Again and again, and the body keeps holding what the words cannot reach.
Healing in Tribe · Facilitator Immersion
Learn to hold what only a group can heal.
A 14-day, application-only residential immersion for coaches, therapists, facilitators and experienced practitioners ready to expand beyond one-to-one work and learn to guide deep healing in a group field.
Led by Christian Pankhurst and Stephanie Fabela, supported by experienced Heart iQ facilitators
4–18 October 2026New Eden, the NetherlandsMaximum 25 participantsFrom €4,995 · training, accommodation and meals included
14nights in residence
4bodies of process work
25participants maximum
Application onlyevery place reviewed personally
Sound familiar?
You were trained to understand the wound.You were never trained to meet it.
You can name what happened to a client, map the pattern, and hold beautiful space for the story. But the moment the work needs to move from understanding into a lived, corrective experience, you reach the edge of what your training ever gave you.
Insight explains the wound. It rarely heals it. What rewires an old imprint is a new one. Being met and received in the exact place where, the first time, no one came. Encounter work and corrective experience are how that happens, and most of us were never trained to hold them.
Loss and heartbreak are alive in the body, but you have no way to help them meet what has remained trapped there.
There is a voice that needs its true direction, the right charge reaching the right person, and you were never trained to guide one safely.
Your instinct is to bring it down, because no one showed you how to stay with intensity and keep meeting what is alive in it.
When the whole room contracts, you do not yet know how to bring enough safety back for it to soften and open again.
“A wound does not stay a wound once it finally meets a corrective experience. To be heard and felt in the very place where your nervous system still expects to be alone, that is what begins to rewire it.”Christian Pankhurst
This is the work of meeting what was never met. Of giving an old, unspoken feeling a voice and letting it reach the person it was always meant for, while a held group offers the care and attention that were missing the first time, so an old imprint can finally change.
The event is rarely the wound.
The wound is that no one was there to meet it.
Healing in Tribe trains you to facilitate that encounter, and to hold it for the people who sit in front of you.
When the story has been told and nothing has moved,
the wound is still waiting to be met.
Most of us were trained to hold space.
Without anyone intending it, holding space can quietly become a way of avoiding the wound rather than meeting it.
What you may notice in yourself
- You feel pulled towards somatic and group work, but have never received robust training in it.
- You sense the depth available in a room, yet hesitate because you do not have a reliable map.
- You know you can only take others as far as you have learned to go yourself, and there are places your own body has not yet learned to meet.
- You want to work with the healing intelligence of a group without sacrificing the intimacy and depth you can reach when sitting with one person at a time.
- You want a craft you can practise, rather than depending on charisma or instinct.
- You long to facilitate at the depth you already sense is possible.
There is another way
What if your clients don't need more insight? It's a corrective experience you know how to hold.
Healing in Tribe is a facilitator training in the work that meets the wound directly. At its centre is Encounter work in its five forms, where a person is guided to meet the unspoken energy they have carried and move it in the direction it always needed to go. You learn to offer the corrective experience of being met by a held group, attuning to the emotional field of the room and titrating its intensity so that real depth stays safe. You learn it in your own body first, then learn to hold it for others.
“Since using Heart iQ with my clients, I'm having amazing results. It's changing people's lives! They're sharing, expressing, and feeling without holding back.”Marc Adams · Graduated in 2013
Training and transformation
Inside the two weeks
at New Eden.
This is a working laboratory. You learn the processes of deep transformational work by experiencing them in the circle and watching them facilitated up close. You leave knowing it in your body, not only in your notes.
The work
Four bodies of process work.
Christian teaches each process using whatever is live in the room, rather than a set example. You feel its depth move through the group, with time to study it closely and ask your questions.
01
Meeting the unspoken
Encounter Work
The central practice. You enrol a person or the field to stand in for a figure from the past, so what the body has carried can finally find its voice and its true direction, the right charge reaching the one it was always meant for. You learn to open an encounter, hold it as it moves, and close it cleanly.
You train in all five forms, and learn which one a moment is asking for.
- Violation Encounter: meeting what should never have happened
- Neglect Encounter: meeting what should have happened and never did
- Physicalised Encounter: when the body, not the voice, carries the release
- Collective Encounter: charge held across the whole room
- Going Uncontained: present-tense truth, and when that is what the moment needs
Here is what it looks like when the direction is wrong. Somebody brings their father onto the mat and finally says the thing that was never said. Real emotion, real courage, and the field stays completely flat. Nothing moves.
It was never the father. He did the thing, but the mother was the one who did not come, and the sentence underneath was, where were you. The moment she is enrolled instead, the circuit completes and the whole room opens.
Same energy, same words, different direction, and an entirely different outcome. Learning to feel where the charge is actually pointing is most of this craft.
02
When the group becomes the medicine
Meeting Needs & Younger Parts
There is a big difference between attunement and love. Most of us were loved, but not every one of us was attuned to.
Following the breadcrumbs from present activation back to the unmet need, and the younger part still waiting there. You learn how a circle of present, undefended bodies becomes the corrective experience no single facilitator can give alone.
Learn to meet a need rather than analyse it, and the conditions that let it rewire the system.
- Unwinding safely to core stress
- Recognising the younger part as it surfaces
- Letting the field, not only the facilitator, hold
- Tribal love as the imprint that was missing
- Meeting needs: nurture, initiation and permission
03
Rewriting the moment
Sacred Theatre & the Redo
A corrective experience staged through enactment. Sometimes the medicine is being heard, fully, by an enrolled mother or father while the room witnesses. Sometimes it is the redo: replaying a moment that once held someone powerless, this time from a place of power.
You learn what is possible here, and the clear boundaries around what belongs only to advanced, supervised work.
- Telling the story and being truly witnessed
- Enrolling figures from the past with care
- The Redo: meeting an old moment from power
- Knowing where this work belongs, and where it does not
04
The architecture beneath the work
Titration, Holding & Care
Depth depends on how the work is held. You learn to read the person and the wider field, regulate the arc of a process, and know when to deepen, pause, integrate or close.
This is the safety architecture beneath every powerful intervention and across the full rhythm of the two weeks.
- Read the person and the whole room
- Titrate a process from opening to completion
- Work with self, co-regulation and tribal regulation
- Harvest what moved so the medicine can land
- Hold depth and rest as one arc across the whole two weeks
Every participant leads at least one supervised hot seat.
During the two weeks, you will lead the whole room through a 90-minute practice. You facilitate the live field with Christian co-piloting beside you, offering real-time guidance as the work unfolds. Afterwards, you receive direct feedback from Christian and the people you have just led.
This is where the teaching becomes embodied craft. You feel what it takes to read the room, stay with intensity, make precise interventions and remain in relationship with the whole field throughout the process you are leading.
The optional twelve-week online practicum gives you further supervised practice in small groups, with more repetition and feedback. Completing it is also the step required to earn your Healing in Tribe badge.
The container
The spaces you will learn to hold.
The processes live inside different kinds of space. Each is its own container, with its own skill. Learning to hold them is what makes you a facilitator rather than a technician.
The Sharing Circle & Open Space
Being met in presence and attunement, before any process begins. Often this alone is the corrective experience. It is the kernel every other space is built on: slowing down, presencing, attunement, connection, embodiment.
The Mat
Where the dynamic processes happen. One person works while the field holds. You learn to read what is alive and choose the process the moment is calling for.
The Collective Field
The large group, and the charge that moves through it. The personal becoming transpersonal. You learn how to set it up, hold it and close it well.
Harvesting the Medicine
After the depth comes integration. What moved on the mat is digested and given meaning, and one person's healing becomes medicine the whole circle carries.
“You are me, cleverly camouflaged as you…
We are each other's medicine”Christian Pankhurst, Founder of Heart iQ
A day in the immersion
The rhythm of
the two weeks.
The days follow a responsive, titrated arc. There is time to learn the craft, practise it under supervision and bring whatever is activated towards completion.
Opening Small groups and circlesMorning Demonstration and study, then precise skills practiceAfternoon A supervised hot seat, followed by Christian-led open field workEvening Integration and rest, with optional community time
This is the usual arc, not a rigid timetable. The sequence can shift in response to what is alive in the room, while preserving enough time for practice, completion and integration.
Roughly half of the immersion is professional training and half is your own deep work. The work you receive is part of the training, because you cannot guide another person into territory your own body has never learned to meet.
Application only
Serious work asks
for the right room.
Healing in Tribe is a professional immersion held by application.It is not for everyone, and it is not meant to be.
This is for you if
- You are a coach, therapist, facilitator or circle leader who wants to work deeper than talk
- You have at least three years of sustained personal-development experience
- You feel the call to be trained in encounter work, corrective experience and group facilitation
- You are ready to do your own deep work, not only collect techniques
- You want to learn to hold groups, not only one-to-one sessions
- You can be at New Eden, residential, for the full two weeks
This may not be the right fit if
- You are looking for a quick certificate to add to a website
- You want the craft without being in your own process
- You are looking for a purely online or intellectual training
- You are in acute crisis and need personal therapy rather than professional training right now
- You are not willing to receive direct feedback on how you facilitate under pressure
- You want to lead group process while remaining outside the relational field yourself
Applying does not commit you to book.
Stories from the Field: Geoff
Hear Geoff's story
Meet Christian
Christian Pankhurst
Before I could train others to hold this work, I had to learn to hold it myself.
I'm Christian Pankhurst, founder of Heart iQ, and I will be leading this immersion.
I came to this work through my own nervous system first. A childhood shaped by intensity and a lack of safety left me with anxiety and a deep sense of disconnection. What began as a search for relief became a lifelong study of what lets a person stay open and present in connection, especially when it gets hard.
I trained first in the sciences, with a degree in Human Sciences and Chiropractic, and then as a facilitator in Neale Donald Walsch's Leadership Education Program, where I was mentored as his protégé. Around twenty-five years ago I began the work that became Heart iQ, a structured and embodied approach to relational group facilitation that is now practised and taught around the world.
I have led hundreds of retreats and trainings since 2002, with people travelling from more than thirty countries to be in the room. In 2016 we bought New Eden, our own custom retreat centre on its own land in the Frisian countryside. It moved this work out of hotel venues and into a home built for it, and it is where this immersion will be held.
I have never seen myself as someone who fixes or heals anyone. My work is to create the conditions, and to teach you to create them, where another person's own capacity and goodness can finally emerge.
This is where I hand that craft to you. I look forward to meeting you in the work.
“Christian Pankhurst knows how to articulate these messages as well as, if not better than I can. He is a profound source of wisdom and depth.”Neale Donald WalschNew York Times best-selling author of Conversations with God
Academy Director and senior faculty
Stephanie Fabela
Stephanie will teach alongside Christian throughout the October immersion. She reads what is moving underneath a room, and finds the direction and the charge that is asking to be met.
Her particular art as a teacher is translating what she senses into something another facilitator can see, practise and eventually hold for themselves.
Never held alone
How this work is held.
Christian and Stephanie lead this immersion with a carefully selected team of experienced Heart iQ facilitators and trainers.
The wider team is chosen for depth in the Heart iQ method and particular experience with encounter and corrective experience. In the full room and smaller groups, they guide the work alongside Christian and Stephanie, so the room can travel into real depth while your own learning is held by more than Christian alone.
Stories from the Field: Jenni Morris
Colorado, USA
Stories from the field
People who came to this work and were changed by it
Some of them now hold it for others.
“I've been a therapist for 30 years and if others like me want to shed the therapist paradigm and move into real heart centered, transformative work, THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE!”
Joyce LynnGraduated in 2013
“This training is heart-centered, heart-led and heart-opening. You will laugh. You will cry. But most of all you will deepen in an experience of what it is to truly feel loved and to love others authentically from your innermost heart.”
Priya MahtaniGraduated in 2014
“I can't see how I could do the work in my community helping and mentoring young men, giving them a sense of purpose and belonging, without using the Heart iQ method. Now I am giving back. Thank you!”
Dan HartleyGraduated in 2012
Respected by peers
What leaders in the field say about Christian's work.
“Many facilitators rely on personal charisma and intuition. Christian has gone significantly further, turning what is often viewed as intuitive into a repeatable method that others can learn and apply.”
John ThompsonCo-Founder, Transformational Connection · Master NARM Facilitator, trained 1,500+ facilitators across 25 countries
“Christian is part of a very small group at the very top of the profession. I would place him in the top one percent of practitioners in trauma-informed group facilitation, and I am not aware of anyone else who combines his level of scale, structure, and impact.”
Catherine HaleFounder, Culture of Care Certified Trauma-Informed Training
“Much of what I teach today emerged from what I learned from Christian's work. His ability to read a room and guide large groups through profound emotional processes, with safety and clarity, is truly exceptional. He is one of the few facilitators I trust unequivocally.”
Suzanne BeukemaFeminine Leadership Mentor · Founder, Unshakable Feminine Leadership
“Christian has translated complex group-field dynamics into a structured system of clear principles, practices, and facilitation models that others can reliably learn and apply. It is one of the clearest examples I have seen of a practitioner's work shifting the standards of an entire field.”
Maanee ChrystalFounder, Somatic Institute for Women · Somatic Psychotherapist & Dance Therapist
Stories from the Field: Suzanne Beukema
Hear Suzanne share her experience
Part of the Heart iQ Academy
The immersion stands alone.Continue into the Heart iQ Academy.
These two weeks are complete in themselves. They are also one specialisation within the Heart iQ Academy, a school for somatic-relational facilitators and practitioners.
01
The immersion
These two weeks at New Eden. The live training, the transmission, and the deep work you do yourself. Complete and valuable on its own.
02
The practicum
An optional twelve weeks of supervised online practice afterwards, where you are seen facilitating in small groups and refine your craft with feedback.
03
Your badge
Complete both the immersion and practicum to earn the Healing in Tribe specialisation badge.
04
Certification
The badge is one Academy specialisation. It is not, by itself, full Heart iQ facilitator certification.
Certification is always opt-in. You can come for the immersion alone and take everything it gives you.
Immersion and practicum
What the full pathway trains you to do.
- Open, hold and close an encounter in all five forms, and sense which one a moment is asking for
- Take someone into the grief of an unmet need, and let the group become the corrective experience
- Facilitate sacred theatre and the redo within clear, careful boundaries
- Hold the sharing circle, the mat, the collective field and the harvest
- Titrate a single process and a whole day, knowing when to open and when to close
- Read a nervous system and a room, and stay present as the charge rises
- Tell the difference between an encounter and going uncontained, and use the right one
- Bring this work into your practice with individuals, couples or groups
And you leave changed by the depth of your own healing, because you cannot guide a corrective experience you have never lived.
The setting
New Eden.
Healing in Tribe is held at New Eden, a private retreat centre in the Frisian countryside in the north of the Netherlands, created specifically for immersive group work.
We did not choose it for spectacle. We chose it because it can hold stillness and intensity over two weeks without interruption. You are not navigating a hotel or a public venue with the world carrying on outside the door.
For fourteen nights, this is home. Everything about the place is arranged around the work.
Stories from the Field: Coco
North Carolina, USA
Dates and investment
Your place at New Eden.
The October cohort is capped at 25 participants and held by application.
Dates4–18 October 2026
Format14 nights · residential
LocationNew Eden · Netherlands
Shared ensuite room
€4,995per person · all-inclusivePrivate ensuite room
€5,555per person · all-inclusiveNinety minutes leading the whole room, with Christian beside youDirect feedback from Christian and the people you just ledThe full training with Christian, Stephanie and the facultyFourteen nights at New Eden, all meals and taxes included
1Apply
Tell us about your experience and why you feel called.
2Acceptance
We review whether this is the right room for you.
3Choose
If accepted, you decide whether you want to book.
4Book
A 25% deposit secures your place.
Applying does not commit you to book.
The application process
Allow around 20 to 30 minutes. You can answer in writing or through a spoken interview with Z, our AI voice guide. Once you enter your name and email, your progress saves automatically.
The application asks about your professional experience, current support, emotional readiness and relevant personal history. These questions help the team assess whether this is the right room and understand what support may be needed. Every exercise during the immersion remains optional.
Read how Heart iQ handles personal information.Applications stay open until the room is full. Places are offered in the order they are accepted, and private rooms tend to go first.
If you are accepted and choose to book
You can pay in full at any point before the immersion begins. If you would rather spread the cost, a 25% deposit secures your place and the balance is due thirty days before we start.
Your deposit commits you to the full fee. Because the immersion begins within 60 days, payments are non-refundable, though at our discretion we may offer a transferable credit valid for twelve months. Read the full terms.
An optional guest invitation
Come early for Love, Relationships and You.
In the three days before the immersion begins, New Eden hosts Love, Relationships and You, a Heart iQ training in the art of heart-intelligent relating. As someone coming to Healing in Tribe you are warmly invited to join it as our guest. The training itself is free for you, and you cover only your meal package and accommodation for the extra nights.
It opens on Thursday 1 October and closes at lunchtime on Sunday 4 October, leaving the afternoon for rest before Healing in Tribe opens that evening. The two journeys flow into one another and you never have to leave New Eden in between.
Explore Love, Relationships and YouQuestions before you apply
What you need to know.
Where does this take place?+
Healing in Tribe is held at New Eden, a private retreat centre in the Frisian countryside in the north of the Netherlands, built specifically for immersive group work. We chose it because it can hold stillness and intensity over two weeks without interruption. For the fourteen nights, it is home.
Do I need previous Heart iQ or facilitator experience?+
No previous Heart iQ experience or particular facilitator certification is required. Applicants should have at least three years of sustained personal-development experience and the capacity to participate in intensive residential group work. This training is for coaches, therapists, circle leaders and committed practitioners who want to work deeper than talk. Roughly half the immersion is professional training and half is your own transformation.
What is included in the price?+
Everything for the two weeks: the full training with Christian and the team, all of your accommodation at New Eden, every meal and taxes. A shared room is €4,995 and a single room is €5,555.
What are the room options?+
You can choose a shared ensuite room at €4,995 or a private ensuite room at €5,555. Both include all meals and taxes. Rooms are limited, private rooms especially, so earlier applications have more choice.
What are the dates?+
4 to 18 October 2026. Fourteen nights, residential at New Eden.
What time should I arrive on the first day?+
Check-in opens at 3pm on Sunday 4 October and the programme begins at 6pm. If you are staying on from Love, Relationships and You, you are already here and can rest through the afternoon before the immersion opens that evening.
Can I come early for Love, Relationships and You?+
Yes. From Thursday 1 October, New Eden hosts Love, Relationships and You. It is our gift to you as a Healing in Tribe participant, so the retreat itself is free and you cover only your food and accommodation for the extra nights. It closes at lunchtime on the 4th and flows into the immersion that evening.
How do I secure my place?+
First, submit an application. If you are accepted, you can then choose whether to book. You can pay in full at any point before the immersion begins, or secure your place with a 25% deposit and pay the balance thirty days before we start.
Is this therapy? Is it safe?+
No, this is a professional facilitator training in which you also do your own deep work. It is held by a trained team in a carefully titrated container, with regulation and care built into every day. It is not a substitute for personal therapy. If you are in acute crisis right now, this is not the right time, and we will point you towards support that fits better.
What does a day look like?+
Days usually open in small groups or circles, then move into demonstration and skills practice while attention is fresh. Afternoons typically include a supervised hot seat followed by Christian-led open field work, so anything activated can be brought towards completion and coherence before dinner. Evenings are for integration and rest, with optional community time. The exact order can shift in response to the room.
What about the badge, the practicum and certification?+
The two weeks are complete in themselves. If you want to go further, you can add an optional twelve-week online practicum afterwards. Completing both the immersion and the practicum earns your Healing in Tribe badge, one of the Academy's specialisations. This badge is not full Heart iQ facilitator certification.
How do I get to New Eden?+
New Eden is in the Frisian countryside in the north of the Netherlands. Once your place is confirmed we send full travel directions, including the nearest airports and stations and the best way to reach us.
What is your cancellation policy?+
A 25% deposit secures your place and commits you to the full fee, with the balance due thirty days before we start. If you cancel within 60 days of the start, the fee is non-refundable, though at our discretion we may offer a transferable credit valid for twelve months. Please read the full terms before paying your deposit. Read the full terms.
The final invitation
When what needs holding is bigger than one person.
This is a professional training, and it asks something of you: two weeks at New Eden, in a small and committed room, learning to hold the work that changes people.
If you have felt the limit of insight in your own practice, if you have sat with someone whose understanding was complete and whose wound had still not moved, you already know what this immersion is for.
You do not need to arrive certain. You need to be willing to step into the room and meet your own material, and to learn the craft of holding others by being held yourself.
The October circle is forming now, and the room is kept small on purpose. If something in you has already said yes, this is your invitation to follow it.
I look forward to meeting you in the work.
Begin the application
