Holding Healers

A reflective practice and professional development retreat for therapists, psychologists, and wellness practitioners.

2026 – Expressions of Interest Now Open

Holding Healers is a 6-day, 5-night reflective practice retreat held on sacred land in Ubud, Bali — designed for those who hold space for others.

Created for therapists, psychologists, counsellors, and wellness practitioners, this immersive program offers a rare opportunity to step away from clinical demands and reconnect to your own body, ethics, and emotional landscape. It’s a space to nourish yourself, release vicarious trauma, and restore the internal clarity that sustains meaningful therapeutic work.

Facilitated by Samantha Forbes, an experienced trauma-informed therapist, the retreat weaves together structured reflective sessions, group supervision elements, and traditional Balinese purification rituals. Together, these practices create a deeply restorative environment for integration, insight, and renewal.

This program is designed as reflective practice and professional development — not as formal psychology supervision.

Participants can log this experience as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Reflective Practice Hours, meeting the annual requirements of most professional associations.
You’ll receive a Certificate of Attendance outlining structured learning and reflective practice hours for submission to your governing body.

Reflective practice includes:

• Structured time to think about how you work

• Space to process what arises in the therapeutic relationship — including your reactions, ethics, countertransference, and emotional load

• Opportunities for peer consultation, facilitated discussion, and embodied integration

Example program aims:

• Reflect on trauma-informed boundaries and the ethics of self-care

• Explore embodied regulation and nervous system repair

• Integrate self-nourishment into your professional identity

• Participate in guided journaling, peer discussion, and small supervision circles

Each day blends therapeutic reflection, body-based restoration, and cultural ceremony — a rhythm designed to help you return home grounded, inspired, and resourced to keep holding others, without losing yourself.

Who Is It For?

Holding Healers is designed for those who spend their lives supporting others — therapists, psychologists, counsellors, bodyworkers, coaches, and wellness practitioners — who recognise the need to pause, reflect, and restore.

It’s for practitioners who:

• Feel emotionally fatigued or close to burnout from the ongoing demands of care work

• Wish to process vicarious trauma and the emotional residue of their professional roles

• Are ready to reconnect with their bodies, boundaries, and ethical centre

• Seek structured time to reflect on their practice, explore countertransference, and renew their sense of purpose

• Value both evidence-based and embodied approaches to integration and repair

• This retreat is open to qualified and emerging practitioners

What Will Shift

This retreat isn’t about fixing you.
It’s about creating the space, structure, and support to tend to what’s been carried — quietly, for too long.

Holding Healers invites you into an environment where clinical understanding meets cultural ceremony — where reflection, ritual, and rest work together to restore balance.

Through reflective practice, group process, and traditional Balinese healing, you’ll begin to:

• Tri Desna healing, vocal release, and Balinese blessing — gently release the impact of vicarious trauma and emotional overload

• Melukat water purification ceremony — regulate your nervous system and return to presence rather than exhaustion

• Guided reflective sessions and peer circles — process transference, boundaries, and the emotional residue of care work

• Somatic regulation and embodied movement practices — rebuild internal safety and trust in the body’s wisdom

• 1:1 Spiritual purification and 1:1 reading with Mangku, a traditional Balinese priest and healer — integrate renewal, clarity, and reverence for your ongoing path of service

You’ll leave with a sense of spaciousness, restored boundaries, and a sustainable toolkit for emotional clarity and grounded connection — within yourself, your work, and the world you serve.

Meet Your Therapist

With more than 32 years of counselling experience, Sam Forbes brings depth, clarity, and fierce compassion to her work. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Social Work, but credits her greatest learnings to the thousands of people she has supported through some of life’s hardest chapters.

Sam’s career has taken her into the rawest human realities. She has worked with survivors of child sexual abuse and family violence, with people navigating complex PTSD and substance use, and most recently, with women living through the devastation of war in Gaza. Her commitment is not only global — Sam is also a long-time advocate for Aboriginal communities in Australia, deeply engaged with the impact of systemic injustice and intergenerational trauma.

Her practice is trauma-focused, rooted in social justice, and deeply affirming of all identities and life choices. She is queer, sex-positive, and inclusive of LGBTQIA+, polyamorous, swinger, BDSM, and sex worker communities. Across her decades of work, she has also supported people living with racism, disability, hormonal transitions, and the challenges of mental health, always with a commitment to safety and non-judgement.

Soft-spoken yet unwavering, Sam specialises in trauma therapy and relationship counselling — often at the intersection of personal history, structural injustice, and interpersonal pain. She draws on EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Family Systems, Gottman, and attachment-based approaches, always with a trauma-informed lens.

Sam believes there is nothing we cannot work through with the right care, time, and support. Her presence at Healing Holidays retreats brings not just professional expertise, but profound humanity — a steady hand and a rare strength that holds space for both clinical recovery and cultural renewal.

The Healing Framework

Holding Healers brings together the best of two worlds:
Modern, evidence-based therapy and time-honoured Balinese healing — in one clinically grounded, culturally respectful program.

Led by an experienced trauma therapist and supported by trusted local ceremonial practitioners, this retreat is designed to meet you on every level: emotional, physical, spiritual, and relational.

It’s also a full pause from the mental load.
All meals, logistics, laundry, and transport are handled — so you don’t have to manage anyone else, or make constant decisions. You just show up.

This retreat has an optional digital detox, giving your nervous system a real chance to recalibrate. No performing, no pretending — just space to feel what’s true and move toward what’s next.

🌀 Reflective Practice & Supervision Program

Facilitated by Samantha Forbes — a registered clinical social worker and therapist with over 32 years’ experience in trauma recovery, relationship therapy, and group facilitation.

Sam brings a grounded, trauma-informed, and inclusive approach to every session. Her work is rooted in psychological rigour, ethical care, and deep respect for each person’s lived experience.

The program provides a structured space for reflective practice, combining professional insight with time for integration and embodied processing. While incorporating elements of group supervision, it is designed as professional development and reflective practice, not formal psychology supervision.

You’ll be guided to explore:

• Relational dynamics and protective strategies that arise in your work

• Emotional safety, boundaries, and ethical self-expression

• Grief, loss, and the quiet fatigue of sustained care

• Attachment patterns, countertransference, and inner child work

• Rebuilding self-trust and cultivating nervous system awareness

Group sessions are confidential, consent-led, and restorative. You’ll never be asked to share beyond your readiness — but you’ll be supported, seen, and held as you reconnect to the healer within.

🔮 Tri Desna Healing Experience

Usually booked out months in advance! We have limited availability for this Balinese healing session that includes:

• Card reading with Balinese Priestess for intuitive insight and spiritual guidance

• Vocal release for emotional clearing and trauma release

• Balinese blessing for inner clarity and cultural connection

• Tridatu protection bracelet — a sacred weaving of red, white and black threads symbolising divine protection, balance, and spiritual alignment

• Sarong (traditional cloth wrap) to wear into the sacred spaces, yours to keep and take home

• Professional photography to capture this sacred turning point (optional)

🙏 Private Healing with a Mangku (Balinese Priest)

This private blessing ceremony is facilitated by our Balinese family and offers a rare invitation into the living heart of local culture. After being gently dressed in full traditional attire—kebaya, sarong, and sash—you’ll be guided to their local Mangku, a respected priest and healer.
Before the ritual, Iluh, the family matriarch, prepares your personal canang offering to present in ceremony. What follows is a still, sacred experience of prayer, holy water, and energetic cleansing. An intimate cultural exchange—held with trust, reverence, and deep spiritual intent. Pleased be advised, it is not allowed to attend this ceremony whilst menstruating but personal photography is allowed.

💧Melukat

Experience an ancient Balinese ritual of purification using holy water, offering full-body energetic and spiritual cleansing in a sacred temple setting. Iluh & Ketut, our lovely Balinese hosts, will make sure you are properly attired in the traditional Kebaya worn by women entering holy spaces. Pleased be advised, it is not allowed to attend this ceremony whilst menstruating but personal photography is allowed.

📿 Custom Gift for Protection & Connection

Designed in Ubud and handmade by a local artisan — a meaningful wearable object to support your integration long after you leave.

🥗 Nourishing Meals Provided Daily

Delicious, nourishing, meals throughout your stay. Yes, we can cater to all dietary requirements. Yes, you can explore a number of vibrant cafes within walking distance or short scooter ride around the villa.

📴 Digital Detox (Optional, but Recommended)

You are invited — not required — to participate in a digital detox.

If you choose to opt in, we’ll securely hold your phone and support you through a full nervous system reset. This option is strongly recommended, and includes a daily 1-hour connection window so you can check in with friends and family if needed.

In a world that rewards availability, being unreachable — even briefly — has become a rare kind of luxury. This is your chance to truly step away, slow down, and return to yourself.

If you choose to stay connected, we simply ask that you keep phone use private and respectful:
🚫 No phones during group sessions or shared meals
✅ Phones are welcome in your private room, and during the two rest days, where you're free to take photos, vlog, or reconnect as needed.

This is about presence, not perfection. We trust you to honour the space — and the people in it.

🧺 Laundry + No Life Admin

All your laundry and logistics handled for you — so you can fully exhale.

🚐 Local Transport

Includes airport pickup/drop-off and all transfers to ceremonies and healing locations.

🌿 Luxury accommodation at Solana Wellness

Your retreat takes place next to a spectacular river and waterfall — a landscape known for its spiritual potency and creative power. We have secured the entire premises, with individual or twin share options available.

What’s Included

• Yoga in the Bamboo Shala
  Gentle sequencing to down‑shift arousal, restore vagal tone, and reconnect with breath‑led movement.

• Sound Healing Session (incl. vocal release)
  Frequency and resonance support nervous‑system settling; optional vocal release offers a safe outlet for held charge.

• Hot–Cold Therapy (Sauna + Cold Plunge)
  Evidence‑supported contrast therapy to regulate mood, improve sleep, and support stress resilience.

• Massage Therapy Session
  Encourages parasympathetic activation, softens muscular tension, and allows emotional release through safe, restorative touch.

• Melukat Water Purification (Balinese ritual)
  Ceremony as container—mark a threshold, release residue, and invite renewal with cultural respect.

• Reflective Practice Circles (peer + facilitated)
  Process countertransference, ethics, and emotional load in a consent‑led, practitioner‑only space.

• Somatic Regulation & Embodied Rest Blocks
  Structured time to practise micro‑resourcing, boundary sensing, and body‑based calm.

• Nature Immersion & Quiet Zones
  Lush gardens, river outlooks, and still spaces to consolidate insight and integration.

• Nourishing Meals
  Whole‑food menus designed for steady energy and clarity; caffeine/alcohol‑aware environment.

• Certificate of Attendance
  Documented structured learning and reflective practice hours to support CPD logging.

• On‑Site Amenities
  Eco‑luxury accommodation, pool access, Wi‑Fi where needed, laundry options—so you can focus on the work, not logistics.

Optional Extras (Available at Additional Cost)

If you decide to stay in Bali before or after your retreat, we are happy to help organise any of the following:

• Pyramids of Chi Sound Healing ($51) – A powerful vibrational immersion inside custom-built pyramids using gongs, bowls, and frequencies to reset the nervous system and support deep release.

• Balinese Culinary Tour ($95) – A guided exploration of Ubud’s vibrant food scene, from warungs to high-end dining, offering a delicious introduction to Balinese flavours, stories, and traditions.

• Colonic Cleanse ($96) - A gentle internal detox at a trusted local wellness centre, supporting gut health, energy flow, and emotional release through safe, professional hydrotherapy.

• Spa Services ($25-95) – Traditional Balinese scrubs, facials, and hair rituals using herbal oils and natural ingredients to soothe the body and restore your glow.

Pricing
This is a fully inclusive, six-day immersive retreat — thoughtfully curated to cover every detail: therapeutic facilitation, reflective practice sessions, traditional Balinese healing rituals, daily movement, nourishing meals, premium accommodation, and professional event coordination throughout.

Early bird pricing starts from $4,900 AUD, with flexible payment plans available upon application.

As a recognised professional development and reflective practice program, eligible participants may be able to claim retreat costs as a tax-deductible expense under continuing professional development (CPD). You’ll receive a Certificate of Attendance outlining structured learning and reflective practice hours, suitable for submission to your professional association or accountant.

If you’ve made it this far, chances are this retreat speaks to you.
Register your interest by dropping your name and details below — no pressure, no spam. You’ll get first access when bookings open, including early bird pricing before public release.

Spots are limited, and this list hears everything first.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

• 6nights / 7 days luxury accommodation in Ubud, the spiritual heart of Bali

• Intimate group experience for deeper connection

• Therapeutic intervention program with qualified Australian therapist Sam Forbes for professional support and peace of mind

• Be dressed in the traditional Balinese Kebaya and experience a sacred embodiment ritual and private spiritual cleansing with a Balinese Mangku (priest and healer)

• Attend a sacred holy spring water temple to receive Melukat, spiritual purification.

• Visit Tri Desna Healing for an incredible release and blessing

• Custom protection gift made by a local silversmith artisan

• All meals daily, unlimited juices, water, coffees and non alcoholic beverages, local transport (including airport transfers) and laundry service so you can shift out of ‘doing’ into ‘receiving’.

• Optional digital detox (phone-free support offered)

• Sauna and plunge pool for hot/cold therapy

• Welcome massage and banquet

• Fire ceremony and massage

• Financial contribution to the beautiful Balinese family that will host us and provides the cultural bridge to these ancient rituals

For full booking terms and conditions please click here.

WHAT’S EXCLUDED

• Flights to and from Bali

• Visa fees

• Travel insurance (required)

• Optional extras (e.g. Additional therapy sessions, additional healings, culinary excursions, massage and spa treatments)