After the establishment of the SHIP^®forAdults model, it soon became clear that this spontaneous healing model should be adapted to benefit child clients who had been referred for psychotherapy.  In 2003, SHIPiC^® was trademarked and launched at the Annual National SHIP^® Conference at the Mahlapholane Game Reserve.  Today SHIPiC^® is one of the growing specialisation fields in THE SHIP^® FOUNDATION and a training workshop for SHIP^® facilitators is organised each year.

The aim of SHIPiC^® is to facilitate healing in the child client by allowing the child’s inner rhythms and wisdom to effect a natural balance.  Various play and projection materials were developed to activate and further encourage the healing process in the child client. The first book on this innovative South African child therapy technique is in process.

As SHIP^®forAdults became more popular and successful in the past few years THE SHIP^® FOUNDATION became aware that adolescents could also be successfully facilitated into a healing process by means of SHIP^® principles and techniques.  Because adolescents have different needs and are at a unique developmental stage, SHIP^®forAdolescents has tried to develop a tailor-made approach to accommodate adolescents.

At approximately 12 years of age adolescents usually master the skill of operational thinking, which enables them to engage in abstract thinking in relation to the world, their philosophy of life and their own ideas and emotions.  SHIP^® is an ideal way to help adolescents to become more aware of their inner selves and help them to visualise and express what they think and feel.

SHIP^®forAdolescents is a new and exciting avenue for exploring and enhancing the application of SHIP^® in a wider arena.

SHIP^® (Spontaneous Healing Intrasystemic Process) is an experiential approach based on work covering more than 60 000 sessions with clients, during which their internal spontaneous healing processes were studied.

The old schools in Psychology defined pathology and ways of dealing with pathological abnormalities. The SHIP^®forAdults facilitator defines presenting chronic systemic stress reactions (“pathology”) as activated healing and precursors to growth. Information throughout the person’s life that is too threatening may become disconnected, with the information migrating from the emotional to the physical, and lodging itself in the bodily system. As a result of current everyday stressors, this information may eventually be re-activated and represented in the form of chronic systemic stress reactions/bodily dis-eases.

Human beings have been endowed with spontaneous healing processes in the bodily system, but have been mistakenly taught to deny the spontaneous rebalancing mechanism the opportunity to unfold. In the same way as sutures keep the lips of a wound together,  the SHIP^®forAdults facilitator creates an environment within which the internal spontaneous healing process of the client may follow its natural self-normalising sequence and in this manner allow the wound to heal itself.  SHIP^® focuses on the activation  and spontaneous release of the repressed information. Ultimately it is the connection of the client with his or her repressed material (the two sides of the wound) that brings about healing. The facilitator continually guides (facilitates) the client to remain in this healing space of self-normalising activity of the system and to reclaim these past filed traumas. The spontaneous healing process within the client is thus allowed the opportunity to express (release) repressed information, to complete traumas and to move towards rebalance.

The philosophy of SHIP^® is that once the disconnected material is being connected and allowed to release spontaneously/of its own accord, once the system moves to a rebalanced state, the chronic systemic stress reaction dissipates.     

SHIP^®forTrauma is a method which is part of THE SHIP^® FOUNDATION model and is based on SHIP^® principles.  It has a very specific focus and application, namely to assist an adult client who has been exposed to a traumatic incident and, as a result, been traumatised. SHIP^®forTrauma focuses on the treatment of acute trauma shortly after the traumatisation has taken place and not on the treatment of a post-traumatic stress disorder. 

SHIP^®forTrauma was developed in the practice over a period of 12 years, after hundreds of sessions with a variety of victims.  These included police officials, emergency workers, traffic officers, security officers and civilians in private practice.  The types of traumatic incidents to which the victims had been exposed cover the entire spectrum.

SHIP^®forTrauma is an exposure method by which the traumatic pain, fear and helplessness as well as the trauma memory are integrated and connected.  The intervention prevents the trauma memory and pain from overwhelming the thoughts, emotions and behaviour of the person and subsequently averts chronic problems.  SHIP^®forTrauma is an intervention method to be used during the acute systemic stress reaction, with the object of preventing the trauma from triggering the person’s negative coping styles and distracters.  Failure to intervene would eventually lead to a chronic systemic stress reaction.

SHIP^® and SHIP^®forTrauma regard symptoms as messages of disequilibrium within the self, but also as messages for healing.  A traumatic incident brings to the fore a large number of definite symptoms within specific time periods.  These provide an indication of the severity and intensity of the disconnection within the self.  It is important for the SHIP^® facilitator to have a detailed knowledge of the symptoms of trauma. SHIP^®forTrauma does not regard the symptoms as pathological or consider that the symptoms need to be controlled and suppressed.  The symptoms of trauma are the indicators of the state of chronic and acute disconnection and connection, non-integration and integration, and healing and non-healing.

The psychologist who uses SHIP^®forTrauma should be well-versed in the principles of SHIP^® as well as in spontaneous healing, as this is the basis of the method.

THE SHIP^® FOUNDATION launched a UNISA certificate course in 2006 for members of the public entitled: A Short Course in Spontaneous Healing Awareness.

The aim of this certificate course is to expose different spontaneous healing facilitators (professionals) to the outside world and to initiate a closer working relationship between the different fields.

The course runs over four Saturdays, after which the participants write an examination on their understanding of spontaneous healing as explained by the individual lecturers.

The course incorporates the fields of Psychology, BodyTalk System™, Osteopathic Medicine, Nutrition, PNI (Psychoneuroimmunology), CranioSacral Therapy, Life Energy Healing, Body Alignment Technique and other areas of Complementary Medicine.

• SHIP^®forSport