A RTT-online level 2 course with Merete Holm Brantbjerg and Kolbjørn Vårdal

Duration: 14th Feb - 22nd May 2024

The LIVE-course has started and can no longer be purchased. A special edition is planned as a purchase opportunity after the end of the LIVE- course. Keep you posted on our homepage. Live session dates : Feb 14 - Feb 28 - Mar 13 - Apr 3 - Apr 24 - May 8 - May 22 Disgust - Building Inner Authority and Boundaries (DIAB) is a level 2 course under the methodology developed within Relational Trauma therapy. It is required to have taken our level 1 course “Including and awakening hypo-response” (IAH) to participate in a level 2 course

RELATIONAL TRAUMA THERAPY:

Specialised in including and normalising hypo-states and developing practical methods for working with these states

Relational Trauma therapy has specialised in including and normalising hypo-states and developing practical methods for working with these. As part of this process we discovered the importance of including disgust when working on re-establishing lost boundaries or establishing boundaries for the first time.
Working with disgust is often an aspect of coming from withdrawal into hypo-response or hypo-arousal and back into outgoing energy.

Disgust establishes boundaries from deep within – whereas anger supports boundary-setting that comes out in movements in arms and legs. Awakening and owning disgust has the capacity to repair violations that may have happened in trauma, in early life or in later developmental phases.
When working with anger doesn’t work there is often unregulated or unconscious disgust lying underneath. In working with hypo-patterns including disgust typically comes before anger can be addressed.

Working with disgust connects to both authority and attachment. Owning and showing disgust can build up a sense of inner authority and dignity – separating from whatever violated us. And owning disgust can make it possible to differentiate from deep within between me and what is not me.




Differentiation between 3 levels of disgust will be addressed

  • Core-disgust

    Core-disgust being a deep bodily response to something that feels like poison to the body

  • Interpersonal disgust

    Interpersonal disgust where the trigger of disgust is another person’s behaviour

  • Moral disgust

    Moral disgust where our thought-patterns, norms and values get combined with core disgust

What will you gain from this course?

This course will focus on practical methodology and theoretical understanding of disgust as a homeostatic feeling that supports re-establishing lost boundaries or establishing boundaries for the first time - from deep within. Working with disgust can open a pathway from withdrawal into hypo-states and back into outgoing energy. Clinicians participating in this training will gain a basic understanding of and practice in including regulation of disgust in the map of trauma therapeutic methodology
Scholarship-price 600 US$ available with written request and approval. Send an email to [email protected] and we will get back to you. Criteria for the reduced price can be being a student, retired or other reasons for having reduced income.
If you haven’t participated in the “Including and awakening hypo-response” (IAH) already, it is possible to gain access to our level 2 courses via purchasing and self-study the Level 1 course as a special edition of"Including and awakening hypo-response ”
Purchase IAH Special edition

This online-course offers

7 X 3 hour live sessions that each time will include:

  • - Presentation of one out of 5 basic elements in working with disgust, inner boundaries and inner authority

  • - Practical training in body-awareness and specific muscle-and joint-activations

  • - Time for sharing in smaller groups

  • - Exchange-time in the whole group with questions and answers

  • - Sharing in subgroups.

  • - The exchange time holds a live group-process, where the group becomes a holding environment for experiences that often have been hidden in withdrawal and isolation

  • - Special focus on integration in the learning process in session 4 and 7

  • Curriculum

    - Access to an updated curriculum on our online-platform that follows the online course. Here will handouts, articles, links for recommended external sources and the video

  • Recordings

    - Recordings of each of the 7 sessions will be made available for enrolled participants until February 14th, 2025

Who is this course for?

  • Participants

    Practitioners, consultants, psychotherapists or other professionals working with other people therapeutically or in teaching – who wants to add and integrate a focus on hypo-arousal in their practice

  • Previous experience with teaching that includes and awakens hypo-response is requested

    This request can be fulfilled by having participated in the online course “Including and awakening hypo-response” or having followed the special online edition of “Including and awakening hypo-response” bought together with this course about Disgust (DIAB) - or having participated in training in Relational Trauma Therapy with Merete Holm Brantbjerg or Kolbjørn Vårdal

  • Recommendations

    You can also prepare yourself for this course by buying a special edition of the "Hyper and hypo interwoven" (HHI) course. This is not mandatory - we recommend it. When doing the HHI course, we saw how useful it is to adress both hyper and hypo-response when building resilience in relation to high arousal states - hyper- as well as hypo-arousal. We therefore see the relevance of going through the HHI course prior to working with Disgust and Building Inner Authority and Boundaries

  • You can expect

    Expect that focusing on hypo-arousal will open up to processes that go deep. Trauma-related material that has not earlier been touched and regulated can show up

  • Fulfilling the criteria

    If you are uncertain if you fulfill the criteria, please contact us on : [email protected] | The organizer has the right to take action to secure that participants fulfill the criteria

What to expect in this course

5 basic elements in working with disgust, inner boundaries and inner authority will be presented – 1 element will be the focus in each out of 5 of the sessions – and 2 sessions will focus on integration

  • 1 - February 14

    Introduction to disgust as a homeostatic feeling. How does working with disgust support inner boundaries and how does it relate to hypo-states? Ownership and regulation of disgust bodily. Differentiation between anger and disgust – and focus on the function of disgust.

  • 2 - February 28

    The neurobiology of disgust What parts of the nervous system are involved in core disgust and disgust propensity? How is regulation of core disgust supported by specific muscles (pelvic floor, diaphragm ao) – and by proprioceptive and interoceptive exercises?

  • 3 - March 13

    Interpersonal disgust – I don’t like it Differentiation between 3 levels of disgust, core disgust, interpersonal and moral disgust. Building inner authority through owning the experience of “I don’t like it”. Differentiating between disliking a person’s behaviour or the whole person.

  • 4 - April 3

    Integration-time – time for personal and professional integration

  • 5 - April 24

    Attachment and disgust – It’s not mine, it belongs outside of me, not inside of me. Disgust is a natural reaction to emotional and physical poison – and a way out of introjection or swallowing outgoing aggression. Supporting a natural voice of protest and separation from within.

  • 6 - May 8

    Moral disgust Moral disgust holds a combination of thought-patterns, opinions, values and core disgust. How do we work with this combination, supporting ownership of core disgust and values instead of getting stuck in polarisation? Who am I if I own my disgust and my values without polarising – and what supports me in doing that?

  • 7 - May 22

    Integration-time – Q&As – time for personal and professional integration

And further more...

  • Training and support-groups

    Participants can choose to form training/support-groups. Organizing of these groups are in the hands of the participants – and an initiative to form a group can be communicated on the student-exchange to get started

  • You will gain

    Clinicians participating in this training will gain a basic understanding of and practice in including and regulating disgust together with a client in the map of trauma therapeutic methodology

  • Step 2 courses

    This is a step 2 course in RTT online international courses. Other step 2 courses will be offered in 2025. Further information about upcoming courses will be posted on our website

  • Level 1

    We will offer our level 1 course 'Including and awakening hypostates' in a live-version in autumn, 2024

Course leaders

and course manager

CEO and Senior trainer Merete Holm Brantbjerg

Merete Holm Brantbjerg, body-psychotherapist, member of the Danish Psychotherapist Organisation and of EABP, founder of Relational Trauma Therapy – international trainer – specialised in working with low dosed activation of muscles and connective tissue as an aspect of trauma-therapeutic methodology. Merete is situated in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Trainer Kolbjørn Vårdal

Kolbjørn Vårdal, body-psychotherapist, Masters degree in trauma work, member of EABP, co-founder of Relational Trauma therapy, international trainer, specialised in including neurologically informed training as a trauma-therapeutic methodology. Kolbjørn is situated in Oslo, Norway, - where he lives with his family

Course Manager Ayuna Pedersen

Ayuna Pedersen - bodyoriented psychotherapist, Relational Trauma Therapist, SEP - specialised in working with trauma with children in all ages. Member of the Danish Psychotherapist Organisation. The role of the course manager is to support the group technically, be part of the containment during sessions, be in charge of the course-platform (on Thinkific). Ayuna is situated in Copenhagen, Denmark, - where she lives with her family

Practical information

  • Dates

    7 live online-sessions of 3 hrs on 7 Wednesdays Wednesdays: February 14 - February 28 - March 13- April 03 - April 24- May 08 - May 22

  • Times

    4-7 pm UTC (Coordinated Universal time, Greenwich mean time) 5-8 pm CET UTC + 1 6-9 pm EET (Eastern European time) UTC + 2 11 am – 2 pm EST (Eastern North America) UTC – 5 8-11 am PST (Pacific Standard Time) UTC -8 11.30pm -2.30 am ACST (Australian Central Standard Time) UTC + 9.30

  • Please note

    If you are in a different time-zone than the above mentioned – please look up what time will be yours. Please be aware that Daylight savings time shifts in CET on March 31st – and in the US on March 10th – so on March 13 the time-difference can differ with one hour compared to the normal difference. Please check your local shift.

  • Teaching hours

    Teaching hrs are on 5-8 pm CET all 7 times

  • Live-sessions and Online platform

    We use Zoom, a cloud-based video communications app for our Live virtual sessions. The Zoom-link will be made available over email prior to each session. All workshop-material will be made available on rtt.thinkific.com

  • Max size of course-group

    The course has a maximum number of 100 participants 100

  • Fee

    Early bird registration – with sign up and payment prior to February 1st: 680 US$. Later sign up and payment: 720 US$. For sign up and payment go to rtt.thinkific.com Deadline for joining the course is February 14th 2024

  • Scholarship

    Scholarship-price 600 US$ available with written request. Send an email to [email protected]. Criteria for the reduced price can be being a student, retired or other reasons for having reduced income. A maximum of 10 participants will get acces to the scholarship price. - So don’t wait, if you want to send us a request.

  • Material and online course platform

    Workshop curriculum and workshop-material will for the participating students be available on our learning platform relationaltraumatherapy.online. This include the recordings of each of the 7 sessions that will be accessible until February 14th 2025.

Disgust, building inner boundaries and authority

We are planning a Special edition for this course as a purchase opportunity for after the end of the LIVE-course. We have not jet planned if or when this course as a LIVE-course will be announced again - If so, it will likely be in a couple of years - after other courses have been run.
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