Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
Learn More.

Learn more.

Due to road closures along Highway 1 to our north and south, Esalen is closed through April 11.
Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
past workshop

Being With the Body in Depth Psychology: Trauma and its Transformation in the Unspoken Realm

June 13–15, 2025

Barbara Holifield

The body is a portal to the numinous dimensions of the soul’s life. It can lead us to healing and wholeness far beyond simple relief of traumatic symptoms — and to increased access to our feelings and a renewed sense of soulful aliveness. Jungian and depth psychology orient to the deepest currents of the soul, where dreams and life experiences take on cohesive wisdom and unfold in a way that guides the individual. However, developmental wounds, particularly those of a traumatic nature, can interrupt the psyche’s innate thrust toward wholeness.

In this workshop, we will work with authentic movement and other somatic practices grounded in the perspective of depth psychology to learn and experience how the body can serve as a gateway to realign with those innate healing currents.

Our ancestors understood that our dreams and visions often speak not just to the individual but to the community as well. In this realm, which Jung referred to as the “Spirit of the Depths,” we can reconnect with the creative unconscious for insights that remain elusive when caught up in the groupthink typical of the “Spirit of the Times.” We will practice both indoors and outdoors, surrounded by the stunning beauty of the natural world, where the inner meets the outer, to engage with these transformative energies as they emerge.

This workshop is oriented toward therapists interested in learning how to access the somatic underpinnings of psychic life and those committed to weaving the body’s way of knowing with life’s unfolding.

10 CE credits available — for additional information, click here. There will be a $70 fee for CE credit, payable directly to Barbara Holifield. If interested, you can contact her at barbaraholifield1@me.com.  

Recommended reading: Holifield, B. (2025). Being with the Body in Depth Psychotherapy: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm., Menakem, Resmaa (2017) My Grandmother’s Hands. Las Vegas, Nevada: Central Recovery Press.

Barbara Holifield

Barbara Holifield, MSW, SEP, is an analyst at the Jung Institute of San Francisco. She has decades of experience with somatic psychology, including Somatic Experiencing, and has synthesized this work into a Depth psychoanalytic approach. She teaches authentic movement internationally.

Full Bio