Therapist Trainings & Retreats in Colorado

The trainings that changed how we practice were never the big ones.

Six hours in a hotel conference room. A slide deck read out loud. A certificate that turns up in your inbox eleven days later. You leave with the hours you needed and nothing you'll use on Monday.

The ones that stuck were small. Fifteen people, maybe twenty. Someone teaching who still saw clients on Thursdays, who would stop halfway through a slide and say here's where I got this wrong for about six years.

That kind of room is hard to schedule and impossible to scale, which is probably why so few people bother running them.

We kept waiting for someone else to build it. Full Bloom already had most of the pieces — a practice full of clinicians who consult with each other every week, and a habit of taking that seriously enough to protect the time. The Root and Stem is that habit, opened up to the people who don't work here.

So: small rooms. Teachers who are still in the work. Enough time that the good conversation — the one that usually starts in the parking lot afterward — happens inside the room instead.

Late afternoon light falling across the floor of an empty room

02

Four ways in

Some of it is about getting better at the work. Some of it is about being able to keep doing the work at all.

i

Trainings & Workshops

Half and full days on the things that come up in consultation over and over: couples work where one person has quietly checked out, the Enneagram used clinically rather than as a parlour game, weight-neutral care, trauma work that has stopped moving. Bring a case. There is time to talk about it.

In person & onlineCE where offered
ii

Retreats

Three days somewhere with poor cell service. Mornings hold teaching, afternoons hold nothing on purpose, and meals are together with attendance optional. You will not be asked to introduce yourself with a fun fact.

2–3 nightsColorado12–16 people
iii

Consultation Groups

Eight clinicians, monthly, held together for a full year. The continuity is the point — somewhere around month four people stop presenting their competence and start bringing the case that's keeping them up at night. Any licence, any setting.

MonthlyYear-long cohort
iv

Supervision & Mentorship

Individual and dyadic hours toward LPC and LMFT licensure with an AAMFT Approved Supervisor. Practice mentorship too: rates, notes, referrals, and the business questions graduate school skipped.

LPC & LMFT hoursIndividual or dyadic

03

Rest is not a reward for finishing.

Therapists are excellent at prescribing rest and dismal at taking it. These are built on the assumption that you already know what you need and haven't had three consecutive days to go and find it.

i
Mornings hold the teaching. One topic, taken slowly, with room to argue with it.
ii
Afternoons are yours. Walk, sleep, sit by a window, read something unrelated to the field.
iii
Evenings are a long table and other clinicians who understand the shorthand.

The first one is being booked now — close enough to Denver to drive, far enough that the phone stops working properly. Dates go to the mailing list before they go anywhere else.

Get retreat dates

04

How we run things

Small on purpose

Cohorts are capped so everyone gets to talk and nobody can hide at the back. Keeping rooms this size costs us money. It's the whole product.

Taught from the chair

Everyone teaching here carries a caseload. The examples are current, the theory has been tested on a Tuesday afternoon, and nobody is presenting from memory.

Rest counts

We schedule time to do nothing and don't apologise for it.

05

What's on the calendar

Registration opens about eight weeks before each date.

The first round of dates is being set now.

Trainings and the opening consultation cohort are being scheduled for the coming season, with the first retreat booked around them. Everything opens to the mailing list first, and the cohorts are small enough that they tend not to reach a second announcement.

Tell me when dates open

Something specific you'd travel for? Tell us what it is.

A dried seed head still standing on its stem

06

Who's in front of the room

Faculty are drawn from the clinicians at Full Bloom Counseling, with guest teachers brought in when someone knows a subject better than we do.

Everyone teaching here carries a caseload. Each offering names its teacher, their licence, and what they actually do all week, so you know who you're spending the day with before you pay for it.

Teaching assignments are being set now, so we've held off on naming anyone here until it's settled rather than listing people who might not end up in the room.

Our people

Grown from Full Bloom Counseling

Full Bloom is a group practice in Denver where licensed therapists see clients for anxiety, trauma, couples work, grief and body image. The Root and Stem is the branch of it that faces outward, toward the other clinicians doing this work across Colorado.

Same team, same standards, different room. If you're looking for therapy rather than training, Full Bloom is where to go.

Visit Full Bloom Counseling

07

Before you sign up

Do these count for continuing education credit?

CE approval is in progress. Once it's confirmed, the hours and the approving body will be listed on each training that carries credit — and on the ones that don't, we'll say so. Retreats are built around rest rather than contact hours, so most of those won't carry CE. We'd rather be plain about it than stretch a definition to make a weekend sound deductible.

Who are the trainings for?

Licensed therapists, pre-licensed clinicians accruing hours, and graduate students in a clinical programme. A few offerings are aimed at a narrower group — supervisors, practice owners, clinicians already trained in a particular modality — and those say so at the top. If you're unsure, email and describe your setting.

What does a retreat weekend look like?

You arrive Friday afternoon and settle in. Saturday and Sunday mornings hold three hours of teaching. Afternoons are unscheduled. Meals are together and optional. You leave Monday morning.

Do I have to be connected to Full Bloom?

No. Most people who come through are from other practices, agencies, hospital systems or solo work. Full Bloom clinicians are in the room too, which tends to make the case discussion better rather than more insular.

Is there financial assistance?

Two seats in every cohort are held at a reduced rate for clinicians in their first few years, or working in community mental health, or in a stretch of year where the full fee isn't happening. There's no application and no essay. You email and ask, and we say yes until the seats are gone.

Can you bring a training to our practice?

Yes. We run private trainings for group practices, agencies and clinical teams, at your site or ours. Tell us the size of your team, what you keep running into, and roughly what you have to work with.

What's the cancellation policy?

Full refund up to 30 days before. Half up to 14 days. After that it becomes credit toward a future offering. Illness, a family emergency, a client crisis you can't hand off — those get handled case by case, and we have never been rigid about it.