; listening to our own feelings and responses as a key part of how we work both in the training and with clients, witnessing how we are moved around and impacted by our clients, yet remaining able to reflect on our working relationships.

ERT in training and practice depends on deep contact; achieving this is a large part of the work and takes great courage for both client and therapist. The training offers a held space to explore how deep contact impacts us.
ERT offers a profound trust that whatever is trying to happen in someone’s life or in the wider world needs to happen.
Whatever needs to happen is already trying to happen, and the ERT approach in training and practice cultivates a playful and spontaneous response to whatever is trying to happen.
We see symptoms not as problems to be solved but as valuable stimulus to change.
We aim to support connection and integration between estranged aspects of ourselves, and between ourselves and the wider world – the earth, the sky, the wider communities of human and other-than-human. We therefore see this work as necessarily having social justice, political and spiritual dimensions. ERT values the wisdom and gifts of individual and group process, of the unspoken and unnamed, the peripheral and taboo.

There have been waves of development of ERT training…
Jayne, Stephen and Allison were all active in some integrating of eco-psychology and wild therapy ideas and practice, originating from Nick Totton’s work, (who draws on older traditions from around the world) into the training… Movement and touch have come more to the fore. More recently we have begun to explore more deeply and better understand how we integrate working with embodied experiences of oppression, power and privilege in the ERT training.

The ERT training brings together:
-Embodying the 4-stage ERT process
-Reichian character structure
– ERT metaskills
-Working with our embodied experience of social injustice

We draw on long standing traditions of connection, movement and stillness, proximity and distance, breath and tension, touch and body sensation, spontaneity, psychotherapy theory, wild therapy, and the impossibly complex & impossibly simple task of being human alongside other humans.

At the core of Embodied-Relational Therapy is the study of our embodied relating to self, other and environment. We will explore how our embodiment is shaped by this meeting with the other?
We seek to keep awake to rank, power, privilege and oppression – being curious and courageous about the intersections between our own experiences of oppression and privilege, and how they meet with our clients’ experiences of oppression and privilege.

ERT draws a great deal from other therapies, particularly those from the body psychotherapy traditions, and brings these ideas and techniques into a new synthesis with its own unique flavour and values. We describe this in terms of seven metaskills: Awareness, Trust, Contactfulness, Spontaneity, Spaciousness, Relaxation and Wild Mind.

ERT Training Process
This is a robust and established training, which has appealed to practitioners from many different therapeutic backgrounds. It is primarily experiential; theory arises out of practice, and no written work is required, although handouts are provided, as well as online-access to papers and chapters.

Great attention is paid to embodied group process, since we believe that the kind of learning we are looking for can only take place in a safe space, where concerns can be expressed, and behaviour challenged. We want participants to learn on an embodied level, which entails being open to profoundly stirring experiences.
Group process can play a significant part in this learning. We work to support the creation and emergence of a learning community on the course. This supports a greater depth of relating in a rich and at times challenging environment.

Who is this course for?
This is primarily a post-qualification course aimed at practitioners who have already gained a qualification in counselling, psychotherapy, or some form of relational bodywork.
We are particularly interested to work with practitioners from marginalised communities. We are keen to learn with and support those with lived experience of oppression who have for too long been excluded from becoming therapists and therapy trainers.
It is also sometimes used by people with considerable experience of therapy as a personal and/or professional development experience.
Exceptionally, we may accept someone who intends to use the training  to build on a related training which is not in psychotherapy or counselling, after exploring the issues this raises with them. Overall, this course is for people looking for support, nourishment, and challenge in their professional and personal lives.

ERT Qualification
The training is two years long, the second year requiring you to have completed the first.
Each year stands on its own, and you can undertake Year Two at any point.
If you complete the first year to the satisfaction of the trainers, (for more information, do ask us for the assessment handout) you will receive a Diploma in Embodied-Relational Therapy. On successful completion of the second year, you will receive an Advanced Diploma in Embodied-Relational Therapy and be entitled to call yourself an Embodied-Relational Therapist. You will also then be eligible to apply to join the 2 residential Training for Trainers course.

ERT Practitioners are also welcome to publicise their ERT work and events on the erthworks website and can also be included in our ERT mailouts.
The ERT Training is not externally accredited.

Course content and structure

ERT Diploma Training – Year One

The first-year training should equip you to use ERT in your existing practice, working more deeply with your own and your clients’ embodiment; especially if you have an ERT supervisor.

In 2025 the first year of the course consists of five 4-day residentials.

We will be following a spiral curriculum, integrating the ERT four-stage approach with the ERT character developmental model, whilst building capacity to work with embodied experiences of power and oppression. Our approach is to offer you experiences, experiments, and to build learning and theoretical models around these embodied experiences.

All counselling and psychotherapy takes place within a cultural and political context. We feel it’s important to acknowledge and work with this, so we will be paying attention from the beginning of the course onwards to embodied experiences of social injustice – exploring and working directly with issues of rank, privilege and discrimination.

We will, over the year, cover the Embodied-Relational Therapy 4 stage model:
Contact, Information Gathering, Amplification,and Integration
We also teach the ERT character developmental model across the year. This model derives originally from the work of Wilhelm Reich, and has been developed since that time, becoming an appreciative and dynamic approach, working with the denying, yearning and creative experiences in each position: – Boundary, Oral,Control, Holding, Thrusting and Crisis character positions.
These two models are integrated with each other as we explore them.

We also pay attention to respecting and building links with trainees’ prior models, whether they be person centered counselling, Chinese Medicine, yoga, psychodynamic psychotherapy etc.

Throughout the year we return to earlier learning topics , taking a spiral approach –  deepening and connecting the different strands of learning.

See the course information for a little more detail on the Year 1 curriculum

ERT Advanced Diploma Training – Year Two
Five 4-day residentials, (Dates TBA)

We support you to deepen your skills and confidence in working physically with clients, deepening your trust in your embodied-relational work. Explorations will be collaborative – building trust so that complex issues and vulnerable experiences can be explored.

The aim of the second year is to deepen the exploration of how to work with embodiment, relationship, social justice and wildness. Working to integrate the material from year one, particularly through group supervision and longer practice sessions. We will explore the body stage by stage, from head to foot, alongside this we will offer tools to work with embodiment in different channels, for example, movement, touch and breath-work. We will explore, in more depth, specific areas of oppression, for example; race, neurodiversity, disability and gender diversity.
The second year gives you the opportunity to embed the ERT approach into your work. If you successfully complete the second year, then you will become a member of the ERTA, which is both a referral network and an ongoing peer CPD space.
On the second year, a small number of ERT graduates are likely to join us for revision and training update, and to potentially join the training for trainers modules and help co-create the training collective. We are also looking at inviting ERT graduates to offer training sessions in particular areas of work. All will be expected to join the first residential of the advanced year, so that you get to meet everybody at the beginning of that year, therefore the first residential is likely to be a slightly larger group.

Training for trainers: (Dates TBA)
There will be a two-residential Training for Trainers at the end of year two – bringing together trainees from this and previous courses, building the foundations of a new robust and diverse ERT Training Collective. This is an exciting new project, and is likely to be more collaborative, and less training team led.

Practicalities
The first year comprises of five 4-night residentials – Thursday evening till Monday lunchtime.
Dates:
12-16 June 2025
11-15 September 2025
13-17 November 2025
15-19 January 2026
12-16 March 2026

ERT Trainers: The first year training facilitators will be Allison Priestman and Stephen Tame – the current ERT training team. We hope to include training sessions in the second year from ERTA members with specialist areas of interest.

Venue:
This year we will be basing the first year of this experiential residential training at Eden Rise Retreat Venue – consisting of two beautifully converted barns in the lovely Devon countryside near Totnes. The 200-year-old property has two large workspaces, a spacious kitchen/dining area, underfloor heating throughout the building, rear garden with large fire bowl and BBQ, enclosed courtyard garden with campfire, outdoor seating areas, and even a separate woodburning sauna facility! There is access to the adjoining land for walks and other outdoor meeting areas.
Depending on group size, some participants may sleep in bell tents on the land, or in a holiday flat nearby, during the residentials. (Camping or bringing a campervan to the venue are also options, should you wish). Our experience is that it is possible for trainees to have the right accommodation they need. Please contact us for information and support regarding access needs.

Food: We will be making our own meals from mainly organic vegetarian wholefood ingredients supplied. We have considerable experience in supporting trainees with restricted diets.

Course Cost:
For year one of the training the fee is offered on a sliding scale: £5000 to £3000 for the full year one course.
(The second year will cost a similar amount)

If this is unaffordable for you, then please contact us – we are keen to make the course accessible.
The fee will be based on your ability to pay. Please contact Stephen for a conversation about your payment for the training. We are committed to making the course as affordable as is possible.

Access needs: Please contact us if you have particular access needs we can support you with to attend the course. We are currently working on producing accurate venue accessibility information, and will post it on this page as soon as possible.

For more information: The first step if you are interested, is to read the information in the application documents below, then register your interest, and any questions or queries via our admin email.

We expect all applicants to have attended at least one workshop or webinar prior to entry onto the course, so that we can see you work and vice versa. We are offering various workshops and webinars in 2024/5 – details of these will be found on the erthworks events page at: www.erthworks.co.uk. We also recommend that you take a look at the individual websites of the ERT training team – details at the end of this document.

ERT Testimonials

“I found the training an open and welcoming space where multiple truths could be held with curiosity, warmth and gentleness.  Over the two years a space of belonging and real community emerged, unlike anything I have experienced elsewhere.”
More than the actual taught content of the training it was the way the training was held that I learned the most from.  I would describe it as playful, open, curious and deeply nourishing.”
Kimcha 2024

“I valued how Allison and Stephen embodied an integrity and a commitment to inquiry, mutuality and safety for all participants, particularly the  appreciation that the conditions for safety may be very different for different people. It created sufficient trust in the training for us to explore, down to the subtlest levels, how power, privilege and otherness show up in our bodies as we encounter each other in the world. I was able to explore, express and integrate aspects of my experience and identity that few other therapeutic spaces have been interested in or able to hold and tolerate. It has empowered me to work more freely with issues of power and justice in my practice.”
Susannah 2024

“The training was a magical experience for me. I felt we were really welcomed to come as we were, and unfold however we unfolded. It made playfulness, curiosity, getting it ‘wrong’, vulnerability, and so much more possible – an absolutely unique and transformative experience. I didn’t want it to end!”
Soph 2024

“I love the invitation to ‘be the therapist you are’ and explore what that can mean. To have the space to explore different channels and less familiar places and do it more! To get braver in our vulnerability and find a deeper trust in our innate ways of being to unfold.” 2021 Marianne

“I have finally found in ERT a training that will see my weaknesses as strengths to build on as a therapist.” 2021

“ERT has completed a cycle for me. ERT offers an unconditional team of trainers, who walk their talk and see the potential in their trainees from the first meeting. The ERT training has given me a significant piece of my jigsaw puzzle. ERT training has helped with the ground of my being, and with the relational aspects of my life.” Sue

“This course has personally been a deeply embedded release and introducing of non-verbal immanence I truly didn’t think I’d find. Not in an analytic, probing way, but a held way, always allowing whatever wants to happen, happen! Bringing this ‘way’ into my work with others lets me see new doorways in the body; and now all I want to do is knock and see who comes out to play. A huge bonus and necessity is that I have also found a group of supporting friends for life.” Rosie

The ERT Training Team

Allison Priestman, I am a cis gendered woman, living with and exploring both my disability and my ableism. I have been working as an Embodied-Relational Therapist for over 20 years. I’m continually being woken up, challenged and nourished by my contact with clients, supervisees and trainees.At this time of climate, diversity and equality crises, I’m interested in being part of a collective understanding of their interwoven causes, and part of a wider societal search for ways forward. www.allisonpriestman.co.uk

Stephen Tame
After many years of practice, I still love working as an ERT psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer, with humans young and old, in Bovey Tracey, Devon.
I have passion for contact, movement, humour, despair and aliveness. My core training in Embodied-Relational Therapy has been deepened and enhanced by various trainings since that time, most recently in Radix, and various trainings in anti-oppressive practice. Working with oppression has become alive in new ways for me in recent years – something to be more willing to be painfully close to, and my own privilege has become less an intellectual idea, and more an embodied experience to grapple with. A resonant question for me at this time is: What am I prepared to give up?  www.stephentame.co.uk

Application Documents
2025 ERT Course Info June 2025
2025 ERT Selection Process June 2025
2025 ERT Application Questions June 2025
2025 ERT Fee Document

For course admin inquiries or queries, or if you have difficulties downloading the application documents please email: trainersert@gmail.com

For queries about the training, contact Stephen or Allison:
stephentame@gmail.com   allisonpriestman@gmail.com