We hold the standards under which the work is held.
The Shadow Work Association is the professional body for certified Shadow Work® coaches and facilitators in Europe. We exist so that the people you bring this work to are trained, supervised, ethical, and held to account.
A professional body, not a school.
The Association does not run Shadow Work itself. That is held by individual certified practitioners — coaches, facilitators, and trainers — operating across more than a dozen European countries. What we do is set the standards that practice happens under, run the public directory through which clients find practitioners, host the Code of Ethics under which every member operates, and convene the professional gatherings at which practitioners re-certify.
Shadow Work Europe is the trading body of European Shadow Work Facilitators, a membership organisation registered in the United Kingdom and operating under license from Shadow Work Licensing, LLC — the holder of the Shadow Work® trademark.
Three levels of training. Mentored certification. Ongoing supervision.
A residential pathway.
Every practitioner has completed three week-long residential intensives, beginning with the Basic Facilitator Training, deepening through the Advanced, and specialising as either a group facilitator or a one-to-one coach.
Held by a mentor.
Training completion marks the beginning, not the end. Aspiring practitioners work with an assigned mentor until both agree they are ready — coaches by demonstrating client work, facilitators by leading an observed seminar under supervision.
Re-certified every two years.
Certification is not a once-and-done credential. Every member re-certifies every two years, holds their own personal-work practice, and submits to peer review at the Association's professional gatherings.
Thirty years in Europe, longer in the work.
Shadow Work® was developed in the late 1980s in the United States by Cliff Barry, working with Mary Ellen Whalen, Erva Baden, and Dimitri Bilgere. John Kurk experienced the work in 1992, brought it to England in 1994, and qualified as Europe's first facilitator the following year.
The first European Basic Facilitator Training was held in 1999. Practitioners have since trained and qualified across Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine, Latvia, Israel, and the United Kingdom — the work is held in roughly a dozen languages, in person and over video, in cities and country retreats alike.
The Association formalised in the 2010s. Its current remit is to keep the work safe, the room held, and the standards published — so that anyone seeking a practitioner can find one who has been trained, examined, and is in good standing.
European Shadow Work Facilitators
t/a Shadow Work Europe
66 Stanmer Villas
Brighton, East Sussex BN1 7HN
United Kingdom
For general enquiries about the Association — membership, ethics, complaints, press — please contact us directly. For practitioner enquiries, the directory contains individual contact details for every member.