Welcome to Castellino Prenatal & Birth Therapy Training

Who Benefits from the Training?

Trainees in the Casellino Foundation Training come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and skills. They have included bodyworkers, polarity therapists, cranial workers, chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncturists, nurses, medical doctors, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, infant massage therapists, regular and special education teachers, counselors, and psychologists. Many of these practitioners were already doing some form of prenatal and birth work. Others were very new to this form of work. They all share a profound interest in working with babies, children, families, and/or adults for the purpose of resolving prenatal and birth trauma.

Module Details: Module A and Modules 1-8

Each training module covers a specific area of learning. The curriculum is designed to give you an overview of the work and to build specific therapeutic skills in a progressive and layered manner using didactic instruction, facilitation skills and personal experiential exploration. Skills for facilitation of adults in small groups and families in infant/child- centered settings are emphasized throughout the training.

• Module A - Preparation: Presence, Contact, Connection, Blueprint

  Previously, the Foundation Training was 8 Modules. In the first module we combined introducing the basic skill set with Conception Journey dynamics. This has proven to be too large of a task. So, beginning with T15, we begin with Module A as an introduction to practical presence and hands on skills that we will deepen in throughout the whole training. In module A We will be practicing these skills energetically (because it is online) and later on we will continue practicing them in person with physical contact.

  There are five basic areas of skills we will introduce in this module:

  1. Tracking tempo and establishing integrative rhythms with the blueprint.
  2. Connecting with ourselves and others through presence, listening and with energetic touch.
  3. Experiencing dynamic creative squeeze.
  4. Moving as Storytelling.
  5. Employing the Principles in the work.

Module I - The Preconception and Conception Journey

Including introduction to the Polarity Paradigm, shock imprinting and developing the internal reference structure for prenatal and birth therapy are this module's primary subject areas. We will present a paradigm that looks at the energetic dynamics of the conception journey, including pre-conception, conception and implantation.

The skills introduced in this module include therapeutic centering, orienting, tracking autonomic cycling and related fluid tide dynamics, modulating therapeutic pace or tempo, identifying resource behaviors, recognizing the therapeutic leading edge, and differentiating between trauma and shock imprinting.

• Module II - Bonding and Attachment

  Covers the bonding process from early prenatal through post-birth time. The issues of connection and separation are primary themes as are issues of receiving nutrition and emotional nurturing. This module covers:

  • How early imprinting affects future relationship formation, and individual motivation patterns.
  • Prenatal implantation dynamics, the development of the placenta and the umbilical cord.
  • Energetic umbilical dynamics, and related movement imprinting.
  • Birth dynamics, the cutting of the umbilical cord, newborn self-attachment behaviors and the nature of the baby's first contact with her mother and father after birth.
  • The baby's ability to attach to his/her mother emotionally, at the breast and the establishment of healthy nursing patterns.
  • Specific therapeutic protocols for resourcing, resolving and repatterning bonding and attachment trauma and a means for establishing nursing with babies who are unable to nurse or having difficulty with nursing.

• Module III - Birth Imprinting

  Covers the vaginal birth process, birth stages, pelvic types, cranial molding, birth movement patterns and an introduction to infant craniopathy. It introduces tracking fluid tide dynamics and tracking stage specific birth movement patterns. By the end of the workshop, each of you will describe your personal birth passage to a small peer group. Your birth passage session will be videotaped and you will receive a copy for your personal studies.

• Module IV - Chemical Imprinting

  Covers imprinting from anesthesia, nicotine, fetal alcohol and drug syndromes. We will look at the effects of chemical imprinting on prenates and babies' psyches, their movement patterns, their energy patterns and the development of the central nervous system. Specific protocols for resolving and repatterning of chemical imprinting are covered. A new theory is presented explaining the way chemical imprinting affects the function of the cerebral spinal fluid system. Your understanding of the cranial / sacral fluid tide system and the embryonic development of the brain will be enhanced so that you can use your visualization, energetic sensing, fluid tide palpation, and bodywork skills to support the resolution of traumatic chemical imprinting.

• Module V - Surgical Imprinting

  Covers forceps, vacuum extraction, cesarean section, circumcision and prenatal and infant surgery. You will learn how to identify signature cranial molding patterns, movement patterns and psychological impacts of each birthing style. You will learn the cranial impacts of forceps and vacuum extraction as well as specific treatment protocols for each type of surgical intervention. We will explore the effect of these procedures on physical structure and on the expression of the body's energy and fluid tide systems.

• Module VI and VII - Life Death Loss, Double Binds, Family and Group Dynamics

  Double bind or paradoxical imprints provide the most complicated dynamics in the PPN field. Double binds amplify practitioner counter-transference issues and complications for facilitating groups and families. This subject matter is saved for the seventh and eighth Foundation Training modules because the dynamics of these trauma impacts provide the practitioner with the greatest counter-transference challenges in the prenatal and birth therapy field. The curricula of the first six modules is designed to build the trainees' understanding, perception, presence and therapeutic skills so that they are more prepared to explore the effects of double binds in effective and compassionate ways.

  Having two modules devoted to developing skills for facilitating double binds give plenty of space to explore the depth of these early complicated imprints. Special attention is given to how double bind imprints affects families and group dynamics.

  Module VI Focuses on ancestral influences and twin dynamics and twin loss. Ancestral influences on individuation are explored to differentiate twin and ancestral imprinting. Twin embryonic and placental development are correlated with twin behavior later in life. Lost twin syndrome affects on singleton behavior is covered. You will learn to identify twin psychological imprinting, the counter-transference / transference issues involved and twin dynamic therapeutic protocols. Breech birth presentation is covered in this module because a high percentage of breech presentations have occur during twin births.

  Module VII focuses on adoption, previous abortion and miscarriage, abortion attempts, traumatic impacts of death in the family during pregnancy, stillbirth and infant sibling loss, A.R.T. (Assisted Reproductive Technology) and NICU experience. The skills for facilitating double bind dynamics are further developed and refined in this module.

• Module VIII Family and Small Group Practice

  This module is designed to transition the practitioner from foundation skill building into a model for family and small group practice. It covers:

  • The structural components for a process session both with adults in a Process Workshop setting and with families in infant/child-centered family settings.
  • Organization of BEBA: A Center for Family Healing.
  • Questions about clinical practice.
  • Demonstration session by Dr. Castellino including a complete debriefing which focuses on recognizing the principles utilized.
  • Each trainee will give and receive a supervised process session in a small group setting.
  • Creating and sharing a one and five-year plan for integrating the work into your practice and life.