Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT)

Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT): Level 1 Training Program with Cynthia Price, PhD, MA, LMT

The next MABT Level 1 Training Program begins April 10, 2025

The Therapeutic Training Center is hosting the "Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT): Level 1 Training Program" taught by Cynthia Price, PhD, MA, LMT.

What Is Interoceptive Awareness?

This program provides instruction and practice in the fundamental skills of teaching "interoceptive" awareness skills to your clients. Interoceptive awareness is conscious awareness of sensory experience from inside the body, including the following types of examples:

• the movement of the diaphragm when we breath
• the experience of an ache when a tight muscle is massaged
• the experience of sadness that accompanies the release of muscle tension in the back

Why Is Interoceptive Awareness Important?

Interoceptive awareness is understood to be critical for nervous system and emotion regulation. Research has shown that people with high levels of experiential avoidance and stress, chronic pain, and mental health disorders have more difficulty processing sensory information compared to people who do not have such struggles. The MABT approach helps to develop and increase capacity for interoceptive awareness to improve self-awareness, care and emotion regulation.

What Is Mindful Awareness Body-Oriented Therapy (MABT)?

The primary goals of MABT and for your learning in the course are:

• how to teach clients to access bodily awareness through mindful meditative attention
• how to guide and facilitate client capacity for sustained attention within specific areas of the body
• to learn an inquiry process related to sensory awareness that promotes self-awareness and insight
• to learn to collaboratively identify interoceptive awareness practices with your client that can be integrated into daily life to promote self-care and emotion regulation

The processes of this evidenced-based approach are sequenced to facilitate client learning, and can be particularly useful for clients who are disconnected from their bodies due to high stress or patterns of experiential avoidance, chronic pain or trauma. To address possible challenges to learning to access interoceptive awareness, MABT is delivered individually to allow for flexibility in pacing and to match the client's learning style.

This training will incorporate the use of touch and verbal interaction. Students will work over clothes on massage tables. Also, there will be opportunities to practice MABT delivery seated with clients using self-touch to facilitate integration of skills into practice for those who aren't licensed to touch, such as for mental health providers or for teaching self-care exercises. The instructor will demonstrate key MABT components, and experiential practice may involve simulated provider-client interactions. Throughout the training, the application of mindfulness skills in clinical practice, i.e. the capacity for presence and mindful attention to self and in relationship to client, will be emphasized.

Students practice activities to develop their communication skills, intuition, clinical reasoning and ability to perceive the client's overall learning process. Clinical vignettes and research results using this evidenced-based approach will also be presented. Advanced training toward certification through the Center for Mindful Body Awareness is possible after completion of this initial Level 1 Training Program.

To listen to an Interview of Cynthia Price as she is asked what MABT is, please click HERE.

How Will MABT Benefit You And Your Clients?

How you will benefit: You'll learn how to teach your clients the skills needed to access their inner body/interoceptive experience, and guide them in the process of developing their capacity to attend and sustain interoceptive attention. MABT uses a sequenced approach that is designed for those who are disconnected from their bodies but is a useful approach for everyone to develop and/or deepen their capacity for interoceptive awareness.

You will learn to facilitate a reflective process to help your clients integrate their experience which will help them gain greater self-awareness, nervous system regulation, and practice these (often new) skills for daily self-care. In this course we focus on presence, and matching the teaching process to the client's learning pace and style; you may increase your capacity to be present, and to be in co-presence with your client, important for your own regulation and for delivering this approach. In addition, you'll increase your own interoceptive awareness through the MABT learning process. The components of this approach can be easily integrated into your practice and self-care.

What your clients/patients will experience: Your clients will learn to access and attend to their inner sensory experience; this process involves developing body literacy which is the ability to identify and describe sensations, developing the ability to bring one's attention to areas of the inner body, and increase the capacity to sustain mindful attention to inner body experience. This approach increases self-awareness and can positively shift ones experience and relationship with the body leading to decreased symptoms of distress, pain, and increased regulation -- as demonstrated in multiple research studies.