What is Somatic Bodywork?
The purpose of somatic bodywork is to address the impact of trauma using the added element of physical touch. The appointment proceeds in a similar style as a “non-touch” Somatic Support session except with two main differences. First, as the client you are comfortably dressed while lying on the massage table as opposed to being seated in a chair. Second, as the somatic practitioner, I use still (non-moving) touch with light pressure to facilitate the trauma healing process.
Using touch in this way can be helpful for three main reasons.
1) It brings mindful awareness to the areas of your body impacted by trauma. These may be places that carry a surplus of energy (i.e., chronic tension, lack of mobility, constriction, pain, etc.). There may also be a notable lack of energy that you experience as diminished mind-body connection, sluggishness, decreased physical sensation, “stuckness”, impaired mechanical function, etc.
2) It can provide you with an added sense of safety and connection. Many people choose somatic bodywork over a dialogue-based somatic session for this very reason. “I’m very responsive to touch” or “Touch is my first language” are comments I often hear from clients for whom this is a good fit.
3) I have developed palpation skills over years of education and training as a touch professional. This allows the me to perceive activity in your nervous system through the tactile experience of vibration, temperature, texture, contraction and expansion. It also provides another way of connecting to the rhythms of breath, heart rate, muscle tension—other indicators of nervous system activity.
Using touch does not necessarily make the session more or less effective than Somatic Experiencing® and/or NARM alone. It just makes it more customized to your preferences and needs, especially if you respond to touch with an increased experienced of safety.
Somatic Bodywork is not massage therapy. Somatic Bodywork is not psychotherapy. Jenny Winkel is not a licensed mental health care professional. If you have any questions as to whether or not Somatic Bodywork may be right for you, scheduling a consultation may be a good place to start.
Learn MoreThe Link Between Childhood Trauma and Adult Health
I have worked with many clients over the years who came to Salt City Bodyworks feeling discouraged and confused. They had been living with significant health problems and had seen countless doctors and medical health professionals with little or no change in their symptoms. “I’m in chronic pain but my tests always come back ‘normal’” is a phrase I’ve heard countless times. Quite often this means the cause of the physical symptoms is not genetic, congenital, mechanical, bacterial/viral or from toxic environmental exposure. If it were, the traditional medical model would have made that determination since these are all measurable inputs. Instead, the root can likely be traced to a long-term accumulation of toxic stress (aka trauma) which is much harder to detect in standard tests.
Nadine Burke Harris is a Canadian-American pediatrician currently serving as the Surgeon General of California. She is well-known for founding Center for Youth Wellness and her public efforts to bring attention to the negative health effects of toxic stress. In this TED Talk, she highlights the connection between “adverse childhood experience” (trauma) and poor outcomes in adult health.
Follow this link to learn more about the Adverse Childhood Experience Study (ACES) and even take the quiz to find out how you score: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean
Learn MoreWhat “Somatic” Means and Why You’d Want to Know
Years ago, when I was a newly enrolled massage therapy student, I noticed the word somatic in a class titled “Psycho-Somatic Principles.” Like most people, I’d heard that psychosomatic meant an illness that was “all in your head.” But beyond that, I didn’t know much. And I had no idea then that my passion for bodywork would eventually lead me to a degree in somatic psychology.
This post begins a three-part exploration to help you understand what somatic is. That way you can know if a somatic approach to trauma healing is right for you.
- Part One: we’ll learn what the word “somatic” actually means and the elemental role it plays in the mind-body connection.
- Part Two: we’ll revisit the basic definition of trauma and highlight three specific ways it disrupts the mind-body connection.
- Part Three: I’ll show you the particular means by which somatic therapy brings the mind and body back into their proper relationship.
Let’s take a closer look.
The Mind-Body Connection
Let’s consider the word psychosomatic for a moment. The prefix psycho– comes from the Greek psykhē—the invisible animating principle that occupies and directs the physical body. This “animating principle” was originally understood as the life-giving, intangible essence of a human being. In other words, ancients Greeks used psykhē the way we might use the terms spirit or soul today. Our modern understanding of it has come to include mind or conscious awareness as well. Thus, the word psychological means anything relating to or originating from this part of who we are. The Greek word sōma, on the other hand, refers to the fleshy container that houses the psykhē. In short, it is the physical body.
Now we see how the word psychosomatic indicates the intimate relationship between the mind and body. Over time it came to represent theway an imbalance in the mind manifests in the body—essentially a physical ailment with psychological origins. In modern usage, however, the word acquired a negative connotation and so it’s not used as much anymore. These days, the shortened version “somatic” has replaced it. The field of somatic psychology concerns itself with anything related to the mind-body connection.
So what does somatics have to do with trauma healing? To explain that, let’s first examine the critical role the different systems of the mind-body play in your survival. This might feel like high school biology for a minute, but hang with me.
Your Mind-Body Works to Achieve Balance and Stability
The mind-body connection is sustained by the interweaving of complex physiological structures and networks. They work together around the clock to keep your internal systems stable and balanced. Homeostasis is the technical term that describes this state of equilibrium. If the balance in any system tips one way or another, your body will let you know. How? Sensory neurons create a sensation that tells you something’s wrong. Next, you get an urge to fix the problem. This urge signals motor neurons that some kind of action is needed.
For example, when you’ve used up all the calories from lunch, you feel hunger pangs that tell you it’s time to eat again. If you hold your breath for too long, a powerful need to breathe hits you. After a large Diet Coke, you feel the inevitable urge to visit the restroom. Or if a car swerves into your lane, you instantly react to avoid it.
In short, your mind-body provides the means of sensing danger and the actions to protect against it that ensure homeostasis. Why does this matter? It matters because homeostasis is the way your body achieves its number-one goal: survival.
But when you experience trauma, all of that changes.
Trauma Disrupts the Balance and Stability
If survival is threatened, trauma happens when the actions you take to protect yourself aren’t enough to keep you safe. With this in mind, my next post highlights the main defenses your mind-body has against threats to its survival. All of them involve a dramatic reduction in your ability to perceive and process sensation. Now that you know how essential that ability is, you can imagine the kind of internal chaos this creates.
Summary
Psykhē (-psycho) means spirit, mind, or conscious awareness. Sōma means the physical body. Psychosomatic (or somatic for short) refers to the mind-body connection.
Homeostasis is stability and balance in the systems of the mind-body. Homeostasis is maintained by the ability to feel something is wrong via sensation. The sensation is followed by an urge to take action that will fix the problem. Why? To ensure the mind-body’s number one goal: survival. Trauma happens when survival is threatened and the actions taken to protect yourself are not enough to keep you safe.
Learn MoreDoes Somatic Experiencing Really Work?
In this TED Talk, speaker and trainer Monica LeSage shares her experience with Somatic Experiencing. It was instrumental in the long road of her recovery from a major automobile accident over ten years ago. It’s true there is no “one size fits all” approach to trauma healing. At the same time, Monica’s story illustrates how well-positioned Somatic Experiencing is to treat the resulting symptoms of shock trauma. Her story may help you decide whether or not Somatic Experiencing is right for you. Take a look.
Learn MoreDefining Trauma: What is Trauma?
Defining Trauma: What is Trauma?
As a trauma specialist, I’m often asked, “How do you define trauma?” Trauma is a word we hear and use often, but what does it really mean? Before defining trauma, it’s important to acknowledge that while tidy definitions are helpful, the essence of trauma is anything but.
Trauma is often explained through many lenses. My own understanding is influenced by the leading voices in the field of trauma theory and somatic psychology. These leaders include Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Larry Heller and Donald Kalsched.
Now let’s take a closer look.
Trauma happens when something is “too much”
Consider that at any given moment your mind, body and psyche are processing innumerable pieces of information. It makes use of what it needs and gets rid of the rest. Take your gastrointestinal system, for example. When you eat an apple slowly, you’re giving your body time to take in what’s useful and discard what’s not. Taking the time allows you to absorb and metabolize the fruit. Imagine what would happen if you hurried through not just one apple, but four or five. Or what if you swallowed a whole bushel of apples all at once? Not only is it impossible to digest, but all the organs involved would suffer serious damage and collapse.
This last scenario obviously couldn’t happen in real life, but the dramatization helps get us closer to defining trauma. An experience that is “too” anything for you to process (rapid, intense, terrifying, unexpected, prolonged, etc.) and that carries a direct threat to basic safety and survival is considered traumatic. The resulting effect is a fragmentation and shut down of your internal systems on a variety of levels.
To understand more about different categories of trauma, please read the next blogpost: “Defining Trauma: Understanding Types of Trauma.”
Learn MoreDefining Trauma: Understanding Types of Trauma
Defining Trauma: Understanding Types of Trauma
The next step in defining trauma is understanding types of trauma. Trauma categories make it seem like trauma can be neatly analyzed, which simply isn’t true. The reality of trauma is far more complex. An important part of trauma healing is psychoeducation. This means using our brain to understand the process that our body, mind and psyche are going through.
To understand trauma, it’s important to recognize the three categories or types of trauma:
- Shock trauma results when our self-protective responses (fight, flight or freeze) fail to protect us against a one-time event that threatens our safety and survival. Such events might include: an earthquake, hurricane or other major natural disaster; car accident, physical or sexual assault, acute medical intervention like a surgery, intubation or being placed on life support; and witnessing a violent act, to name a few. The impact of shock trauma is mainly to a person’s physiology (circadian rhythms, appetite, mood, etc.) and may even result in a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
- Developmental trauma is significant impact to the development of the personality during the critical stages of human development (conception to young adulthood). This includes chronic exposure to abuse or neglect, suffering debilitating loss (e.g., forced migration or the death of a loved one), being teased and bullied, living with a chronic medical condition, or experiencing war-time conditions during the critical stages of human development. The main impact of developmental trauma is primarily to a person’s identity, sense of worth, ability to engage with others and maintain healthy relationships. If developmental trauma is severe enough, it can result in a personality disorder diagnosis.
- Complex trauma is the combination of the first two categories and may include a diagnosis of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD).
If you’ve experienced any of these three trauma types, you may be a good candidate for somatic therapy. Please reach out directly for more information and help.
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