Why INPP Training Will Always Be In Person

Why INPP Training Will Always Be In Person

Not long ago, I found myself chatting with a couple of medical students. They were describing a practical session at university in which they had been required to examine one another’s bodies. What struck them most was not the technical aspect of the task, but the human one: the surprising differences in how people look and feel, the varying levels of comfort or discomfort when asked to remove an item of clothing, and the wide range of ways individuals expressed that discomfort—or didn’t.

Their reflections stayed with me.

Because in a very real sense, this is exactly why INPP training will always remain in person.

Over recent years, it has become almost assumed that every form of professional training will be offered online, or at least as a hybrid. I am frequently asked whether INPP will follow the same path. But the answer, for us, is clear: no. And the reason is simple.

Everybody is different.

Every body is different.

And every nervous system is different.

Our work is grounded in recognising and responding to these differences—not as abstract concepts, but as lived, physical realities. No online demonstration can prepare a practitioner for the full range of human variation they will encounter in practice. No video can capture subtle shifts in tone, hesitation, emotional reaction, or the barely perceptible changes in movement and posture that can occur during tests and exercises.

It is hard to describe a colour to someone who has never seen it. And, in much the same way, it is hard to convey the felt experience of working with reflexes, of witnessing emotional responses, or of noticing how one individual’s nervous system reacts differently from another’s.

These things need to be seen, felt, and experienced.

INPP training is not simply about acquiring a set of procedures. It is about developing the sensitivity, confidence, and perceptual awareness required to support another human being—often a child, often someone vulnerable—through a process that may stir discomfort, uncertainty, or unexpected emotion. Practitioners must learn to read bodies, not just instructions.

Real bodies. Real reactions. Real people.

This cannot be replicated through a screen.

So, while online learning offers convenience, what we offer is something different: an embodied, relational, human training, rooted in the real-world experience that is essential for competent and compassionate practice.

For INPP, this is not optional.

It is fundamental to who we are and to the integrity of the work.