Endorsement
You have reached our standard. Certification is offered. The work is yours — the credential simply names what is already present.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING ⌖ DEEPEST ENGAGEMENT
Yearlong
Autonomics
Practicum
A year-long academic & practitioner training program organized as a cohort of twelve meeting weekly in seminar. The model is a guild, not a curriculum. What is being developed here is a craft: the art and science of working with the living ANS.
The Practicum, Explained
A six-minute introduction from the Founder of Hearth Science
WHAT THE PRACTICUM IS
A craft not a checklist.
The practicum is the foundational training in Autonomics. It follows a guild model rather than a curriculum model — clinical competence in this work does not reduce to a sequence of steps and is not achieved by completing a checklist.
The program produces practitioners capable of tracking the living autonomic nervous system in another person with precision, in real time, and responding to what they observe. That is what a year of this work is designed to build.
The cohort meets weekly in seminar throughout the year. Two semesters structure the arc: the first focuses on autonomic cartography and transformational work on your own autonomic baselines. The second moves into autonomic tracking in earnest, building on that foundation.
The year culminates in a five-day tracking retreat where clinical competence is evaluated by faculty. There are objective quality standards for successful completion.
WHAT COMPETENCE REQUIRES
Six capacities form the foundation.
Competence in this work rests on two distinct but inseparable foundations: the practitioner’s own nervous system, and command of the model. The first category — 01) neurological coherence with accurate self-placement, and 02) attentional stability — concerns the practitioner as an instrument. The second — 03) autonomic cartography, 04) in vivo tracking, 05) pattern language fluency, and 06) interventional competence — concerns the model itself, and builds as a progression: the map makes perception precise, perception makes reading possible, and reading makes skillful response possible. The two categories develop together rather than in sequence. No one arrives with their own nervous system fully prepared for this work; in our experience, even the most advanced practitioners need substantial work on their own autonomic baselines, and that work continues throughout training and beyond. But the relationship between them is not symmetrical. A practitioner’s command of the model can only be as clear as the instrument through which they perceive it, so the work on one’s own nervous system is not preliminary to the training. It is the ground the training stands on.
I. A TRANSFORMED ANS: THE PRACTITIONER AS INSTRUMENT
A fundamental transformation of your own autonomic baselines, such that your nervous system can function as a clear instrument. You cannot track someone else clearly if you are not clear.
01 — Neurological Coherence
The ability to stabilize in a connection state, to be pulled out of it only in proportion to actual threat, and to return. This is paired with accurate self-placement: knowing where your own nervous system is on the map as it shifts.
02 — Attentional Stability
The ability to place attention, hold it, and return it at will, including in the presence of another person’s activation and without being pulled away by your own.
II. COMMAND OF THE MODEL
Each of these competencies builds on the one before: the map makes perception precise, perception makes reading possible, and reading makes skillful response possible.
03 — Autonomic Cartography
A precise and in-depth command of the three variables (context, neurology, and neurochemistry) that make up the three-system framework: its anatomy and its diagnostic structure.
04 — In Vivo Autonomic Tracking
The ability to track moment-to-moment changes in another person’s nervous system with fidelity: to feel what is happening in their ANS as it shifts, not after the fact.
05 — Fluency with the Pattern Language
A developed fluency with the pattern language that makes the living ANS readable in a clinical encounter, sufficient to read what is happening as it shifts.
06 — Interventional Competence
The ability to know what a reading calls for clinically, and to respond skillfully and in real time to what is unfolding.
PRIOR TRAINING
What transfers well into this work.
Prior training and practice that transfers well into this work includes embodied movement and somatic practices of any kind, mindful and interoceptive awareness training, energy practices, yoga, tai chi, and qigong.
These are not requirements. They are backgrounds that tend to give practitioners a head start on the first two competencies — neurological coherence and attentional stability — because the capacities built there are ones they have already begun developing.
What transfers is capacity, not interpretation. Most of these practices come with their own maps of the body and nervous system, and those maps do not transfer. The same is true of clinical, psychological, and somatic trauma training. Practitioners who arrive with deep expertise in another framework will find that the unlearning is often as demanding as the learning: the more fluent you are in a different map, the more naturally you will fit what you perceive here into it. The head start your practice gives you is real. So is the work of setting its interpretations aside.
One background is unusually applicable — and rare among wellness practitioners: deep nature awareness and hard ground tracking. If this is part of your practice, it is directly relevant to the diagnostic methodology at the center of this work.
Clinical licensure is not a requirement. The practicum is open to practitioners across modalities whose work takes them into contact with the autonomic nervous system — whether or not their training named it that way.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
Two Semesters.
A complete arc.
SEMESTER ONE ⌖ AUTONOMIC CARTOGRAPHY
SEMESTER TWO ⌖ AUTONOMIC TRACKING
The first semester is focused on autonomic cartography and transformational work on your own autonomic baselines. This is the prerequisite for everything that follows.
You cannot track the ANS in another person with precision until your own nervous system has been reorganized enough to function as a reliable instrument. That reorganization is what this semester is designed to produce.
By the end of the first semester, participants have a working command of the three-system framework and a meaningfully transformed relationship to their own autonomic landscape.
The second semester moves into autonomic tracking — learning to read the living ANS in another person in real time. This is where personal work done in the first semester pays off. (Aside from making your life better in every conceivable way ;)
Tracking is practiced within the cohort, in live clinical demonstrations, and in practice with peers outside the seminar. The feedback loop between theory, observation, and clinical experience is what produces fluency.
The year culminates in a five-day tracking retreat held each May or June, either at our Northern California headquarters or a retreat location in Europe. Faculty evaluation of tracking competence takes place on the final days of the retreat.
PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Weekly Time Engagement
Weekly Seminar
The primary container for the year. Two hours each week. Theory, demonstration, and direct practice within the cohort.
You’ll be spending several hours in class with your cohort, an hour or two on homeplay (it is work, but…), and an hour or two in practice (in the Embodiment Lab, on your own, or with fellow participants). You might want to do some reading…
This will also depend a bit on your background. If you have no background in neuroanatomy, plan to spend more time memorizing structure, etc.
No background in interoceptive practice? You are going to want to practice this more…
Embodiment Lab
A separate meeting focused on direct somatic and embodiment practice. Meets every other week throughout the year.
Homework
Primarily video-based assignments that carry the conceptual and observational work between seminar meetings. Relevant interviews, educational films, lectures, clinical session recordings…
5-day Capstone Retreat
The culmination of the year. Northern California and Europe. Faculty evaluation of tracking competence on the final days.
COHORTS
TUESDAY MORNING COHORT - SEMINAR 7 TO 9 AM PACIFIC TIME
Cohorts begin each autumn.
North America & Europe
Cohort size is twelve (plus faculty/ faculty-in-training). Composition is determined in part from our side.
Structured to be accessible to European participants. The morning time slot in North America falls in the afternoon for participants in Europe.
EVALUATION
Faculty evaluation
on the final days of the retreat.
The evaluation assesses autonomic tracking competence directly. It falls into one of four outcomes. We offer a certification for practitioners who reach the standard — a formality that acknowledges what you have built, not a credential that defines it.
Some participants do not pass.
Continue with postgraduate practice
A recommendation to continue with clinical practice before reaching our standard. The foundation is present; the fluency simply requires more time in the work.
Repeat the practicum
A recommendation to repeat the practicum. The year produced real development; a second year is the path to the standard.
Standard not reachable
A determination that our standard is not reachable for you. This outcome is uncommon. It is stated plainly rather than softened.
INVESTMENT
The practicum is $12,000.
Monthly payment is the default. It is structured to keep your financial investment concurrent with your learning. Lump sum payment is available if there is a compelling reason to prefer it.
DEFAULT
$1,000
per month · 12 months
Monthly payment keeps your financial investment concurrent with your learning. Most practitioners find this the more natural structure for a year of immersive work.
LUMP SUM
$12,000
single payment
Available if there is a compelling reason to prefer it. ACH or wire is recommended. Contact us directly if lump sum payment is your preferred structure.
APPLICATION
Three stages.
Fit is assessed at each.
Not all expressions of interest proceed to interview.
- 01
Written expression of interest
The first stage. Every expression of interest is reviewed personally. Fit is assessed before moving to interview — not all applications proceed.
- 02
Individual faculty interview
A substantive conversation with faculty. This is an assessment, not an orientation call. It addresses both suitability for the program and your clinical background and goals.
- 03
Group interview
A group interview that simulates elements of the seminar. This is the final stage of evaluation. Cohort composition is determined in part from our side — how practitioners work together matters.
JOIN US
Our 2026-2027 cohorts are complete. Expressions of interest are for next year’s cohort: Autumn 2027- Spring 2028.
Cohort places are limited to twelve and held in the order applications are confirmed.