Although mentalization is a psychodynamic concept closely linked to cognitive processes, its embodied foundations have recently received more attention. It has become clear that the roots of mentalization can be traced back to the stratum of affectively charged physical interactions in early attachment relationships, which Reich conceptualized in terms of character structure.

In psychotherapy, body-oriented interventions often provide an opportunity to address these early experiences and greatly improve mentalization capacity. This workshop aims to delineate how certain types of somatic techniques can enhance the correction of different stages of mentalization deficits.

Marton Szemerey holds M.A. degrees in psychology, Japanese studies, and English language and literature. While working as a university lecturer, he is a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology. His research interests include individual and collective trauma, and the psychological, philosophical and religious aspects of embodiment. He completed training in Biosystemic Psychotherapy and in Core Energetics (ICD).

Marton is a trainer and supervisor in body psychotherapy, in addition to delivering lectures on the general theory of body psychotherapy and the body-oriented approaches of Wilhelm Reich, Sandor Ferenczi, and others. He currently serves as the president of the Hungarian Association for Body Psychotherapy, a role he has held since 2019. He has been co-chair of the EABP Forum of Body Psychotherapy Organizations since 2022. He is a psychodrama therapist and licensed Shiatsu practitioner, with extensive training experience in other modalities of psychotherapy.

Quality of sleeping is a fundamental component of recovery, well-being, resilience, and physical health. This is the topic that has both: its relevant reasons for discovery and is in high demand today. At this workshop we will:

• Review and strengthen the sleep hygiene principles.
• Examine what causes sleep disorders.
• Explore what prevents us from falling asleep and what factors affect sleep quality.
• Analyze how stress impacts sleeping processes and discuss practical coping strategies.
• Practice 5 specific techniques to improve sleeping.

Iryna Kobykhno: Practical psychologist. Body-oriented psychotherapist. Hakomi practitioner. Supervisor. Member of the EABP. Co-founder of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Body-Oriented Psychotherapists. Author and facilitator of a training programme in body-oriented psychotherapy and therapeutic groups. Author of books on body-oriented psychotherapy. Founder of the School of Body-Oriented Psychotherapy “Tryiednist” (Triunity).

Transformational Breath® is a gentle yet powerful tool for embodied breathing and nervous system regulation. A range of simple guidelines can empower the individual to master their own breath in times of heightened stress or challenge, and at the same time provide enhanced oxygenation and detoxification of the body for optimal health.

Benefits can be experienced physically, mentally, emotionally and at the level of our deepest soul being… empowering us to navigate this life we are living in these times.

In this workshop, participants will learn about habitual and sub-optimal breathing patterns and how they influence our strategies for dealing with life, personally, socially and professionally, often limiting our aliveness, general health, confidence, focus and social interractions.

By reclaiming a full and flowing diaphragmatic breath our body can quickly move out of Sympathetic “fight/flight” and enter a Parasympathetic pathway of “rest/digest” as well as regaining self-assurance and easier social interactions.

Workshop Format:

• Short Introductory Talk
• Breathing Analysis Demonstration
• Guided Breathing Practice
• Sharing
• Take-Away Tips

Claire & Michael Blake run HeartSpace Sanctuary in Wexford, Ireland. They are Certified Senior Trainers & Facilitators of Transformational Breath® with many years of experience both in Ireland and abroad. They offer individual sessions in breathwork as well as retreats and trainings both in-person and online. They prioritise safety with their presence and compassionate approach respecting the pace at which their clients work.

Mary O’Dwyer lives in Cork and is the founder of The Breath Of New Life and a certified Transformational Breath® Facilitator, meditation teacher, and energy healer with over 10 years of experience. She has worked with thousands of clients, supporting deep emotional release, nervous system regulation, and personal transformation through breathwork and holistic practices. Mary has facilitated workshops and sessions around the world, including in Ireland, California, and Bali. With a background in science and a heart-centered approach, she bridges evidence-based understanding with intuitive healing to create safe, impactful experiences.

​DoA has five main streams of influence: Neo-Reichian Body Psychotherapy; Five Rhythms dance; Authentic Movement; Dance Movement Psychotherapy; and the experiential exploration of Awareness itself.

The DoA cycle – sensing, grounding, expressing, releasing, connecting and completing – follows an energetic wave, charging and discharging over the course of a session. The phases of the cycle follow themes of character development from pre-birth through to around five years. This is the time period associated with the growing sense of self which becomes embodied through early experience, and which sets the patterns for adulthood. Movers have the opportunity to re-experience their formative years somatically, exploring old imprints and discovering new patterns of moving and relating.

DoA has been growing since 2003, and is based on our experience gained through over 2000 hours of DoA classes, groups, workshops and trainings. Trained practitioners now offer DoA across the UK and beyond. The workshop will include a presentation of the theory and structures which underpin DoA, and an experiential introduction to the DoA cycle. You will get to dance!

Clare Osbond is a body psychotherapist, workshop and group facilitator and trainer. She has a body psychotherapy practice in South Devon, UK. Clare has an MA in Dance Movement Psychotherapy from Roehampton University and is also qualified in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy with the Institute of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. She is an accredited facilitator in The BodyMind Approach with Pathways2Wellbeing and has a certificate in Deep Bodywork with the Entelia Institute. She is a full member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy. Previously she was a full member of the Association of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMP UK) for nearly twelve years.

Tim Brown is a body psychotherapist, workshop and group facilitator and trainer. He worked as an environmental scientist and campaigner on pollution and energy issues for many years, whilst becoming increasingly involved in personal growth work. He has a body psychotherapy practice in Ashburton, Devon, UK. Tim has a Diploma in Deep Bodywork from the Entelia Institute, is certified by the International Center for Release and Integration (ICRI) as a Postural Integrator, and has an ICRI Diploma in Advanced Somatic Integration. He has also trained in Authentic Movement with the Institute for Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy, and has an Advanced Diploma in Embodied-Relational Therapy. He is a full member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy, and was an Associate Hospital Manager for mental health services in Sussex. He is author of ‘Bodylistening – a practical approach to body psychotherapy’ (PCCS Books).

Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy™ (DSP), is a phenomenological approach to Gestalt therapy which recognizes the lived body as the foundation of our psychological functioning and an essential component of our intelligence.

This interactive workshop explores the kinetic-kinesthetic and aesthetic phenomena that guide our interactions and are the foundation of all contact. Kinetic engagement with one’s own body – and the bodies of others – can simultaneously make us aware of our own basic fragility, our interconnectedness, and our power to shape ourselves and our lives.

In this way each can participate in re-shaping themselves and the world with, and through, each other.

Jennifer Bury studied Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy™ (DSP) with Dr. Ruella Frank and is a Certified DSP™ Teacher and Supervisor at the Center for Somatic Studies. She is adjunct faculty at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and a somatic therapist with 40+ years of experience in private practice, leading group trainings and facilitating study/supervision groups.

She works online and in person, in the U.S. and internationally. In addition to her gestalt and somatic training, her background includes a BFA in Dance from NYU, performing internationally with her dance company, as well as studies in pre-med, neurology, kinesiology, martial arts, and numerous somatic methods.

This progressive model emphasizes the importance of attention and awareness in the emergence of subjectivity between the self and the other. It presents a new perspective that fosters mutual co-creation in treating the whole person. This model uses a comprehensive methodology for integrating a wide range of interventions into a style that suits each person’s identity and the unique personality of the evolving therapist.

This new approach enables us to experiment with, discriminate between, and assimilate ideas that enrich the ever-evolving approach to modernizing psychotherapy and bring new beauty to a world struggling with suffering and its sense of identity.

This workshop will include clinical demonstrations, group Somatic practices, and Mindfulness Meditation Methods, as well as clinical theory using PowerPoint slides and group discussion. Participants will learn new clinical skills that integrate Somatic Experiencing, Mindfulness, and Core Creativity practices with traditional therapies.

It will use the modalities of Somatic body-centered psychotherapy and relational dialogical approaches, emphasizing mindfulness-based and core creativity practices for accessing the somatic “core-self” to develop clinical skills and deepen the participant’s own healing process.

Participants will also learn to navigate complex issues of somatic transference and counter-transference that arise in the relational dialogue and the intersubjective field. With these tools, clinicians will become more creative and resourceful when treating body symptoms, trauma, pain, and mood / somatic disorders.

Ronald A. Alexander, PhD, MFT, SEP (Somatic Experiencing Practitioner) is a psychotherapist, leadership coach, and international trainer in the fields of Mindfulness Meditation, Core Creativity, Gestalt Therapy, Ericksonian Mind-Body Therapies, and Somatic Experiencing. He is the Executive Director of the OpenMind® Training Program, which offers personal and professional training programs in mindfulness-based mind-body therapies, transformational leadership, and meditation for over forty years.

As a lay Zen Buddhist practitioner, he specializes in utilizing mindfulness meditation in his professional and corporate work to help people access the mind states that open the portal to their core creativity. He is the author of ‘Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self’, a practical and engaging guide to achieving clarity and profound transformation in one’s life, and ‘Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change.’

The work is grounded in my professional experience with children, military veterans, refugees, civilians, and psychologists working in crisis and war-affected environments — including ongoing work in war-time Ukraine — as well as in lived personal encounters where the body became a bridge beyond fear, history, and polarization.

A central part of the workshop weaves together personal experience and professional practice. I share a deeply personal story of meeting a man whose cultural background and national history stood in direct opposition to my own at a time when our countries were officially enemies. We came from different worlds, shaped by different histories, narratives, and collective wounds.

Alongside this personal story, I also bring professional stories from my clinical and training work with people from different cultures and conflict-affected contexts — including children, veterans, and professionals. These stories show how Bodynamic is used in real situations: not to erase differences or force agreement, but to create enough safety in the body for contact and relationship to become possible.

In the workshop, these stories serve as entry points, not conclusions. Through them, I demonstrate how to read the body — posture, breath, muscular tension, collapse, and defensive patterns — and how to meet what is present with grounding, boundaries, and relational presence. From this embodied place, people can begin to experience one another not as positions or identities, but as human beings shaped by survival, history, and a longing for connection.

The workshop combines experiential bodywork, guided movement, dialogue, storytelling, and visual teaching. Key concepts, body patterns, and ego functions are supported through clear PowerPoint visuals, helping participants orient, integrate, and connect theory with lived bodily experience — without taking focus away from embodiment and practice.

Together, we explore how the body holds fundamental polarities: connection and protection, openness and defense, closeness and distance, past and present. Through somatic awareness, these polarities can be held without overwhelm, collapse, or escalation — allowing people to stay present with themselves and with others, even when emotions or histories are intense.

The work is grounded in Bodynamic’s five basic ego functions: Grounding, Centering, Boundaries, Energy Management, and Connectedness. Throughout the workshop, participants will explore concrete body-based exercises related to each of these functions. These simple yet precise practices support regulation, stability, clarity, and contact, and are adapted to the group and context.

Participants engage in storytelling, somatic reflection, guided movement, body exercises, and visual learning, and will learn to:

• Regulate their nervous system in moments of intensity
• Strengthen the observing ego under stress
• Recognize embodied defense patterns in themselves and others
• Support reconnection without forcing closeness or agreement

The focus of the workshop is not agreement, but reconnection — how people can come closer again across cultural differences, political tension, and personal pain, and how polarization can soften when the body feels safe enough for contact. “Coming closer does not require agreement. It requires a body that can stay present, grounded, and open — without losing itself.”

Hadi Bahlawan Marcher is the CEO of Bodynamic International, a certified Bodynamic therapist and trainer, and the grandson of Bodynamic’s founder, Lisbeth Marcher. As a third-generation representative of the Bodynamic lineage, he carries both a deep personal inheritance and an active responsibility for the method’s ongoing development. With heritage bridging Danish and Lebanese roots, Hadi brings a lived understanding of polarity, identity, and belonging into his work.

He teaches across all levels of Bodynamic education, including Foundation, Shock, Trauma, and PTSD programs, and has extensive experience working with children, refugees, military veterans, individuals on the autism spectrum, and professionals operating in crisis and post-conflict environments. Hadi has worked internationally — including serving as a lead trainer in Ukraine during wartime — and has co-trained extensively with senior Bodynamic trainer Ditte Marcher across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He is also the co-author of Self-Care for the Caretakers, written together with his wife — a practical and compassionate book supporting therapists, aid workers, and caregivers facing emotional exhaustion and burnout.

Free Book for the First 30 Participants: The first 30 attendees will receive a free copy of ‘Self-Care for the Caretakers’, co-authored by Hadi and his wife. This practical and inspiring resource includes:
15 body-based self-care exercises; Real stories from therapists and caregivers in the field;
Reflections on burnout, boundaries, dignity, and emotional sustainability.

In this context, new perspectives on the interactional imprints of violent transgressions on children and adults are especially significant. The treatment model incorporates new concepts of embodied learning and different models for externalising internal and external processes – using body language and intuition.

The focus will subsequently be on three case studies that illustrate the application of body-oriented analytical treatment steps. This approach is thoroughly documented and evidenced with photographs and appropriately indicated. The talk will close with a Q&A session where participants are invited to discuss the therapeutic approach or bring their own deductions.

Dr. Ralf Vogt is a psycho-traumatologist and body-oriented psychoanalyst for individual and group psychotherapy in private practice. Dr Vogt has eight years of clinical experience in acute psychiatry and is also an analytical body psychotherapist, systemic family therapist and practitioner of imaginative psychotherapy and has been working with complexly traumatised/dissociative patients for over 25 years.

Together with his wife Irina they developed their own treatment program for dissociative psycho-traumatic disorders from 2000. (SPIM-20-KT, later SPIM 30). In 2002 they founded the Trauma Institute Leipzig as a training and research centre. Additionally, they work as lecturers in psycho-trauma in other national and international institutes. Ralf has been teaching their SPIM 30 training programme to prospective psycho-trauma therapists and psycho-trauma counsellors for many years.

At times, the inevitable power differential between therapist and client serves as a backdrop for these tensions. This workshop presents a clinically grounded approach to attending to equality and diversity through the framework of Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy.

Through mindfulness at the body/mind interface, we will see how social location and lived marginalization are embodied experiences. Participants will learn how to cultivate a therapeutic stance of safety and curiosity – inspired by Hakomi Loving Presence – that enables clients to reveal and rework limiting cognitive, emotional, and somatic patterns rooted in social injustice.

Through theoretical exposition and experiential activities, attendees will gain practical tools to:

• Recognize and name indicators of social marginalization in clinical situations
• Engage clients’ social wounding with curiosity and warmth
• Foster reparative relational encounters that honor differences while promoting agency and empowerment

Participation in this workshop is encouraged for therapists and trainees interested in enhancing culturally attuned somatic practices and in improving their ability to respond effectively and ethically to the complex interplay between body, identity, and social context.

Valentina Iadeluca: Certified Hakomi therapist and teacher with 15 years of experience in psychotherapy, specializing in somatic approaches, mindfulness, and sexuality. She holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology and has completed extensive training, including a 4-year program in CBT and third-wave modalities (MBSR, MBCT, ACT, CFT, DBT), as well as EMDR.

Currently based in Rome and Munich, she runs a private practice while teaching at the Hakomi Institute of Mallorca, where she also serves as Executive Co-Director. Valentina is a published author, co-authoring multiple books focused on mindfulness and personal growth. With a rich background in music and movement, she creatively integrates her diverse experiences to foster healing and connection in her clients.