The ERT Practitioner School is a year-long, in-person training in the full Emotional Release Therapy modality, taught by Pat Jackman to a cohort of no more than eight. It runs as five four-day modules plus twenty-five practicum sessions. Certified graduates are listed in the public practitioner directory. The next cohort begins September 10–13, 2026 in Sebastopol, California, and is enrolling now.
This is not a certificate you collect. It is a year of learning to hold the room for someone else while they meet the part of themselves they had to abandon — and that is a skill that takes hands, not slides.
What you actually learn
The training teaches the whole modality, not a technique from it: the doorways, the process, and the presence it takes to stay steady with someone in the middle of a release.
- The map of doorways. Where the points sit on muscle and bone, what each tends to hold, and the order in which a body will usually let you approach them.
- Touch that invites rather than forces. The difference is almost entirely in the practitioner's nervous system, which is why this cannot be taught from a book. You learn it by having your hands adjusted.
- Inner child work through the body. How to reach a younger self through tissue rather than conversation, and how to stay with her once she arrives. This is the centre of the training, not a module within it.
- Holding a release. What to do when someone is shouting, sobbing, shaking or gone quiet. When to stay silent. When to speak. When to take your hands off.
- Reading a body in real time. Breath, colour, guarding, micro-withdrawal — the signals that tell you to go further or to stop.
- Scope, safety and screening. Contraindications, the people you refer out rather than work with, and how to be clear that this is not medical or psychological treatment.
- Closing and integration. How to bring someone back and send them home landed, which is as much of the craft as opening them was.
- Your own material. You will receive as much work as you give. There is no version of this training where you stay on the outside of it.
Every practitioner listed in the ERT directory came through this training, and Pat taught each of them personally. There is no online version, no fast track and no licensing of the curriculum to other schools.
How the year is built
- Five four-day in-person modules. Each one builds on the last. Days are long and hands-on; you will be working on people and being worked on from the first module.
- Twenty-five practicum sessions. Real sessions with real people, completed between modules and logged. This is where the training actually lands.
- A cohort of no more than eight. Start to finish, the same eight people. You will do your own deepest work in front of them, which is why the number is small.
- About a year, sometimes less. Dates for the remaining modules are chosen by the group once it forms, because students travel a long way to attend and the calendar has to work for all of them.
- Certification on completion. Practicum hours finished, competence assessed by Pat, and then a listing in the directory.
- $1,950 per module, food and lodging included. Each module is paid before it begins, so the cost is spread across the year rather than due up front. Five modules, $9,750 in total.
Who this is for
Cohorts have included massage therapists and bodyworkers, licensed counselors and psychotherapists, yoga and breathwork teachers, nurses, and people with no professional background in this field at all who simply could not leave the work alone after a retreat.
What has mattered far more than credentials is a specific and unglamorous set of traits: you can be still while someone else is not; you do not need to fix people; you can be near strong emotion without absorbing it or flinching from it; and you are willing to go through your own material rather than around it.
And who it is not for — said plainly
Plenty of people feel drawn to this. Fewer find it is their path, and that is entirely fine. If you are in the middle of your own acute crisis, if you want a credential faster than a year, if you would rather understand this work than feel it, or if you are hoping to learn a set of points you can add to an existing practice without changing how you practise — this is not the right training, and the prerequisite experience exists partly so you can find that out before you commit.
How you get in
- Experience the work first. A private session with a certified practitioner, the one-day workshop, or a retreat. Any of the three gives you the modality from the inside and a few of the foundational points. This is required, and it is required for your sake.
- Register, with a short letter of intent. A few honest paragraphs about why this work and why now. It is not an exam; Pat reads every one.
- Place a $600 deposit. This reserves your seat in the cohort. It comes off your first module rather than sitting on top of it, so it is not an extra fee. Deposits are non-refundable.
- Pay each module before it starts. $1,950 per four-day module, food and lodging included. With the deposit already counted, that means $1,350 before the first module and $1,950 before each of the four after it. Nothing is due for a module you have not reached yet.
- Meet your cohort and set the calendar. Once the eight seats are filled, the group chooses the remaining module dates together.
Next cohort
- Status
- Forming now — enrolling
- First module
- September 10–13, 2026
- Location
- Sebastopol, California
- Length
- About a year or less
- Structure
- 5 four-day modules + 25 practicum sessions
- Cohort size
- Up to eight students
- Cost
- $1,950 per module — $9,750 total
- Included
- Food and lodging at every module
- Paying
- Module by module, before each one
- Prerequisite
- A session, workshop or retreat
- To apply
- Register + $600 deposit
- Deposit
- Comes off module one
Students travel from across the United States and Canada for this training. Sebastopol is about an hour and a quarter north of San Francisco; Santa Rosa (STS) is the nearest airport, and SFO and OAK are both comfortable drives.
Questions about the training
Do I need to be a licensed bodyworker already?
No. Cohorts have included people with no professional background in bodywork. What you will need is a licence or permit to practise bodywork for money in your own state or province once you certify — requirements vary a great deal, so check yours early rather than at the end.
Can any of it be done online?
No. This is hands-on work taught hand to hand, and there is no remote equivalent to having your pressure corrected mid-session. All five modules are in person.
What does the whole training cost?
$1,950 per module, and there are five modules — $9,750 in total. Food and lodging at each four-day module are included in that, so the only additional cost is getting yourself there.
You are not asked for $9,750 up front. Each module is paid before that module begins, which spreads the cost across roughly a year.
The $600 deposit reserves your seat when you register and comes off your first module — it is not an extra charge. So the schedule is $600 at registration, $1,350 before module one, then $1,950 before each of modules two through five. Deposits are non-refundable.
How much travel is involved?
Five trips over roughly a year. Module dates are chosen by the cohort once it forms, specifically so that people flying in can plan around them.
Where do the twenty-five practicum sessions come from?
You find them — friends, colleagues, people who hear what you are training in. Most students find the harder part is not finding bodies but slowing down enough to work properly with each one. Sessions are logged and discussed at the following module.
What happens if I need to step out partway through?
Talk to Pat. Life happens, and people have joined a later cohort to finish. What is not possible is skipping a module and catching up on paper.
Am I listed in the directory automatically?
On certification, yes — the directory is the list of practitioners Pat has trained and stands behind, and it is how most people find a practitioner near them.
Can I host a module or a retreat in my area?
Sometimes, yes. Retreats run outside California when a group forms. Email Pat if you have a group and a space.
Emotional Release Therapy is not a substitute for medical or psychological treatment, and does not diagnose, cure or treat any condition. Certification in ERT is not a licence to practise bodywork — licensing requirements are set by your own state or province. Results vary from person to person.