And if those three reasons aren’t enough… Another reason to take our home study continuing education courses: We donate 10% of profits to charitable organizations. By doing business with us, you help to support many valuable organizations. We have made donations to National Camps for Blind Children, Wounded Warrior Project/Soldier Ride, Special Olympics, ADRA Development and Relief Agency, and many other worthy charities. Thank you for your continued support while together we help these wonderful organizations perform their valuable work.
3. Risk free sample course Take a free course to see exactly how our system operates. This gives you the peace of mind of knowing what to expect before you commit to any of our courses. Feel free to see how well you do with an online learning and testing format. You can test the course from two perspectives: while you are taking it, and when you are finished with it. You will see how you can log in and out during the course and/or navigate through it, and how you have access to course materials, test results, and certificates once you have completed the course.
2. Hassle-Free With our online courses, you work at your own pace. Fit your CEUs into your independent lifestyle. You can log in and out as much as you like while taking a course. When you log back in, the system will remember where you last left off, but you can always navigate forward or backward in the course materials if you want to skip ahead or review. Even after you have completed the exam, you will always have access to review the course materials.
1. Instant Access and Results Simply enroll in any of our online continuing education courses and you will have instant access to your course. As soon as you pass your test, you can print your certificate instantly. You can have a certificate in your hand tonight. There are no delays waiting to receive materials or completion certificates by mail or even by email. After you finish a course, you can always log back into your account, review the course materials, review your exam results, and print additional certificates.
Frequently asked questions
about our online continuing education courses
I am currently in massage school. Can I start taking your pregnancy massage course now so when I become licensed I’ll be ready to work on pregnant women?
Yes. Many massage therapy students begin taking continuing education courses as they near the end of their schooling. You can do this not only with our pregnancy massage course, but with any of our other specialized courses as well.
Do I have to be a licensed massage therapist to take your courses?
While our courses are designed as continuing education for licensed and/or certified massage therapists, a non-licensed person may take them for their personal use. Of course, they may not legally practice without an underlying license if their jurisdiction requires one, as most jurisdictions do. Exceptions to this are courses such as the pregnancy massage and infant massage training. In most jurisdictions, doulas or other prenatal healthcare providers can use the techniques within the scope of their training and authority, such as a doula using some of the prenatal massage techniques during labor and delivery. You cannot, however, hold yourself out to be a certified prenatal or infant massage therapist without having a massage therapy certification or license.
Are your online courses downloadable to my computer?
No. You must be logged in on our website to view the course materials. We invite you to take our free sample course, Shoulder Dysfunction, to see how our online courses and testing works.
Will your online courses work on my phone, tablet, or other device?
Yes. Since technology continues its rapid pace forward, it is impossible for us to provide a current and complete list of all devices on which our courses will work. We invite you to take our free sample course, Shoulder Dysfunction, so that you can personally test if the online content and streaming video work on your device.
Can I log in and out while taking an online course, or do I have to take it all at once?
You are able to log in and out as much as you need while taking a course. Once you start the test, however, you do need to finish it, or you will have to restart the next time you log in.
How do I print an additional certificate?
You can log into your account and print additional certificates, or review course materials and test results, after you have completed the course. Once you’ve logged in, just access the course in question, and in the left status box you will see links to where you can print another certificate or review course materials.
Does the Institute of Somatic Therapy automatically report course completions to CE Broker?
Yes, we automatically report all course completions to CE Broker provided that your Florida Massage license number was listed on your account before you completed our online test. You can verify or edit your license information when you log into our account and review the General Information that appears to the left of the page.
Does the Institute of Somatic Therapy report our course completions to the NCBTMB, ABMP, AMTA, or any other agencies or state massage therapy boards?
None of these agencies have a method for us to report your completed continuing education courses on your behalf. They prefer that you provide the evidence of CEs that their renewal process details. Please contact your licensing authority if you have specific questions about how to renew your massage therapy license.
Take Your Bodywork Practice One Transformative Step Closer to Success
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Are you a massage therapist or body worker looking for a new skill set that will allow you to facilitate long-lasting change in your client’s life?
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Do you often have experiences with clients where you feel like something is missing in the session or their mental or emotional responses to the massage are beyond your scope of practice?
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Do you want to deepen your capacity to support a client’s ability to relax, decrease stress, and positively transform their relationship to their body, mind, emotions, and spirit?
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Lastly, do you find that often a clinical massage approach is often not completely resolving your clients’ physical complaints?
Then you may want to consider training in somatic therapy.
Transformative Touch is a somatic approach to bodymind healing emphasizing listening to and becoming aware of the body experience in the present moment. This approach combines a gentle touch with compassionate dialogue to support the client’s awareness of how the body mirrors or communicates what the mind, emotions, and spirit are experiencing. It illuminates how personal beliefs can often shape how we sit, stand, move, and speak.
This method’s focus is on increasing available movement options in the body and ,therefore, in life through supporting client awareness of sensation, posture, imagery, and personal narratives. When clients become more aware of what is going on inside their body they begin to develop a more authentic relationship with their self and spirit. This experience often promotes a deeper capacity for authentic change and inspires people to move through life guided by heart-centered principles and values.
Missing Piece
Often a massage therapist or body worker experiences the “missing piece” after years of practicing manual therapy with their clients. What is discovered when working with some massage clients is that their physical symptoms may not be resolving through manual therapy alone. This phenomenon speaks to the inherent connection between the body and mind and illuminates the importance of integrating talk with touch. Many massage therapists and body workers report feeling frustrated that they don’t have the skills or the training to ethically support a massage client who may have an emotional experience when being touched. The Transformative Touch training provides an opportunity for the massage therapist and bodyworker to develop practical and ethical skills to support their clients’ mental and emotional experiences through the body. This skill set is important because it supports the whole being of the client.
The professional massage therapist or bodyworker who decides to seek training in Transformative Touch will learn and experience the following:
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Increase professional development and service options.
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Learn to facilitate understanding of the mind/body connection
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Learn about how and why emotions, memories, and beliefs are stored in the body
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Develop body listening skills (
Kinesthetic empathy
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Promote deep relaxation and decrease stress and tension with less physical effort.
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Promote available movement options in the body.
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Learn to ethically and safely combine touch and talk during a session.
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Promote a more holistic and integrated view of the human experience.
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Learn a gentler approach to bodywork. Perfect for therapists who are looking to shift their practice focus from clinical treatments/sports/deep tissue to a more subtle and energetic focus.
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Decrease risk of repetitive use injuries
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Learn how to facilitate awareness of sensation and posture.
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Learn how to facilitate true relaxation of the body and mind.
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Support resiliency and agency for your clients. Decreases dependency on manual therapies for physical relief from stress, injury, and tension.
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Learn transformative and simple self-care practices for the practitioner and client.
Learn about our training program
As a massage therapist, bodyworker, chiropractor, or Reiki practitioner, you work with people in pain.
- People come to you looking for relief.
- They come to you for you are the body fixer, the body mender, the energy shifter.
- They look to you to “fix them”or “align them” so they can move pain -free again.
This can be a very draining experience, especially when you work with those with chronic pain. Clients often come to you as a last resort, desperate for relief. Spoken or unspoken, they expect that you will take their pain away. That’s a lot of pressure on you! The physical and energetic demand is enormous!
Then what happens? You get exhausted.
It’s way too much on your own body and your energy level. You feel depleted & drained. You also feel frustrated that you can only provide temporary relief to your clients.
Permanent changes just aren’t happening. Your clients come back week after week with the same aches & pains. They’re stuck and they want you to fix them – and you can’t!
As a TT practitioner you will help your clients make the shift from seeing their body as a vehicle that takes them from place to place to knowing their body as their greatest resource.
You will gently guide them to change their relationship with their body – and to begin to view & treat it as a friend and an ally. They will learn that they have a major role to play . You will teach them to Awaken the wisdom of their body. To LISTEN to it.
Donald Epstein said, “Listen to the whispers of your body, so it doesn’t have to scream at you.”
Body as Resource
Our bodies are a rich resource- a true “ body of knowledge”. Our bodies have been with us at every event of our lives. Every experience we have ever had as a human being has been through one or more of our senses: seeing – hearing- touching- tasting- smelling.
Our body holds the story of our life. We need to “listen to it”. We need to pay attention to its sensations – for sensations are the language of the body. As a Somatic therapist you will invite & teach your clients how to listen. You will help them to tune into themselves through their bodies.
Working with the body in this way is gentle and easeful. You end your day feeling enlivened rather than depleted.
Transformative Touch offers you that missing piece. We teach you the tools and skills to engage all aspects of your clients.
You will be able to address the emotions that arise when you touch. You will know how to dialogue with, and guide your client, to the place of wholeness. Everything that goes on in the body (sickness, illness, stress, pain) has got everything to do with how we think, how we feel, and how we live in the world.
This training can expand your skills as a healing practitioner, as well as transform your healing practice and your life.
Learn about our training program
