Mental Space Psychology (MSP) Diploma & Practitioner Program
Hello there. And Welcome here.
Coaches and Therapists use multiple toolkits to unpack and explore client lifeworlds. A surprisingly uncommon and yet potent approach is spatial therapeutics.
Research by Dr Lucas Derks and his colleagues as well as older scholars reveal that everything that we know is located somewhere in our mental space (the space around us into which we seem to be projecting our maps of the world). The friend who annoys, the person you have a crush on, the activity that is boring, and the poor self-worth seem to occupy particular locations in this mental space with particular attributes. It is as if we carry our dramas around us wherever we go.
Add to this, it also appears that significant emotional events of the past have an impact on our mental space. Whether it is black zones that block out events or objects that hide the underlying issues, mental space appears as an alive responding reservoir of many narratives and beliefs from the past. As vital as Place in a culture.
Somehow the projected mental space maps the yearnings and disconnects of Place of a culture, picking up on major patterns of separation and fragmentation in how we sharply represent self and others.
Not only mental space, the actual physical space in which we walk and sit and sleep also appears to be very potent. A person’s response while standing on green grass is different from sat, sitting in a particular sofa in a closed room is different from standing in the hallway to a room is different while sitting in an office workchair and so on. That we metaphorically interact with space in profound ways.
You can see some examples and explorations on the Mental Space Academy India YouTube channel
What does it mean for you as a Coach/Therapist?
In addition to your usual coaching or counselling approaches, you could work with the client’s mental and physical space. Help them recognise their repetitive patterns in terms of space. It is profoundly different as it is easy.
Perception is Action (Gibson, 1977). Perceiving expansively opens other ways to respond to one’s internal and external world.
Additionally, the Mental Space Academy India Certification gives you a unique brand position in a highly competitive field.
The Lightweaver Way
My approach to coaching and training is systemic and decolonizing. I recognise the colonial forms of behaviour management and behaviour modification to protect status quo of sociocultural relations. I recognise how it has been used to suppress unsuitable expressions and the many histories that make for a poor self-image.
The Lightweaver coaching and training approach is founded on four principles:
- Acceptance and Discrimination: We are anchored in the Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:
God Grant me the serenity
to accept things that I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
- Suffering is transcontextual: Many contexts, current and historical, make for this moment’s suffering. There are influences of history, culture, family, economics and more. There are relationship struggles with other beings. That what is experienced is not confined to an individual but to the woven relationships within which they exist.
- Emergence not Procedures: The agony of the moment is anchored on many pegs and swirls with known and unknown factors. Effort is to tend to issues personally and systemically – sleep, rest, gut, nervous system, memories, body, relationships and support an organic emergence of a way out/over.
- Learning to learn as a regenerative personal practice: A key aspect of the coaching/training process is to notice how we attend, interpret and categorise worlds. And the nudge is to become loose and flexible and intake diverse patterns. Make perception wide and soft. Learning is a consequence of broadening inner horizons.
Course Work
You have two options. Earn a Diploma through minimum 24 hours of online coursework which includes live zoom hours with me and additional practice sessions with your colleagues.
Or earn a Practitioner certification with 26 hours of online course plus 24 hours of in-person workshop.
Depending on the level of your certification, you will learn how to work on the following using Mental Spatial tools:
- Troubled Relationships
- Self-image, Authority and Fear of others
- Brain and Body
- Physical Space significations (Practitioner level)
- Time
- Depression, Anxiety and Trauma (Practitioner level)
- Intergenerational Family issues (Practitioner level)
Eligibility
This course requires you to have a Neurolinguistic background. If you don’t have it, you may enrol for a two-day bridge course here.
You need to be a practicing coach /therapist/counsellor/psychologist and are expected to show up in practice sessions with established foundations of coaching or counselling.
You will receive your certificate when you attend full coursework and submit the course project at the end.
If you are ready to book your seat, go right ahead and click on the button below.
Schedule
Online work (24 hrs):
Batch 1: Sep 7 onwards (every Saturday at 10 am IST, 3 hrs each)
Batch 2: Nov 9 onwards (every Saturday at 3 pm IST, 3 hrs each)
Practitioner Workshop: Jan 11-14 2025
You will also receive MSD-1 book (on Mental Spatial Diagnosis) as part of your course materials.
[If you are unable to join the Diploma or Practitioner program for any reason and still want a Certificate in the field, a short three-day course is available with flexible batches. Please visit Short Courses Page for details.]
Fees
Diploma Certification: Rs 30,000 + taxes
Practitioner Certification: Rs 65,000 +taxes
Fees for Repeaters: INR 5,000 + taxes (for online coursework), Rs 15,000 + taxes (for repeating practitioner level)
You can choose to pay in two or three instalments. Please connect with me for details.
Unfortunately, no scholarships are available for this program.
About the Trainer
I was the first in India to explore Mental Space Psychology. My curiosity led me to invite Dr Lucas Derks, pioneer of this field and organise his programs in India for two consecutive years. I also hosted board members of Society of Mental Space Psychology in India and organised their programs.
At that time, some unethical trainers had riffed off Dr Derks material and were peddling space therapeutics as their own. I fought against them to establish the original work of Dr Derks in India.
I established Mental Space Academy India to promote awareness of this field amongst people in India. I am grateful that SOMSP supported my efforts to evolve the changemaking field in India and provided multiple knowledge inputs.
I travelled all across India teaching Mental Space Psychology in different cities. I travelled months on end, receiving fabulous feedback from participants (you will find some of them below). I was a speaker in NLP Conference India (Nov 2019) and at the Global NLP Summit exploring various aspects of Mental Space and changemaking.
My sessions have been attended by people from 4 continents and I am very grateful for the love and support I have received from people interested in this field.
Even today, I am amongst the handful in the world who has explored space and place across fields—from indigenous cultures and their understanding of place, through geo-mythology, physical space and architecture, and mental space. I look through issues deep time as well as the usual modes of approaching time and connect it to broader deep ecology issues.
Feedback from Participants
“Thank you, Bhavana, again for the Introduction to Mental Space Psychology course last weekend. You broke the knowledge down into beautifully manageable and understandable steps. Even though I have already certified in an area of Mental Space Psychology, I have found your training very useful, I am taking away new, deeper understanding and simple and powerful practical tools to use in everyday life. As with all of your work, this interactive workshop again reinforces the message that anyone can come up with multiple creative ideas in any situation, no matter how stuck they feel in their life issue – thank you for that!!” –Lucia Kavkova, International Life Coach
“It was such a lovely course. The concept is so simple any one can use it. You get instant results. It was well worth the time effort money that I put into doing the course. And Bhavana is a wonderful facilitator to learn from.” Shikha- Hyderabad
“The Lightweaver’s Introduction to MSP was an illuminating weekend, spent going inwards. Exploring one’s mental space is an integral step on the path to well-being, and Bhavana took us through it with ease, grace and humour. As a coach-in-training, it was great to be able to work with classmates-cum-clients, as we helped each other learn and grow. I highly recommend the course to anyone who wants a taste of practical and effective therapeutic techniques, counsellors & coaches who want to stack up their resources, and for output-driven people to work through and around their obstacles. My best wishes to The Lightweaver and Mental Space Academy, India.” – Shayontoni, Hyderabad
“We are carrying a lot of dead weight. Pause and get rid of them. The session will help in knowing what is limiting us and what can be done to be in long race.”- KiMo, Hyderabad
“Bhavna ji is always superb. At Mumbai conference also, here session was superb. She mixes and matches the content, concept, context with her adept command on words, voice tonality, facial expressions, full body gestures. Overall, it is always a mesmerizing experience to attend her sessions.” – Dr Sanjay Agarwal, GOPTA NLP
Feedback from Global NLP Online Summit and SFA’s Chooseday Motivation Series program:
“Experience was nothing less than WOW – Thank you! A BIG BIG THANK YOU.”
“It was mind blowing.”
“VERY ENGAGING SESSION!”
“amazing thank you. Its all in my map…My map has to altered.”
“Thank you for a great session Bhavana. A new experience of integrating Time line and Perceptual positioning felt a weight lifted as I became an observer. Great learning!”
“I’m amazed that we have an intuitive structure for these words, which has a richness well beyond the word!”
“I feel what seems real may not be the reality?”
“It’s amazing how the problem literally gets out of ur body and I feel lighter with it out there.”
“Bhavana’s method is DEFINITELY I am going to experiment with! I think this will work well in solitude…”
“Wow!!!! such a powerful exercise Bhavana!!!”