COURSE 6 OF 12 · WINTER SEASON
Boundaries That
Cultivate Emotional
Safety and Spiritual
Intimacy
Boundaries That
Cultivate Emotional
Safety and Spiritual
Intimacy
Boundaries That
Cultivate Emotional
Safety and Spiritual
Intimacy
An experiential, attachment-informed approach to cultivating boundaries, emotional regulation, and secure relational connection.
For many clients, a boundary feels like a wall that will cost them love. This course reframes boundaries as self-definition and a condition for safe intimacy, with experiential tools to help clients stay connected to themselves while opening to deeper connection.
3.0 CE Contact Hours
(NYS) LCAT + LMHC
Self-Study
About this course
Participants will examine how attachment patterns shape boundary formation, including rigid boundaries, diffuse boundaries, and the mixed or fluctuating boundaries often seen in disorganized attachment presentations. This course reframes boundaries not as rejection, punishment, or emotional distance, but as self- definition, relational clarity, and a necessary condition for safe intimacy.
Participants will also learn how to help clients distinguish boundaries from attempts to control others, clarify the difference between standards and expectations, and identify how emotional confusion can interfere with authentic connection. The course emphasizes trauma-sensitive pacing, emotional vocabulary, self-trust, and the use of creative and embodied interventions to support clients in remaining connected to themselves while opening to deeper relational and spiritual intimacy.
How this course follows the SEED Framework
Across three lectures and an experiential art activities, this course moves through every step of the SEED Framework, so you experience the process yourself before you guide clients through it.
S – Soulful Inquiry
Begins with One Sweet Moment, a guided journaling practice that revisits a past experience of closeness: What did I trust in that moment? What did I still doubt? What needs were met?
E – Exploration
Defines emotional intimacy as shared presence inside emotional experience, and explores how attachment patterns shape boundaries. Clients reflect on when they feel most emotionally safe and when they start to lose themselves, building the emotional vocabulary and boundary clarity that support self-definition.
E – Expression
In My Boundary Bubble, clients draw their boundaries around a relational experience, then sense them in the body through a guided somatic visualization. An Alchemical Scribble gives a difficult emotion form and asks what it may be trying to become in its most aligned expression.
D – Deep Receiving
Emotions are reframed as messengers rather than problems, and intimacy as a spiritual practice of listening to one’s inner life. A scripted EFT tapping practice helps clients embody a new belief system around emotional closeness. Boundaries do not block intimacy. They protect it.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
OBJECTIVE 1
Identify three ways attachment patterns may influence boundary formation, including rigid,
diffuse, and fluctuating boundaries.
OBJECTIVE 2
Differentiate boundaries, standards, and expectations as they relate to emotional clarity, self-
definition, and relational intimacy.
OBJECTIVE 3
Describe at least two experiential or expressive arts interventions that support clients in
strengthening boundaries, increasing emotional clarity, and cultivating safer intimacy.
This is for you...
This is for practitioners who…
✓ Work with clients navigating attachment wounds, relational anxiety, emotional reactivity, people-pleasing, withdrawal, or fear of intimacy.
✓ Want to help clients understand boundaries as a bridge to deeper connection, rather than a wall against love.
✓ Support clients who struggle to identify needs, express limits, tolerate disappointment, or stay connected to themselves in close relationships.
✓ Use or want to integrate attachment theory, somatic
awareness, guided visualization, expressive arts, and EFT
tapping into clinical practice.
✓ Want practical tools for helping clients build emotional clarity, self-definition, and more secure relational patterns.
This will help your clients…
✓ Understand how their attachment style may shape the way they set, avoid, collapse, or defend boundaries.
✓ Distinguish between healthy boundaries and attempts to control another person’s behavior.
✓ Clarify personal standards, needs, values, and emotional limits in relationships.
✓ Develop more emotional vocabulary and reduce confusion around feelings, needs, and relational expectations.
✓ Practice staying open, grounded, and self-connected while cultivating deeper emotional and spiritual intimacy.
Tools to use in practice
A self-assessment, based on the lesson topics
Guided visualization and expressive arts exercise
A story-based scripted EFT Tapping Practice
Downloadable guidebook and lesson summaries
TESTIMONIALS
What practitioners are saying...
"Invigorates my practice."
"As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over a decade of experience, finding continuing education that not only meets my licensure requirements but also invigorates my practice is rare. The courses offered by Briana’s continuing education school have been so helpful. Her psycho-spiritual approach deeply resonates with my work, and I've been able to integrate the concepts into therapy with profound results."
- Lena M. LMHC
"A rich tapestry of insight."
"As an art therapist, I'm always seeking ways to deepen my skill set and offer more to my clients. The workshops and seminars at Briana's school are exceptional; each course is a rich tapestry of insight, practical skill-building, and transformative knowledge."
-Michelle C. LCAT
"Fills a gap in the field."
"Holding licenses in both clinical social work and art therapy, I find Briana's continuing education offerings to be unparalleled in their depth and relevance. Her unique blend of traditional psychotherapy with spiritual and creative modalities fills a gap in our field."
- Patricia M. LCSW, LCAT
ENROLLMENT
Choose Your Plan
SINGLE COURSE
$97
Boundaries That Cultivate Emotional Safety and
Spiritual Intimacy
3 Contact Hours for LCATs and LMHCs in New York State
Self-Study
NO REFUNDS
BEST VALUE
THE WINTER SEASON
$194
Courses 1, 2 & 3 · buy two, get one free
9 Contact Hours for LCATs and LMHCs in New York State
Self-Study
NO REFUNDS
About your instructor
My name is Briana MacWilliam, and I’m a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT), Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC), educator, and the founder of Soul-Centered Security®.
I didn’t come to this work because my own relationships were easy. Divorce, grief, and heartbreak brought me face to face with the same attachment patterns I was helping my clients understand. What helped was building a deeper relationship with my body, emotions, creativity, and spirituality.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve served more than 6,000 clients and students across inpatient psychiatry, community mental health, higher education, and private practice. My work weaves together attachment theory, creative arts therapy, embodied practice, and spiritual growth.
I also have additional training in trauma-informed somatic therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), hypnotherapy, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. And I am the author of Secure in the Spark: A Spiritual Path to Heal Attachment Wounds, available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.
My courses for practitioners share the tools and creative processes that supported my own growth, and the healing of the people I’ve had the privilege of serving.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to take the 12-part courses in order? No. Each course stands alone and is designed to be entered at any point. That said, we recommend starting with Course 1 if you're new.
How will I receive my certificate? After completing your course work, there will be a learning evaluation, instructor evaluation, and webform to complete. After submitting your webform, your certificate will automatically be emailed to you.
How long will I have access to the course? Your purchase includes lifetime access, including to any updates we might make in the future. If a course is retired in the future, we will email you the digital files to download to your own device.
Which boards approve these courses? Briana MacWilliam, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists (#CAT-0014) and licensed mental health counselors (#MHC-0224). The ATCB has also accepted our courses in the past, because of our state approval, however, we recommend contacting the ATCB directly if you have a concern.
What if I have further questions? You can contact us at [email protected].
Start where your clients are stuck.
PROVIDER INFORMATION
Briana MacWilliam, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists; #CAT-0014, and is also an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors; #MHC-0224.
PLEASE NOTE:
While some subject areas overlap in education, a course that includes art therapy directives does not qualify a counselor to practice art therapy, and similarly an art therapist is not qualified to practice as a counselor, without proper licensing.
Your Paragraph text goes Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Autem dolore, alias, numquam enim ab voluptate id quam harum ducimus cupiditate similique quisquam et deserunt, recusandae. here