Intro to Therapeutic Nature-Based Interventions
An 8-Week Online Training for Counselors and Helping Professionals
Ecotherapy Theory and Tools for Outside, Indoors, and Online
16 NBCC Credit Hours Available
September 18 - November 13, 2025
The Somatic Nature Therapy Institute’s Intro to Therapeutic Nature-Based Interventions training equips you with essential skills and theoretical framework you need to facilitate therapeutic nature-based experiences–outside or indoors—in a safe, effective, and ethical way.
Who This Training is For
This online training is perfect if you are in a helping profession and want to add therapeutic nature-based interventions to your toolkit.
Research confirms that connecting with the natural world can reduce stress and anger, and support nervous system regulation. It can also have a positive impact on self-esteem, emotional and behavioral health, cognition, and your physical wellbeing.
Intro to Therapeutic Nature-Based Interventions is also a powerful way to deepen your own relationship with the natural world, so you can move from a place of embodied connection with nature and feel more grounded, centered, and confident in facilitating others.
What You’ll Get From This Training
Deepen your own personal relationship with the natural world
Learn therapeutic nature-based theory, skills, and practices
Learn and practice experiential facilitation skills
Receive guidance for assessing and creating interventions to match therapeutic goals
Learn considerations for taking clients outdoors (safety, ethics, logistics, guidelines)
Find clarity and inspiration for your next steps incorporating nature-connection into your work
Take home a nature-connection ebook with dozens of therapeutic practices you can use with clients
“Nature has the power to heal because it is where we are from, it is where we belong and it belongs to us as an essential part of our health and our survival.”
Training Outline
Week 1: Training overview, exploring relationship with nature, ecological identity, and skills practice
Week 2: History of wilderness and adventure therapies, research behind nature-based interventions, and ecotherapy skills practice
Week 3: Ways to incorporate nature into your work, intervention categories, sensory awareness, ecotherapy skills practice
Week 4: Experiential facilitation theory, the role of mindfulness, conversations with nature, ecotherapy skills practice
Week 5: More experiential facilitation skills, wanders in nature, ecotherapy skills practice
Week 6: Creating nature-based interventions for specific therapeutic goals, case studies, ecotherapy skills practice
Week 7: Ethics, considerations and safety for nature-based therapy and healing, ecotherapy skills practice
Week 8: Integration, next steps, and additional resources
What People are Saying About Intro to Therapeutic Nature-Based Interventions
Training Details
Next Training:
September 18 - November 13, 2025
Schedule:
Thursdays from 4 - 6 pm MST
Location:
online
Price:
$629.00
Continuing Education Details
Clinical learning objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
Assess your own current connection with and comfortability within the natural world and develop a plan to strengthen it.
Identify core principles of therapeutic nature-based approaches and which principles align with practitioner theoretical orientation.
Design and practice experiential activities to facilitate nature-connection, and self-discovery.
Demonstrate ability to design a nature-based intervention that addresses client treatment goals.
Identify safety, ethical, and logistical considerations for taking clients outdoors.
Develop a plan to incorporate nature-connection practices into your work context that meets ethical and liability standards..
Utilize the provided resources to select and implement nature-connection practices with clients.
Understand and articulate considerations for adapting nature-based interventions for a variety of populations, cultural contexts and treatment considerations.
Registration process: To register for the program, please click the register button to complete self-enrollment in the Ruzuku online training platform. If you would like to schedule a call with our Program Director prior to enrolling, please submit a “contact” us form and request to schedule a time to connect.
Cancellation policy: We offer full refunds until four weeks prior to the program start date, excluding a $75 processing fee. If it is less than two weeks prior to the program start date, there is no refund. Regarding all payment plans, our policy is that if circumstances arise that require you to exit the training during the course, while we sympathize with your situation, we require you to fulfill your financial commitment.
If the program is canceled for any reason, your deposit and any other fees will be returned.
Attendance requirements for receiving CE credit: You must attend at least 6 of the 8 live sessions in order to receive any CE credit for the program. Attendance will be recorded each session and you must be present for the entire session to receive credit. No partial credit will be awarded for sessions that were not attended in full. There is no make up work so please make sure you can make each live session if you would like to earn CE.
Continuing education (CE) credit: Somatic Nature Therapy Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider(™), ACEP No. 7785. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified on the program’s specific webpage. Somatic Nature Therapy Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
If you attend all live sessions for this program, you will receive 16 NBCC credit hours. You are responsible for confirming with your state licensing board if they accept NBCC credit hours for continuing education.
American Disabilities Act: If you require special accommodations to attend any of our programs, please contact us at Info@somaticnaturetherapy.com.
About Your Facilitator
Angela has spent over 20 years in the field of psychology, specializing in alternative and integrative healing modalities, including nature-based work. She believes that personal and collective well-being are deeply interwoven with our relationship to the natural world. Angela holds a master’s degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Wilderness Therapy and is the founder of Expanding Roots Integrative Wellness in Boulder, CO. She has served as a group facilitator, yoga teacher, and clinical supervisor. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Naropa University’s Graduate School of Psychology and continues to teach at the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute.
About the Training Creator
With over 3 decades of experience in outdoor education, therapy, teaching, and rites of passage guiding, Katie Asmus, MA, BMP, LPC, the founder of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute, is an expert facilitator and educator on nature-based therapeutic interventions.
Katie started her career as an instructor for Outward Bound and after becoming a clinician, began training outdoor educators and facilitators how to identify and address trauma and panic responses among students on wilderness trips.
Katie also has had a 25-plus-year career working with therapy and coaching clients and teaching graduate-level wilderness therapy, adventure therapy, ecotherapy, and somatic therapy at Naropa University and Prescott College.
She is a skilled facilitator, educator, speaker, and therapist who has trained practitioners internationally in somatic and nature-based interventions for working with trauma, attachment, and nervous system regulation with a strong emphasis on parts work. Katie also focuses on incorporating ceremony and rites of passage into healing work in order to honor life transitions. She has developed a number of professional trainings for helping professionals in these areas, has presented internationally for over 25 years, published a variety of writings, and has been a frequent guest on podcasts and as a speaker in international communities. She is passionate about sharing the many ways nature connection can be woven into the therapeutic process and empowering practitioners to lean into the inherent wisdom of the natural world.
For questions or if you’d like more information, reach out to us.
Learn more about all of our Wilderness Therapy and Nature-Based trainings for counselors, coaches, educators, and healers.