Uncovering Genius: Nature-Based Parts Work
A 5-Day In-Person Training for Counselors and Healers
Help Your Clients Harness Their Inner Wisdom
36 NBCC Credit Hours Available
2026 TBA
If you’d like to support your clients in tapping into their inner wisdom through relationship with and reflection from the natural world, Uncovering Genius can help! We’ll dive deep into nature-based parts work theory and practice.
Join us for this five-day, highly experiential outdoor training that is influenced by many psychological models and modalities that acknowledge the complexity of our humanness and the brilliance of our inner capacity for wholeness and healing.
You will leave with a solid understanding of the innate function of our inner parts and a roadmap for identifying these parts, as well as inspiration for how doing this work in the natural world can greatly enhance your time with clients.
What is Parts Work?
Have you ever found yourself saying “A part of me really wants to do this (take a new job, go bungee jumping, or really try anything new), and a part of me is terrified?” Or “A part of me does not want to go to this party, but another part fears how someone will feel if I don’t show up?”
Parts work is a particular paradigm that has been identified, studied and developed for nearly a century in the world of counseling, psychotherapy, and self-growth work. In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud identified three aspects, or parts, of the self: the id, the ego, and the superego. Since then, many additional theorists and therapeutic modalities have developed models for looking at the way we internally navigate the world and negotiate our own conflicting inner challenges and desires. Many say that the different parts of us have their own unique wants, needs, fears, values, physical postures, and even biochemical states.
In this training, our teachings are informed by a variety of parts work models, including techniques from Gestalt Therapy, Psychodrama, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Ecopsychology, and Mandala Parts Work. We will look at some of the common elements across modalities and engage in a variety of creative, expressive, and nature-based experiential exercises that will support identifying, coming into relationship with, getting to know, and even beginning to shift some unwanted fears and behaviors, as well as strengthening resourced parts that can support overall greater insight and health.
Who This Training is For
This training is for counselors, coaches, educators and healers who are ready to integrate a powerful nature-based parts work paradigm into your work. Uncovering Genius will help you feel confident leading nature-based therapy, coaching, or self-growth sessions and intensives. The nature-based interventions you’ll learn in this training can be applied indoors, outdoors, and even online as you support clients' learning and growth. You’ll deepen your confidence and therapeutic skillset, increase value for your clients, and elevate therapeutic outcomes.
What You’ll Get From This Training
A theoretical overview of parts work
Tools for identifying different parts of self
Experiential exercises to help uncover and unpack the wisdom of parts
Nature-based experiential exercises and tools to further explore, dialogue with, and bring compassion and understanding to the parts that need healing
A variety of ways to incorporate these tools into diverse settings and therapeutic formats
Support for integrating the training material into your work with clients
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
Training Outline
Day 1: Orienting to the training, land, group and intentions, introduction to parts work, identifying parts
Day 2: Continue identifying parts, get to know your parts
Day 3: Creative representation of parts, wanders on the land- as, with and to find parts, explorations to learn more about core parts of self
Day 4: Continued experiential deepening of relationship with parts, working through decisions and life transition with parts work, inner dialogue, psychodrama, gestalt and Internal Family Systems, inner attachment through parts work
Day 5: Developing creative interventions for parts, creating ceremony for parts, arts work as applied to particular populations and formats, including for couples and therapy intensives, next steps for integrating this into your work
What People are Saying About Uncovering Genius
Training Details
Next Training:
2026 TBA
Location:
In the mountains 45 min west of Boulder, CO on private land (at 9,200 feet above sea level)
Prerequisites:
Introduction to Nature-Based Interventions is recommended, but not required.
Food and Lodging: Inquire with us about on-site and local camping and lodging options. There are AirBnBs, and campgrounds near the property. There are also several hotels within a 20 to 45 minute drive to the training location. Please let us know and we can help with recommendations.
Continuing Education Details
Clinical learning objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
Explain the foundational theories and principles of parts work as they relate to inner awareness, and trauma healing.
Identify and differentiate various parts of self through guided inquiry, observation, and somatic awareness.
Apply experiential practices to uncover the unique stories, needs, and wisdom held within individual parts.
Demonstrate nature-based tools and practices to explore, dialogue with, and heal parts that carry wounding or protective roles.
Evaluate and organize ways to integrate these tools across therapeutic settings, including indoor, outdoor, and virtual formats.
Develop a personalized approach to integrating parts work into your existing client practice, drawing from your own insights, theoretical orientation and professional context.
Registration process: To register for the program, please click the apply button and schedule a zoom call with our Program Director. The purpose of this call is to answer questions you may have about the program and to help determine if the program will meet your training goals.
Cancellation policy: We offer full refunds until four weeks prior to the program start date, excluding the deposit of $595. For participants who paid in full, a deposit of $595 will be deducted from the refund. Between two and four weeks prior to the program start date, we will refund all but 50% of the payment amount. 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 60% of the live sessions in order to receive any CE credit for the program. Attendance will be recorded each day of the program.
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 36 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 the Course Creator and Your Facilitator
With several 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 20-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 20 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.
Join the Wait List for Uncovering Genius
To get started, click the link below to joint our waitlist. You’ll be the first to know when we pick dates for 2026!
For questions or if you’d like more information, please contact us.
Learn more about all of our Wilderness Therapy and Nature-Based trainings for counselors, coaches, educators, and healers.