Functional Analysis Somatic Psychotherapy Australia
A Three-Year Training Program
Functional Analysis Somatic Psychotherapy training is a three-year advanced experiential program for therapists-in-training and established professionals in human-centred professions who want to work beyond cognitive insight and engage with the deeper embodied processes of healing.
The training offers a comprehensive, unified clinical model for therapists seeking to expand their clinical capacity and work safely and ethically with physical touch, connective tissue work, verbal intervention, breath, movement, energetic functioning, unconscious bodily processes, and trauma.
The training provides psychotherapists with the theoretical understanding and practical skills needed to work with the person at physical, emotional, and cognitive levels, recognising the person as an indivisible whole.
Structure of the Training
- The experiential nature of the training requires both face-to-face and online participation.
- The weekend modules, held in Melbourne, are spaced approximately eight weeks apart, allowing time for reflection and integration between modules. Each module is accompanied by a set of readings.
- The training also includes a three-day residential intensive in Melbourne.
- Each module includes the teaching and practice of the Points & Positions touch technique, together with verbal techniques.
- In each module, two students undertake a live individual session facilitated by the tutors and witnessed by the group. These sessions are followed by reflection and discussion among tutors and students as part of a group process, supporting the integration of theory and embodied learning.
- Following each module, students complete a written assignment, assessed by the tutors, that considers the module’s clinical theory and the student’s personal experiential process.
- Group practice. Between modules, students review and practise the physical and verbal skills in group sessions, including both tutor-supervised and peer-led practice. The peer-led sessions include a structured reflection paper assessed by the tutors.
- After completing all requirements, students submit a case study essay as a final assessment
Training Prerequisite
Applicants will be required to hold a qualification in a field such as counselling, psychotherapy, psychology, psychiatry, creative arts therapies, or social work. Other relevant tertiary qualifications, including those in Indigenous healing practices and pastoral care, will also be considered.
Admission Procedure
Applicants begin by submitting an Expression of Interest form.
If you are unsure whether you meet the entry requirements, you are welcome to speak with one of the Directors of Training.
The next step is to attend a one-day introductory workshop. This allows applicants to experience the approach, reflect on whether it resonates with their way of working, and provides an opportunity for us to assess whether the training is the right fit.
Assessment and Evaluation
Assessment is an ongoing developmental process that evaluates each student’s integration of learning. Throughout the training, the Directors of Training meet regularly with each student to reflect on their development and support the integration of theory with embodied experience.
Completion of program
After completing the modules, students may fulfil the remaining requirements of the training at a pace that reflects their individual process and readiness.
The 15 Modules
Foundational Level
The Foundational Level develops a solid understanding of the core principles and practical applications of Functional Analysis SomaticPsychotherapy
Module 1.Physical Touch: An Essential Language in Psychotherapy
.In psychotherapy, especially in trauma work, words and cognitive insight can only take people so far. Healing requires presence, contact and embodied experience. Understanding is not enough.
Physical touch is the first language of human contact. Touch is the first sense to develop and the first mode of human communication, as well as a fundamental human need. Before words, before cognition, before interpretation, there is contact. Through touch, the body recognises safety, threat, and connection.
Yet, in psychotherapy, touch is often avoided, feared, or excluded altogether, in the name of safety, ethics and professionalism.
When this language is absent, something essential in the therapeutic process is lost.
The absence of touch or the experience of invasive or abusive touch leaves deep physical, emotional, and psychological wounds. The body holds these experiences, beyond words, beyond conscious awareness.
If trauma is held in the body, healing must also involve the body.
Integrating safe, attuned touch in psychotherapy allows clients to reconnect with themselves, to rebuild a sense of safety and self-trust, and to restore the organism’s capacity for internal organisation and self-regulation.
In Functional Analysis, touch is never invasive and never imposed. It is a listening contact. It follows the client’s inner rhythm. It is ethical, relational, and grounded in deep respect for the person.
This module combines theoretical understanding with direct experiential learning. Trainees will develop core competencies in the use of therapeutic touch and learn how to apply it ethically, sensitively, and effectively.
The initial “Points & Positions” *, a gentle and non-invasive touch technique working through the connective tissues of the body, will be introduced and practised.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 1, 2, and 4.)
Module 2. The Human Matrix: Connective Tissue
This module introduces in somatic psychotherapy the pivotal role of the connective tissue. Human beings function as unified, interconnected systems and connective tissue provides the foundation for understanding the interconnectedness of the body and the bottom-up process. The knowledge of its structure and function is the underlying basis to understanding human development and functioning.
Connective tissue is responsible for forming individual structures, providing space, shape, and contour, and facilitating the reception, transmission and amplification of of bioenergetic signals, such as electrical, magnetic, luminescent, acoustic, and thermal signals.
During the construction of the protective somatic and psychological defences, connective tissue undergoes tightening, thickening, and contracting, holding the physical and emotional stress.
Emotional and psychological states affect connective tissues and vice versa.
This module covers the anatomy, physiology and functions of connective tissue, as well as their role in forming the character structures defences. It includes a case study on the relationship between connective tissue and character structures.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2.)
Module 3. Verbal work Interventions
We are language creatures, and psychotherapy has long been known as “the talking cure”. Yet, psychotherapists often receive little formal training in specialised and differentiated verbal techniques.
Effective verbal work involves much more than talking with clients.
The verbal interventions used in Functional Analysis differ significantly from traditional talk therapy, focusing on “how” rather than “what” is being communicated, emphasising self-experience and energetic dynamics within an individual rather than the content of their words.
Verbal work is an exploratory process intended to evoke an experience, rather than develop a conceptual understanding.
This module provides guidelines for and practical exercises of 10 distinct verbal interventions: a unique fusion from Rogers, Gestalt and Focusing verbal techniques.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 4.)
Module 4. Energy concepts and working energetically in psychotherapy
An energetic model is essential for delivering effective psychotherapy.
Without a process-based understanding, psychotherapy remains limited to compensation, adaptation, compromise and cognitive reasoning.
There’s an inherent force within the living organism, just as in all of nature.
Energy is always moving, circulating, or pulsing throughout the body, manifesting in physical, emotional and psychological forms. Nothing happens without some form of energy.
For change to occur something must actually move within the individual.
Life energy has not been scientifically validated, but its existence cannot be denied, as it can be demonstrated and more importantly experienced, felt and worked with in a clinical setting.
This module will explore 22 characteristics and functions of energy identified by the Austrian Psychoanalyst, Wilhem Reich, and how modern physics and biology are now providing a scientific framework for understanding these concepts from an interdisciplinary perspective.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domain: 2.)
Module 5. Self-to-Self-relationship and the Endo-Self
In psychotherapy, many theories of self-development, which will be examined in this module, place primary emphasis on the role of the “other” in shaping the self.
Emerging research highlights the infant’s inherent capacity for self-initiation and self-regulation, pointing to the presence of an organising core within the individual. In Functional Analysis, this core-self, referred to as the Endo-Self, is understood as the primary organising agent of experience. The Endo-Self’s relationship with the “other” can support or disrupt development, but it is not the source of the self.
From this perspective, the most fundamental relationship is not between self and other, but the relationship of the self with itself.
This module introduces a significant reorientation in psychotherapy towards an endogenous model of the self. An overemphasis on the “other” can lead to an inflated role for the psychotherapist. While the therapeutic relationship remains important, its function is redefined: not as the source of internal organisation, but as a context that facilitates the individual’s inherent regulatory capacities.
This framework supports a shift from externally determined processes towards a self-directed, self-organising approach to healing and health.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 5.)
Module 6. Working with the In-stroke
Numerous therapeutic practices emphasise expansive movements and the outward release of emotions. This module introduces the concept of the “in-stroke.”
The in-stroke is an inward pulsation, a subtle internal movement that directs energy and consciousness back towards the core, the center of the body.
The in-stroke involves physical and emotional attunement to inner rhythms, allowing individuals to safely experience their deeper feelings without immediately discharging them outwardly.
This process of gathering, emotional containment, and internal awareness encourages individuals to return to the present, fostering a more gradual, stable, and grounded experience and provides a safer space for the integration of traumas.
Through a detailed exposition of in-stroke theory, this module aims to clarify the distinctions and therapeutic advantages associated with working within this approach.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 4.)
Module 7. The Ocular segment
Vision is not just a mechanical function. The eyes do not passively receive visual data; perception is shaped by subjective experience. We do not simply see objects; we interpret them.
Past experiences, particularly those that remain unconscious, influence how we perceive ourselves, others, and the world in the present moment.
The ocular segment, as defined by W. Reich in the 1940s, represents the earliest stage of physical and emotional development in the infant. As the research of Beebe, Stern, Kandel, and others has shown, the eyes, along with touch, are the first channels through which a child forms emotional connections with caregivers and the environment.
Early experiences of trauma, emotional neglect, or inconsistency can lead to disruptions within the ocular segment. These may manifest as distortions in perception and information processing, difficulties in trust and relational contact, misinterpretation of social and emotional cues and a sense of disconnection from self and others.
In this module, trainees will explore the clinical relevance of the ocular segment and, through specific eye exercises, directly experience how ocular patterns organise perception and determine the quality of contact with self and others.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 4.)
Module 8. The pulsatory process
In the human organism, fundamental functions operate as pulsatory processes: the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the digestive tract, the systolic and diastolic movements of the heart, inhalation and exhalation in respiration, cycles of sleep and wakefulness, charge and release in sexuality, and the continuous movement from self to other and back to self.
Distressing and traumatic experiences disrupt these natural rhythms, reducing their range, depth, and flexibility.
In this module, the work focuses on breath, sound, and movement as key pathways for restoring the organism’s natural pulsatory functioning.
During the inward phase (in-stroke), connected breathing fosters internal awareness, containment, and access to deeper states of experience.
During the outward phase (out-stroke), the focus shifts to vocal expression and the quality of movement as expressions of the individual’s internal experience.
Through experiential practice, trainees will learn to work with both the inward (centring) and outward (expressive) phases of pulsation, supporting the restoration of the organism’s natural rhythm and capacity for self-regulation. (Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 4.)
The Points & Position touch-technique is demonstrated and practiced in each module
Advanced Level
The Advanced Level builds upon these foundations through more specialised clinical applications, advanced therapeutic interventions and the refinement of clinical skills.
Module 9. Understanding Defensive Organisations: Character Structures and Body Reading
Defences serve a vital function: they protect the core self from harm, overwhelm, and emotional pain. Defences provide important information about where the person has been forced to live. They form an interconnected process; they are not only psychological, relational, and emotional patterns, but are also structured and embedded in the body.
This module looks at how defensive patterns can be understood through character structures. It will examine their developmental origins, their physical and energetic organisation, and their emotional and psychological correlates.
The module also introduces and practises body reading as an important, non-invasive assessment tool. The body can reveal aspects of a person’s history and defensive organisation that may not be accessible through words alone.
Finally, through real-time individual sessions, participants will experience and observe how to work with defensive adaptations with respect and curiosity, so that the person’s core essence, held beneath them, can emerge.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, and 3.)
Module 10. The Functional Model: The Unity of Physical, Emotional and Psychological Functioning
This module explores the core mechanisms underlying human functioning.
At the centre of the Functional Model is the recognition of a vital life force that organises and sustains human functioning throughout life.
The human being is understood as a unified self-organising system, in which physical, emotional, and cognitive dimensions are inseparably interconnected; different expressions of a single process that functions and moves according to the same principles.
Health is characterised by the fluid movement of this life-sustaining energy, while illness and disorder are understood as disruptions, blockages of this vital pulsatory rhythm.
Working within this paradigm requires engaging with the whole person, rather than fragmenting experience into separate parts, as occurs in the biomedical model. Psychotherapeutic work takes place at this unitary level of functioning, somatic, emotional, and cognitive, by reconnecting with the body’s inherent rhythms and processes.
Understanding the Functional Model as a framework for clinical practice has significant implications for psychotherapeutic interventions and for assessment.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 2, 3, and 4.)
Module 11. A Developmental Paradigm for Early Disturbances and Trauma
The response of each individual to identical traumatic experiences varies according to the developmental stage and the personal history.
This module emphasises the importance of distinguishing early versus later developmental trauma.
Traumatic experiences sustained during early development, when muscles, brain and cognition are still forming, result in more primal, and deeply rooted pre-verbal defences. At this early stage, there is no muscular or cognitive response to trauma and disturbances, leading to a disruption of primary development.
These defensive contractions become deeply embedded within the enteric and autonomic nervous systems, internal organs, and the plasmatic/connective tissue system. They are often seen in individuals with schizoid, oral and borderline character structures.
Understanding these distinctions has direct clinical implications.
Psychotherapeutic work must be carefully tailored to the individual’s developmental level of organisation and capacity for regulation.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains:1, 2, 3 and 4.)
Module 12. Working with Trauma Without Reliving It
This module addresses two essential principles for establishing safety and effectiveness in trauma work.
The first focuses on reconnecting with and strengthening the Endo-Self.
Effective trauma work does not require the re-experiencing or repeated revisiting of traumatic events. In Functional Analysis, the therapeutic focus is directed towards reconnecting with the “undamaged” Endo-Self, the core aspect of the person that precedes trauma and remains intact.
The second principle concerns the specialised capacities required of the psychotherapist.
Trauma work demands a high level of attunement, sensitivity, and responsiveness to both verbal and non-verbal communication. Interventions must be carefully paced to match the client’s readiness, without pushing beyond their current capacity.
Trauma lives in the body. In this approach, healing occurs as trauma is metabolised and integrated at a bodily level, hence the importance of the “Points & Positions” touch technique.
The psychotherapist’s role is to provide a stable, attentive, and compassionate presence that supports this process, without intrusion, urgency, or imposed direction.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 3 ,4, 5, and 6.)
Module 13. Non-Verbal and Unconscious Communication in Psychotherapy
Non-verbal and unconscious communication between client and psychotherapist is an important aspect of the therapeutic process.
These interactions include phenomena such as transference, projection, projective identification, symbiosis, fusion, somatic transference, countertransference, mirror neurons, empathy, resonance, and genuine human response.
This module offers a comprehensive exploration of these processes, particularly as they operate outside of awareness. Emphasis is placed on the somatic dimension of communication, recognising that the body often communicates more than words, and that the unconscious is frequently expressed non-verbally.
One objective of this module is to develop the capacity to recognise and differentiate between clear and unclear transmissions and receptions within the therapeutic field, acknowledging that what is transmitted may not always be what is received.
Clinical work requires a refined ability to recognise, hold, and respond to these processes, creating the conditions for what is felt but not spoken, and what remains unconscious, to emerge within the therapeutic process.
A central aim is the development of clarity, which is essential for the successful unfolding of psychotherapy. Unrecognised ambiguity, distortion, and lack of clarity lead to confusion and can compromise the therapeutic process.
Through theoretical exploration and experiential practice, trainees will learn to work with non-verbal and unconscious communication as an important source of clinical information, both in clients and in themselves, enhancing the depth and effectiveness of psychotherapy.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 4, 5, and 6.)
Module 14. Functional Criteria for Assessing the therapeutic process
Assessment and evaluation play an essential role in psychotherapeutic practice, guiding and informing clinical interventions. Psychotherapists are required to be familiar with psychiatric diagnostic classifications and psychotropic medications used by clients; however, psychotherapeutic assessment seeks to capture the complexity of a person’s suffering beyond a list of symptoms and disorders. Assessment is an ongoing, open process rather than a standardised verdict. A central question is whether the psychotherapeutic process facilitates change, healing, and a more fulfilling life. Effective psychotherapy must lead to real change, not simply greater insight. This requires evaluating whether change is occurring not merely at a superficial or intellectual level, but at a fundamental functional level: whether the person begins to function differently as a whole, across physical, emotional, and cognitive domains, and whether this change is reflected in everyday life.
This module introduces a structured model for assessing psychotherapeutic progress. It presents a comprehensive set of specific functional criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the work, together with practical guidance for recognising change, monitoring progress, and adjusting interventions in response to the client’s evolving process. The aim is to support deep and lasting change in how the person functions, feels, and lives.
(Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 3 and 6.)
Module 15. Core Competencies for Clinical Psychotherapists
Students are expected to have acquired a foundational knowledge of ethical standards and professional best practice through their previous training in counselling, psychology, social work and related disciplines. Clinical psychotherapy, as an advanced specialisation, builds on this foundation and requires a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of how professional standards apply within psychotherapeutic practice.
Ethical practice and professional competencies are addressed throughout the modules and experiential practice. This module consolidates key ethical and professional requirements, with particular emphasis on: — Awareness of power, privilege and systems of supremacy: developing an inclusive and respectful approach to diversity across race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, religion, disability, neurodiversity and diverse abilities.
— Therapeutic touch: understanding and applying clinical guidelines across a diverse range of therapeutic contexts and conditions.
—Professional boundaries and scope of practice: recognising professional limitations and working within the scope of the training. This training does not provide additional specialist preparation for working with children, couples, families, groups, or other populations or settings.
— Self-care and sustainable practice: recognising personal limitations and vulnerability, developing awareness of the physical, emotional, and professional demands associated with ongoing clinical work and cultivating the skills and resources to grow in practice.
This module is designed to support the progressive development and integration of the professional standards required by the Core Competencies of a Clinical Psychotherapist. (Relevant PACFA CoP Competency Domains: 1 and 6.)
Ps. PACFA Code of Ethics for clinical practice is available at: PACFA Code of Ethics. PACFA Core Competencies for Clinical Psychotherapists are available at: PACFA Core Competencies
Each module provides theoretical and experiential learning, including a review of the touch-techniques and the verbal techniques.
Requirements to qualify as a Functional Analysis Somatic Psychotherapist
Successful completion of the 470 hours training program
250 Hours of in-person learning
include theoretical teaching, workshops, seminars, lectures, demonstrations, experiential practice, and direct clinical application.
90 hours of supervised integration of theoretical and experiential learning.
These comprise individual tutor–student engagement through a written assignment following each of the 15 modules.
Each assignment is individually assessed by a tutor and includes written feedback, verbal discussion and clarification with the tutor, and revision of the work.
Independent study and reading are additional and are not included in these hours.
120 Hours of Group Practice
Group practices are undertaken between modules.
Students participate in two face-to-face group practice sessions: one session is supervised in person by a tutor, while the other is peer-led and includes an individual reflection paper, which is assessed and discussed with a tutor.
10 hours of individual tutor contact.
These hours provide direct individual contact with a tutor for guidance, clarification, and support with the learning process.
Other Requirements
Personal Psychotherapy — 150 Hours
The majority of hours must be completed within the Functional Analysis
framework. Thirty hours may be undertaken in a group psychotherapy setting
(with a maximum of six participants). Recent hours of personal psychotherapy
in other modalities may be accepted.
Client Contact — 200 Hours
Each student is required to work with at least 2 clients and complete the
structured outline of the Functional Analysis session format designed for
students.
Supervision — 50 Hours
Up to 50% may be completed in group supervision.
Case Study Essay
1,500–2,000-word case study of a client with at least 40 sessions, demonstrating the application of theory in clinical practice.
Fee Structure
Full training
$13,900
Regestration Deposit
Non-refundable deposit: $250, payable upon registration and deducted from the total fees.
Foundational Level
$5,800
to be paid at the beginning of the training
Advanced Level
$7,850
(includes Group Supervision) to be paid at the beginning of the Advanced training.
Payment Plan
We offer a payment plan that can be arranged with the administrator when you enrol.
Fees must be paid 2 weeks before commencement of training
Please note:
Fees do not include personal psychotherapy sessions, the three-day residential intensive, individual supervision or any additional experiential verbal work demonstrations requested outside the program.
Training & Administration Team
Australian Trainers