My Experience at Onsite: The Experiential Training Institute

Over this past weekend, I had the privilege of attending a four day experiential training at Onsite Workshops, located right outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I’m not sure I can fully convey my experience through words (which actually sums up what this training was about — you just have to experience it to understand it) but I’ll do my best to articulate what it was like at this magical place called Onsite.

Onsite is a therapeutic retreat center that provides workshops, intensives, and residential treatment to individuals and couples, as well as professional trainings for therapists and healthcare professionals. With two locations (one outside of Nashville and another outside of San Diego), their mission is to help people heal, grow, and connect through emotional wellness experiences.

This training was unlike any other therapy training I’ve attended in that it was an actual experience for the therapists & professionals that were attending. It was not your typical “lecture and note-taking” training. This was about being fully immersed into actually doing the therapy to learn it, and being a part of the process to understand it. Trainees volunteered their own experiences of loss, pain, anxiety, etc. for the group to learn. And through volunteering this, our group was able to witness and be a part of the healing that can take place from experiential therapy. By practicing these experiential exercises, we were able to understand how they work from first-hand experience. And honestly, I was blown away. My experience at Onsite will be a memory that I will cherish and hold with me forever. The depth, courage, and resiliency of the group was such an honor to be a part of. And being at Onsite truly moved me in ways I have never experienced before.

I saw pain be held and tended to in a way that only true connection and safety with others can do. I experienced how much light and connection can come from witnessing others be fully vulnerable and authentic in a group setting. And I learned a lot from incredibly skilled clinicians, including the experiential therapist who led us through our training.

Brief Summary of Experiential Therapy

I’ll try to describe this in a way that could make some sense to those who have no prior knowledge of experiential therapy — before this training, my answer was “uhh… it’s just like… therapy through an experience?”.

Experiential therapy is all about using your body, objects, metaphors, etc. to understand your experience and process your pain from a different point of view. It uses these experiential methods for re-creating or re-enacting experiences from the past or present.

My favorite exercises from experiential therapy were the role-reversal techniques, which is a form of psychodrama. This includes using other people or objects to embody your future self, inner-child, or emotions in order to heal. By stepping into these different roles (ex: reversing roles with your future self to help guide your present self, nurturing your inner-child by speaking to that part, “being” your emotion to speak from the perspective of your pain, or “being” your partner/parent to speak from their perspective), you become more attuned to how your emotions are stored in your body, and gain the ability to go deeper into this experience from a completely new perspective.

While the training itself was incredibly mind-blowing, it was truly the full experience of being at Onsite that was so enlightening. I made connections with people who were part of the other training (the psychodrama institute), and had two roommates who I ended up having a lot in common with (apparently we were all ‘earth signs’, so my roommate said it made sense). I met colleagues from different backgrounds, trainings, and locations and was able to hear about their work, passions, and goals which was inspiring in itself. The hospitality, accommodations, and beautiful scenery at Onsite also made it pretty hard to leave.

If you are interested in workshops, or individual/couples intensives that are dedicated to personal growth, healing, or processing unresolved experiences, I would highly recommend looking into Onsite. If you are a healthcare provider and curious about their professional trainings, I definitely recommend their experiential training (and have heard great things about the psychodrama training as well). My gratitude for being able to experience this incredible place and get to know the people I met here is just beyond words.

Basically, I am forever grateful to this experience and I will absolutely be heading back to another training at Onsite in the future. And I can’t wait!

Online Therapy Services in Houston, throughout Texas and Florida

If you are looking for a therapist, feel free to explore my website to see if we might be a good fit to work together. My approach is trauma-informed, person-centered, and grounded in humanistic and existential philosophy. I work with young professional women navigating anxiety, relationship struggles, and life transitions.

Please note: this blog post is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for mental health therapy.