Ronen Stilman Psychotherapy

21/05/2026

The body isn't a passive container for psychological experience.
It's an active participant in it. The way a person holds themselves, the rhythm of their breathing, the moment their energy shifts or withdraws - these aren't incidental. They're part of how that person learned to manage their world, often long before they had language for it.

The same is true for the practitioner. Our own somatic responses in the therapy space - the tension we carry into a session, the subtle pull to move closer or create distance, the physical sense that something has changed before we can name it. Learning to listen for that, rather than filter it out, changes the quality of our awareness.

What a bodymind understanding gives you isn't just a new theory to apply on top of what you already know. It's a way of making sense of things you've probably already been noticing - and using them with more confidence and intention.

If you would like to know more - full details of the Certificate in Somatic TA are available on the course page https://ronenstilman.com/somaticta/.
The course runs over three weekends in Edinburgh. Early bird places are available at until 1 July.

20/05/2026

I love the work we do with the circles. Enrolling now for September 2026 start. More details below 👇

Enrolling now to commence September 2026

At the heart of our work are two distinct spaces for professional growth. Our Practice Development Learning Circles (PDLC) are designed for practitioners looking to deepen their clinical skills and theory, while our Teaching and Supervision Learning Circles cater to those wanting to refine their philosophy, knowledge, and skills as supervisors and trainers. Whichever learning circle you choose, the unique architecture of our collective—comprising Beren, Bev, Helen, and Ronen—offers a dynamic learning environment. The learning circles are a unique way to learn: you and your peers provide the steady, closed-group continuity, whilst we facilitate in rotating pairs. Because each of us brings a distinct set of clinical interests, lived experiences, and ways of working, every meeting delivers a fresh combination of therapeutic influences. We will begin each of the eight annual sessions with a structured "teach" from the hosting pair to kickstart the day, but from there, the canvas belongs to the group. The agenda is co-created in real-time: you might choose to lead a session, request live observation or supervision, unpack a complex piece of theory, or simply tap into our collective experience. Because we never quite know what we will be called upon to facilitate or teach, there is a wonderfully lively, spontaneous edge to every meeting.

Ultimately, our participants tell us that what sets these learning experiences apart is the vital balance of being developmental and stretching, but deeply connecting. In a world that feels increasingly complex and fragmented, isolated practice can take a heavy toll. We believe that professional growth shouldn't happen in a vacuum. Beyond the academic rigour and the unique opportunity to work with four different facilitators, the true anchor of these circles is the profound sense of contact, connection, and relationship they provide. It is a shared, safe, yet challenging space where you can show up authentically, refine your craft, and be sustained by a community of peers who are as invested in your growth as you are.

Each group meets over 8 Fridays per year on zoom, and there is also the option of an in-person weekend in June each year.

https://www.fullcirclelearning.uk/onlinecircles

13/05/2026

It wasn't long ago that somatic approaches sat at the margins of mainstream psychotherapy - interesting to some, viewed with scepticism by many. Over the past decade or so, embodied ways of working have moved steadily towards the centre of clinical thinking, and I don't believe it’s accidental.

A few things have converged.

The research base around trauma has transformed our understanding of how experience is processed and stored. Work emerging from neuroscience; on memory, threat response, and the nervous system, has made it harder to sustain a model of therapy that treats the body as a backdrop to the real work happening in the mind.

We now have much better language for how come a client can understand something intellectually, yet remain unchanged by that understanding.
At the same time, what is considered trauma-informed practice has become a baseline expectation across most therapeutic contexts. And this kind of work, in my experience, is inherently somatic. It attends to regulation, to the bodymind response to what is perceived as threat, to what safety feels like.

Then there's the influence of polyvagal theory, which has given clinicians an accessible framework for understanding the nervous system's role in how we connect, defend, and shut down. Whatever the ongoing debates in the research literature, its clinical uptake has been significant. It's brought somatic thinking with it.

None of this makes somatic work a trend. These approaches have deep roots in body psychotherapy, in early psychoanalytic thinking, in relational and humanistic traditions. What's changed is that the wider field has started to catch up with what practitioners working somatically have long understood: that the body is not incidental to psychological change. It's where psychological change emerges from.

The Certificate in Somatic TA integrates somatic awareness with Transactional Analysis theory across three weekends in Edinburgh. The 2026/27 course begins in September. Early bird price available til 1 July.

Link for more details in first comment.

07/05/2026

A participant on a recent course described how the training had changed their practice - not through a set of new techniques they were now applying, but through something quieter. A shift in how they were showing up. A different quality of attention.

There's an understandable pull, when we develop our practice, towards acquisition of new models, new interventions, new frameworks. And these have their place. But the changes that tend to run deepest aren't usually about what we do. They're about how we are while we are “doing it”.

Somatic awareness, in my experience, works at that level. It doesn't replace the theoretical grounding practitioners already have. It changes the texture and context of how that knowledge is held and used.

You might find yourself pausing somewhere you previously moved through quickly. Noticing something in the room before you can name it. Feeling more settled in your own body, which means something different becomes possible in the relationship. These shifts are subtle but deep and can be transformative.

Find out more via the link in first comment.

16/04/2026

When I'm working with a client, I notice things that aren’t picked up by hearing in the conventional sense.

The body - mine and the client's - is processing the relational field in ways that precede language. What we call countertransference often has a somatic dimension that gets translated into thought after the fact, if it gets noticed at all. Learning to notice it earlier, to stay curious about what it might be pointing to, opens up a different kind of clinical awareness.

This is about widening the channel through which we receive what a client is bringing. Sometimes the most important thing happening in a session isn't in the spoken word at all.

If this kind of embodied clinical awareness interests you, the Certificate in Somatic TA runs over three weekends in Edinburgh. The 2026/27 cohort begins in September. Find out more at ronenstilman.com/somaticta

10/04/2026

Moving beyond what we know.

Someone is about to try something new; an exercise, a way of working, a different quality of attention and then... a pause…perhaps, a block… something in them signals this is an edge.

This response is interesting. It's the body registering something unfamiliar, uncomfortable, risky.

In somatic work, we talk about the comfort zone not as a failing but as information. The edges of what feels safe, familiar, or manageable are themselves worth exploring - slowly, and in relationship.

Not because discomfort is the goal, but because the places where we tend to hold, brace, or withdraw often carry something important about how we learned to manage the world.

What I notice is that the most significant shifts in practice come from becoming curious about our responses, in relationship. Whether that be in the room, in supervision, in ourselves. The edge isn't an obstacle. It's where learning and change are maximised.

This is part of what draws me to teaching. Watching someone recognise their own edge, and move through it, even slightly, even tentatively, is genuinely inspiring.

The Certificate in Somatic TA explores the somatic in therapeutic practice over three weekends in Edinburgh. The 2026/27 course begins in September. Find out more at ronenstilman.com/somaticta

01/04/2026

Stuckness is one of the most common experiences in the therapy room, and one of the most unsettling. For both clients and us as practitioners.

We're trained to sit with not-knowing. But stuckness can feel different. There's often a quality of effort to it - the sense that we're working hard, or that the client is, and yet something isn't shifting. Weeks pass…Sometimes months... The same patterns return. The same territory.

In my experience, one of the things that can keep us stuck is working at the level where the stuckness presents itself. If a client is stuck in a thought pattern, we think harder about it together. If they're stuck in a narrative, we look for new meanings. But sometimes the ground the pattern lives on isn't cognitive at all.
The body holds what the mind has learned to manage.

Somatic approach offers a different entry point - not replacing the verbal, relational work we do, but sitting alongside it. When I invite a client to notice what's happening physically as they describe a stuck place - a held breath, a braced jaw, a sensation somewhere they can't quite name - something can shift in the room. Not dramatically most of the time. But noticeably.

Where there is stuckness, the body is still signalling. Still trying to move through. That, for me, is where somatic awareness becomes most useful in practice - not as a technique to apply, but as a complimentary channel to engage with.

If you're curious about integrating somatic approach into your practice, the Certificate in Somatic TA runs over three weekends in Edinburgh. The 2026/27 cohort begins in September. Find out more at ronenstilman.com/somaticta

26/03/2026

To all practitioners seeking accreditation in the next couple of years, this is important ‼️
Full link here https://platform.itaaworld.com/news/boards-announce-new-rules-and-limits-for-online-oral-exams

"To our delight, the number of candidates seeking accreditation and taking their exams is rising." This positive trend signifies a growing worldwide transactional analysis (TA) community. As a result, the organizations responsible for certification are adapting to meet the increased demand and ensure the process remains robust.

In the new article by Nicole Lenner, she explains upcoming changes to oral exams developed by the European Association for Transactional Analysis's Commission of Certification (COC) and the International Transactional Analysis Association's International Board of Certification (IBOC). The update outlines a new structure for exam capacity and candidate prioritization that will take effect in the coming years.

The author states that these collaborative decisions will help manage the high volume of candidates and maintain the integrity of the accreditation process. The full article details the timeline for these changes, including new guidelines for Certified Transactional Analyst (CTA) and Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (TSTA) candidates starting in 2027.

Access this and other content directly at https://www.platform.itaaworld.com. Or access the link lists available on our digital networks.

23/03/2026

There are moments in the therapeutic relationship when something shifts and the connection falters. A misattunement, a word or silence that lands differently than intended. Most of us have been trained to think about rupture and repair as something relational and verbal - we name what happened, we explore it, we work to restore trust, to repair.

But before any of that, there is usually something that happens in the body.
A pulling away that hasn't yet become worded. A tightening in the body. A change in breathing - yours or theirs - that signals something has been evoked before either of you can articulate what it is. These are not background noise. They are clinical information, often the first and most direct signals we have that the relationship has moved into difficult territory.

What interests me is what happens if we attend to that signal rather than rushing past it to the verbal repair. What if the body's response to rupture isn't just a side effect of the relational difficulty, but part of the way through it?

In my experience, slowing down at that point - noticing what is happening somatically, in ourselves and in the client - changes the quality of the repair that follows. It becomes less of a cognitive exercise and more of a lived, felt restoration.

The body doesn't just witness the reconnection. It participates in it.
This is something we explore in depth on the Certificate in Somatic TA.

Find out more: ronenstilman.com/somaticta

16/03/2026

In psychotherapy we listen for the story.
In somatic work we also listen for the body's story.

Where does the breath change?
Where does movement stop?
Where does the body hold the unsaid?

Sometimes the most important part of the narrative never reaches words.

05/02/2026

Somatic TA is about tracking the body and attending to internal and inter-personal misalignments: bodily, emotionally and cognitively. It’s about presence, pacing, and co-regulation. Somatic TA works in conjunction with talking therapy and can be a powerful tool for change.

Now taking applications for the 2026/7 course starting in September in Edinburgh, Scotland. Find out more https://ronenstilman.com/somaticta/