In order for an individual to be accepted into membership, the application must be approved in accordance with the ISMETA Board of Director’s process. Taken into account in making this decision will be the extent to which the applicant meets the eligibility requirements established by ISMETA, and whether it is the consensus of the ISMETA Board of Directors that approving the application will further the mission of ISMETA.
For individuals applying to ISMETA for Professional Membership who have not graduated from an Approved Training Program must meet the following requirements:
I.
Curricular Requirements
A minimum of 500 class hours of formal instruction in movement education and/or therapy, in either a classroom or tutorial format. These class hours must be geared towards professional training.
The minimum of 500 hours will give an individual the ability to demonstrate facility with skills as described in the ISMETA Scope of Practice (see section IIII. below) via a balanced combination of skilled touch, movement, and verbal guidance. (This includes practice in and movement protocols for one-to-one sessions)
A.
Curriculum must include general movement education including but not limited to: movement observation and analysis; neuromuscular or skeletal awareness; movement efficiency and development of individual movement protocols. Demonstration and/or verbal instruction may be used to assist in the active learning on the part of the client/student.
This course work must be geared toward the training of a movement practitioner so that the individual is skilled in working with movement patterns, and not geared simply for purposes of personal development. The courses of study may include experiential anatomy, physiology, and movement classes. These courses are to be considered as actively experiencing the subject through kinesthetic or embodied movement applications, rather than through purely academic or cognitive analysis.
B.
The curriculum must also include hands-on re-patterning which can be related to anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology, including the benefits and cautions of these touch techniques. Hands-on re-patterning is defined as employing guidance with one’s hands to teach the client/student active movement patterns that he or she will be able to continue to utilize independently. It is required that assessment skills and interventions using knowledge from efficient alignment, ease of movement, neuromuscular awareness and/or perceptual-motor development be taught. In addition, there should be biomechanical attention to the educator, therapist, or practitioner’s movement patterns and usage during hands-on work. Thus, the client /student will, at times, be actively involved in the movement, not merely passively receiving the movement instruction of the therapist or educator.
C.
The Curriculum must also include course work aimed to strengthen professionalism in areas such as counseling, business skills, case studies, ethics, and development of a private practice.
II.
Professional Practice Requirements:
Evidence of 150 hours of professional practice. 75 hours must be post graduation from your training program. Of the entire 150 hours at least 75 hours must be sessions with individuals.
III.
Ethical Standards
As an approved individual professional member the member must agree to abide by the ethical standards put forth by ISMETA when teaching and working with clients. See Ethical Standards Document.
IV.
Scope of Practice
The professional field of somatic movement education and therapy spans holistic education and complimentary-alternative medicine. The field contains distinct disciplines each with its own educational and/or therapeutic emphasis, principles, methods, and techniques.
Practices of somatic movement education and therapy encompass postural and movement evaluation, communication and guidance through touch and words, experiential anatomy and imagery, and movement patterning. These practices are applied to everyday and specialized activities for persons in all stages of health and development.
The purpose of somatic movement education and therapy is to enhance human processes of psychophysical awareness and functioning through movement learning. Practices provide the learning conditions to:
Focus on the body both as an objective physical process and as a subjective process of lived consciousness;
Refine perceptual, kinesthetic, proprioceptive, and interoceptive sensitivity that supports homeostasis and self regulation;
Recognize habitual patterns of perceptual, postural and movement interaction with one’s environment;
Improve movement coordination that supports structural, functional and expressive integration;
Experience an embodied sense of vitality and extended capacities for living.
