Warm welcome in the online IoPT Café. This initiative is started to offer a place where we can meet each other and where we can learn something more about IoPT or IoPT-related topics. It is a place where we can share thoughts, where we can be curious and learn something more about healing from trauma and eventually learn something more about ourselves. It is also a place where you can bring your friends with you who are also interested in IoPT and in healing from trauma.

It is my deepest wish to offer a place where you can engage just as much or as little as feels right for you and where you have an opportunity to connect and get inspired.

In the next online IoPT Café meeting Nanneke Smit will give her presentation called “‘Online IoPT Café and Layers of Support. IoPT and Pre- and perinatal development woven together“.

In this presentation I will share with you how I came to start the online IoPT Cafe in October 2023 and I will share about Layers of Support. In the presentation I will touch into IoPT and Pre- and Perinatal development and I will weave the two together. I will share with you my understanding of this.

I can share about me that I got intrigued by IoPT in 2007, I got very curious about this method and the underlaying theory. I started studying IoPT around 2013 and I actually never stopped learning. In 2019 I started my own practice. It has become an international practice with people from all over the world. It has my passion to develop myself and to share my learning and understanding with other who are open for this.

This meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, May 27th, 2025, from 3 pm CEST/Amsterdam time to 5 pm CEST. The zoom room opens at 2.50 pm CEST.

Presentation by Nanneke Smit

To sign up for the event, please send an email to Nanneke at info@ioptcafe.com Once you have signed up you will be kept updated about the future online IoPT Café meetings. You will find more meeting dates here.

Feel free to invite your friends and to let others know about these events.

Warm welcome.

In this online IoPT Café meeting Cherionna Menzam-Sills gave her presentation called “The Prenatal Shadow. Healing the Traumas Experienced before and at Birth“. Cherionna shared in her presentation about her new book in which she shows how babies, even before birth, are exquisitely sensitive with remarkable potential. She reveals that babies do perceive negative prenatal and birth experiences, which can easily become unconscious shadow, infiltrating the psyche and affecting personality, relationships, behaviour, and perceptions throughout life. By integrating the prenatal and perinatal shadow hidden just beyond conscious awareness, we can heal our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones as well as reconnect with our original potential. The recording is available, feel free to drop a little note to info@ioptcafe.com to ask for the link to the recording.

Cherionna has over 45 years of experience in the field of pre- and perinatal development. It is Cherionna’s passion to bring more awareness about Prenatal and Birth Experiences and thier Lifelong Influences on our Lifes. With her teachings, books and presentations, she invites and encourages us all to embody who we truly are.

Presentation by Cherionna Menzam-Sills

In this online IoPT Café meeting Nancy Greenfield gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Pre and Perinatal Consiousness and Trauma’. Nancy shared some of her understanding and findings about this topic with us. Nancy on her own website: “In the mid 1993 I began studying Pre and Perinatal Psychology with Dr. Raymond Castellino. I worked in his BEBA clinic for many years helping newborns, babies, children, mothers, and fathers release their early traumas from conception, through gestation, birth and the attachment process. It was there that I learned to feel how early consciousness expresses and modulates itself as it tries to engage with the world around. I also realized that the unresolved issues of mothers and fathers, and even grandparents, can invisibly influence how our children can grow and function. Children can get caught in these energies and carry them forward into their own lives.”

Presentation by Nancy Greenfield

In this online IoPT Café meeting Margriet Wentink gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Men and Mothers’. Margriet shared some of her understanding and findings about this topic with us. The presentation will be shining a light on possible influences a men can have felt in his relationship with his mother, and perhaps even in his adult life feels. Margriet will shine a light on this topic of mother-son-relationship in her emphatic way.The recording is available, feel free to drop a little note to info@ioptcafe.com to ask for the link to the recording.

Margriet Wentink founded in 1996 her own training centre in Tiel, the Netherlands, ‘Interakt’. Margriet is devoted to personal development, recovering from trauma, and education. In 2005, Margriet introduced Franz Ruppert and his work in the Netherlands. In the 30 years of experience, Interakt has specialised in a trauma treatment method based on Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IoPT). Margriet translated Franz his books into the Dutch language, and she wrote a chapter in Franz his book “Fruhes Trauma”. Margriet is offering trauma informed education in her training centre and ‘Men and Mothers’ is one of the topics.

Presentation by Margriet Wentink.

In the online IoPT Café meeting Amy Spatz gave a presentation on the topic of ‘IoPT and Mindfulnes’. Amy talked about how mindfulness can be adapted to complement IOPT processes and integration, including an optional trauma-informed mindful body scan. The recording is available, feel free to drop a little note to info@ioptcafe.com to ask for the link to the recording.

Dr Amy Spatz has worked for two decades as a researcher and educator in psychology and medical education. She focuses on healthcare communication, empathy and wellbeing, having introduced or advised upon mindfulness education across several medical schools.

Her doctoral research explored the relationship between interpersonal mindfulness, empathy and early trauma in medical students. Drawing on the biopsychosocial model, she provides trauma-informed mentor training and academic support. She also offers Identity Oriented Psychotrauma Therapy (IOPT) for individuals and groups. She is a Fellow of the UK Professional Standards Framework.

Presentation by Amy Spatz

In this online IoPT Café meeting Deirdre Kennedy gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Count on Connection’.

In her inspiring presentation Deirdre was delving into the biology of connection and the mystery of integrative healing with a lens on how IoPT has allowed her access mothers and fathers work with themselves in the relational dynamic. She gave insightful information about how our nervous system works and connected her sharing to how she experiences this in the self-encounters in IoPT. Deirdre’s persentation about connection is also aimed at the meaning of connection to self as a facilitator, intention holder and resonator. The recording is available, feel free to drop a little note to info@ioptcafe.com and ask for the link to the recording.

Deirdre is a trauma-informed specialist dedicated to helping adults heal from past physical and emotional trauma. Her work addresses how trauma can manifest as physical pain, unhealthy life patterns, and diminished well-being.

Her journey began with her own early-life trauma, leading her to pursue deep personal growth and professional training. She became a certified Craniosacral Therapist between 2004 and 2006, excelling in the field and contributing to intensive therapy programs across Europe and the USA.

Presentation by Deirdre Kennedy

In this online IoPT Café meeting Vivian Broughton gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Being an IoPT Practitioner: Absorbed or Attacked – The Child of the Narcissitically Traumatised Mother’.

Vivian gave an inspiring presentation about ‘Absorbed or Attacked. The Child of the Narcissistically Traumatised Mother.’ Vivian first shared what Narcissism is and shared some more about Narcissism in it’s ‘Grandiose’ form and ‘Enslaved/absorbed child’ form. It was about this last form that Vivian oriented her presentation around. In a clear and inspiring presentation Vivian showed how we can look with an IoPT – lens to the ‘Enslaved/absorbed child’ and how as an IoPT practitioner we can be with, and support a person who has had the experience of growing up with a Narcissistically Traumatised mother. The recording is available, feel free to drop a little note to info@ioptcafe.com to ask for the link to the recording.

Presentation by Vivian Broughton

In this online IoPT Café meeting we have celebrated the first anniversary of the online IoPT Café!

Franz Ruppert, the founder of IoPT gave a presentation. In his presentation Franz shared how IoPT has deceloped over the past decades, he shared how he came to understand more and more about the impact of trauma on our human psyche and how we can heal from the traumatic experiences. The presentation is recorded. If you want to watch Franz’s presentation feel free to send an email to info@ioptcafe.com to ask for the link to the recording.

Olaf Thaler has sung a heartwarming IoPT mantra in English, German, Portuguese and Russian language. This is also on the recording with Franz’ presentation.

Presentation by Franz Ruppert

Presentation by Anja Jaskolski with the topic: ‘IopT and Reiki’

Anja Jaskolski practices IoPT along with Jikiden Reiki Therapy to provide a cause-oriented and natural approach to healing. She finds joy and purpose in working with parents in particular to bring harmony to families and prevent the unconscious passing down of trauma to their children. She is a Berlin transplant now living in a rural forested valley in Western Canada, surrounded by mountains and wildlife.

In her presentation ‘IoPT and Reiki’ Anja invites us to her observations around the energy aspect of IoPT and shares her experience of how Reiki is a potent support for trauma healing.

Presentation by Jenny Hansen about “Breastfeeding as an expression of Love”

Jenny Hansen is an IoPT practitioner and -trainer. During her own training and a search for a ‘right’ method of parenting, she discovered that healthy parent-child relationships cannot be created through any parenting concept, but are a natural consequence  of knowing who we truly are and the establishment of a healthy, loving connection with ourselves.

 She will give a presentation on the topic of ‘Breastfeeding as an expression of Love’.

In this presentation Jenny shared her thoughts and findings as an IoPT practitioner surrounding the topic of breastfeeding in relation to the trauma trias as defined by IoPT theory. The presentation was an opportunity to discuss how the trauma biography can play out in mother-child bonding, and by shaping our identity, in virtually all subsequent relationships in life.

What’s love got to do with it? By placing the focus on this early relationship in self-encounters, we can learn a great deal about who we are and our innate capacity to love and be loved. And with a growing readiness for self-compassion we may possibly begin to discover what it is we have been looking for all along…