🕒 6–8 Months
On-line + Live 3-Day Intensive
For Registered Nurses including NPs, CNSs & PSWs
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OAMHP · CEC Approved
30 Continuing Education Credits
A structured, nine-step clinical process for working with trauma at the level of identity disruption and nervous-system dysregulation — taught over 30 hours and applied to your own caseload throughout the course.
30 contact hours · Certificate of completion · Cohort capped at 15
BEC111 opens with a three-day intensive introducing the Becoming Method®, its nine-step psychotherapeutic process, and the framework supporting the safe and effective use of self. Through guided practice, role-play, and facilitated reflection, learners encounter the method as both personal and professional practice — building psychological safety and deepening practitioner-client alliances.
The intensive is followed by four monthly, 3.5-hour integration sessions designed to deepen understanding of the method’s 12 components. Bridging personal development with professional responsibility, these sessions explore Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), Somatic Embodiment Therapy (SET), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Truth Telling, and Conscious Forgiveness and Reconciliation: a return to friendship with self.
BEC111 is theoretically oriented to psychotherapy as a relational, ethically sequenced, and embodied process through which healing occurs by restoring coherence, dignity, attachment, truth, and connection within the self and across relational systems.
Each 90-minute session follows a defined cyclical structure — from intention-setting and consciousness mapping through conscious forgiveness and reconciliation. Not a loose framework you have to assemble yourself.
Delivered in a capped cohort model with case consultation on your own client work built into every Zoom session — so you’re never applying a new method alone.
Evaluation in BEC111 emphasizes reflective depth, professional engagement, ethical-professional integration, and the learner’s demonstrated capacity to observe and regulate self in relation to others. Through intensive reflections, ongoing integrative writing, and a final summative synthesis, learners articulate the development of Safe and Effective Use of Self and identify areas for continued growth in preparation for advanced clinical practice.
Not right for you if: you have no prior clinical training or professional registration. BEC111 is a CE course for practicing professionals. It is not an introductory program and is not designed for personal healing work.
Join the clinicians already using this process with real clients.
Some practitioners trained in the Becoming Method® have told us their clients begin to experience shifts earlier in treatment than expected. Individual results vary by client and context.
One client I'd worked with for several months made noticeable progress faster than I expected, in a way that felt different from our previous crisis work together. Having a coherent, phase-based process has completely changed how I approach complex cases.
A. Clarke, MSW, RSWCommunity Mental Health, Ontario
I expected another ‘interesting’ trauma training; what I got was a method I use every week. The Becoming Method® helped me connect chronic anxiety and relationship patterns back to identity disruption in a way my clients could actually understand. Several long-term clients have told me, ‘This is the first time therapy feels like it’s going somewhere.’ My practice is sharper and more anchored because of this course.
J. Patel, RPPrivate Practice, Toronto
As a nurse, I wasn’t sure how a psychotherapy training would translate to front-line care. It did. BEC111 gave me language for what I already see in home visits — shutdown, hyperarousal, dissociation — and practical steps I can use right in my scope. I’m more confident de-escalating, and patients report feeling ‘seen’ in a new way. It has meaningfully improved how I show up for my clients.
M. Johnson, RNCommunity & Emergency Nursing, Brampton
BEC111 is delivered in two phases: a 3-day in-person intensive at the Becoming Institute’s Brampton location, followed by four monthly half-day sessions via Zoom. Together, they provide 30 OAMHP-recognized CE contact hours.
In person · 80 Devon Road, Unit 2, Brampton, ON
Via Zoom, hosted through our secure Brightspace platform
Orientation to the Becoming Method®’s nine-step Psychotherapeutic process. Introduction to a decolonized approach to psychotherapeutic assessments.
How to identify and work with the exiles and protectors of IFS through structured truth-telling, and how to facilitate the conscious forgiveness process without erasing the clients' experience.
How reconciliation - a return to friendship with self - functions as a measurable clinical outcome, how to help clients reach a state of reconnectedness with self and others, and how to close a therapeutic arc.
Establishing partnership and safety in real cases from your own practice.
Truth-telling and intervening at the moment of rupture.
Somatic awareness and IFS-informed reconciliation work.
Integration, case consultation, and opening the next chapter of practice.
Each Zoom session combines live instruction, guided practice, case consultation on your own clinical work — including how each case connects to family, cultural, or community context — and review of your monthly self-evaluation submission.
BEC111 is the foundational course in the Becoming Method® — twenty years of clinical inquiry distilled into a teachable, supervisable methodology. The Method integrates the convergent insights of Diamond, Hawkins, Blakely, van der Kolk, Levine, and Porges into a coherent, phase-based approach to trauma recovery, delivered here as a nine-step clinical process you practise and are evaluated on.
Disciplined witnessing of what happened, what was lost, and what was adapted to in order to survive.
Release of inherited contracts, ancestral burdens, and self-judgements that block coherence, agency, and authenticity.
Reintegration of self, relationship, and community — a return to connection across personal, familial, and systemic fields.
“Psychological safety is not the absence of difficulty. It is the disciplined, regulated, ethically grounded presence within which lasting recovery becomes possible.”
The Becoming Method® is a registered mark of Becoming Institute Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Ph.D. (Nursing), RN-Psychotherapist
Dr. Joan Samuels-Dennis, Ph.D., RN-Psychotherapist, is a Canadian nurse, psychotherapist, and educator with more than 25 years of clinical, community, and public health practice, much of it with populations affected by structural violence, displacement, and intergenerational trauma. That work is the direct source of the Becoming Method®’s community and cultural-context focus — it wasn’t added as theory, it came out of practice. She is also the principal architect of the Advanced Practice RN-Psychotherapist Standards & Competencies, a framework defining nursing psychotherapy as an advanced clinical role in Canada.
As Founder and President of Becoming Institute Inc., she trains nurses and allied professionals to work as Trauma Recovery Specialists and RN-Psychotherapists across health systems and communities.
M.A. · RP
Jenn Cardoso is a Registered Psychotherapist and somatic practitioner whose work centers on embodiment, relational awareness, and trauma-responsive healing. Her teaching is grounded in the understanding that the body holds essential knowledge — and that learning must attend to both physiological and relational experience.
With training in counselling psychology, somatic approaches, and trauma-informed movement, Jenn supports practitioners in developing presence, attunement, and nervous-system literacy. Her work emphasizes how safety, connection, and meaning are cultivated through embodied practice rather than technique alone.
MSW · RSW
Chantal Gray is a Registered Social Worker and clinical leader whose work centers on trauma-informed, culturally responsive care across the lifespan. She brings extensive experience supporting children, families, and communities through intergenerational trauma, life transitions, and systemic stressors.
As Co-Founder and Clinical Director of Winrose Oasis Counselling Services, Chantal has led the development of holistic, community-anchored clinical programs grounded in safety, cultural humility, and relational care. Her practice integrates evidence-based approaches — including trauma counselling, play-based interventions, and EMDR — within a framework that honours family systems and cultural context.
Yes — and it’s actually designed for that. The Becoming Method® is built on the premise that trauma is a nervous-system response to perceived overwhelm, not a diagnosis. Chronic anxiety, depression, relationship conflict, identity struggles, and burnout are all presentations of dysregulation. Many practitioners find this course applicable to their existing caseload from early in the training.
No. BEC111 doesn’t replace those modalities — it gives them a coherent sequence to sit inside. Many graduates say it’s the first training that helped them understand why their existing tools work and when to use which one. You’ll leave with a framework that integrates what you already do, not a replacement for it.
BEC111 is designed for regulated health professionals across nursing, psychotherapy, social work, counselling, and allied health — not one discipline. The seven learning outcomes are written against competency domains common to regulated mental health practice — safe and effective use of self, cultural and human diversity, assessment, and intervention planning. The course teaches the Becoming Method® as a clinical process you apply within whatever scope you already practice in.
Most trauma frameworks address one domain — cognitive, somatic, or relational. The Becoming Method® is a phase-based, nine-step process that moves through truth-telling, conscious forgiveness, and reconciliation as sequential, teachable, and evaluable clinical stages. It integrates the convergent insights of van der Kolk, Levine, Porges, Siegel, and Schwartz — and adds a decolonized, community-level lens that most single-modality trainings don’t include.
It’s built into the curriculum, not appended to it. Days 1, 2 and 3 of the intensive specifically cover how systemic oppression, cultural context, and intergenerational trauma shape a client’s nervous-system presentation — and how to work with that context directly in session, as part of the clinical process rather than as a separate diversity module.
Yes. All four dimensions map to established constructs in trauma-informed and psychotherapy literature: somatic/nervous-system regulation, cognitive and narrative processing, self-concept and identity, and sense of purpose or connection to community. Each has a specific, teachable clinical technique. You decide how much weight to give each dimension with any given client, exactly as you would with any clinical framework.
BEC111 provides 30 documented CE contact hours of instruction, approved by the Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP). You receive a certificate of completion listing the learning objectives, contact hours, and competency areas covered. Continuing education requirements differ by profession — check with your own regulatory body for its self-reporting rules and whether these hours can be applied.
Sessions are recorded and accessible through Brightspace. Live attendance is strongly encouraged — case consultation is built into real-time group discussion and cannot be fully replicated asynchronously. If you miss a session, a written clinical reflection submission is required in its place.
BEC111 is capped at 15 participants. The small cohort size is intentional — case consultation on your own client work is built into every Zoom session, which requires the kind of trust and depth that only a contained group can hold.
Full refunds are available up to 14 days before the start of your cohort’s 3-day intensive. After that point, you can receive a credit toward a future offering of BEC111. No refunds are issued within 7 days of the intensive start date or after the cohort has begun.
BEC111 has no prerequisite for standalone CE participants. It is also the required foundational course within the Becoming Institute’s 12-month RN-Psychotherapist Credentialing Program — participants on that pathway must complete BEC101 first.
Book a 15-minute call with an Academic Advisor. We’ll answer your specific questions, walk you through what a typical session looks like, and help you figure out whether BEC111 fits your practice and your schedule — no pressure, no pitch.
BEC111 provides 30 OAMHP-approved CE contact hours of instruction, delivered as a three-day in-person intensive followed by four monthly half-day sessions. Participants who complete all course requirements receive a certificate of completion recording the learning objectives, contact hours, and competency areas covered. Continuing education requirements differ by profession — check with your own regulatory body for its self-reporting rules.
Participation in this workshop allows OAMHP members to apply 30 CECs toward their required continuing education hours. OAMHP’s review of the general content of this workshop recognizes the learning objectives meet and support the criteria (1) for best known practice in continuing education and (2) for educational requirements for mental health professionals.
Book a 20-minute call with our team to walk through the curriculum, cohort structure, and whether the September 11 cohort fits your schedule and clinical context.
Trauma recovery specialization through Truth-Telling, Conscious Forgiveness, and Reconciliation — a return to friendship with self.
The Becoming Method® · September 11 CohortThere’s no shortage of trauma trainings. What’s harder to find is a course that gives you a full, sequenced process — one that accounts for culture and community, nervous-system state, and identity, not just one more technique added to your toolkit.
A capped cohort so every learner can be observed, practise on their own cases, and receive feedback.
80 Devon Road, Unit 2, Brampton, ON, L6P 5B3 — the Becoming Institute’s home training facility.
Four monthly 3.5-hour integration sessions delivered live via our secure Brightspace-hosted Zoom platform.
Records learning objectives, contact hours, and competency areas covered.
This work isn’t easy. It asks a lot of you — your time, your patience, your willingness to keep going when a case doesn’t respond to standard technique, and your willingness to see each client inside their full context. BEC111 gives you a process, a peer group, and a structured way to keep sharpening your practice over time.
Questions? Email info@becominginstitute.ca or call (647) 265-0804
