What is Trauma Informed Bodywork and how does it Help You
What is Trauma Informed Bodywork and how does it Help You
It is a truly integrative bodywork approach marrying the Mind-Body piece and overcoming the current scientific model of the human being as fragments: body, soul, mind, spirit.
It’s based on the Polyvagal Theory ( St. Porges 1995)(1)and Taylor's psychophysiological framework of mind-body interactions ( 2018)(2).
There is no better time to experience it than now-pandemic, protests, shootings... All this awakens individual and collective trauma layers in the form of fear, panic, detachment, numbness and isolation. The result: inhibited immune response.
What is trauma?
Why is the world talking about it (finally!) ?
This is the definition from the Medical Dictionary:
“Trauma - τραύμα(Gr)- wound, hurt (Traumata ,pl)
1.
a. Serious injury to the body, as from physical violence or an accident: abdominal trauma.
b. Severe emotional or mental distress caused by an experience: He experienced trauma for years after his divorce.
2.
a. An experience that causes severe anxiety or emotional distress, such as rape or combat: memories that persist after a trauma occurs.
b. An event or situation that causes great disruption or suffering: the economic trauma of the recession.
And check this definition from Integrated Listening Systems :
“Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.”
Or this one:
“Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside of you, as a result of what happened to you." Dr. Gabor Mate
Do you believe there is one definition of it, and what’s your favorite one?
But more importantly, how do you experience it? Is there a difference in experiencing physical and nonphysical trauma?
Pain, shortness of breath (or “I can’t breath”), sleeplessness, anxiety, shakiness, feel teetered, panicky? Or nausea, dizziness, changes in appetite, headaches, gastrointestinal problems?
Please, feel free to finish the list with your own responses.
Do you notice that the only interface we have for experiencing it is The Body?
There is no shame in feeling these reactions, they are not a failure to handle life.
They are the body’s innate ability to handle the threat(s).
And if we understand that these are normal responses to threat, instead of suppressing them, we may be able to process and transform them. The “suppression” inevitably happens by storing them somewhere in the body.
Inevitably because the body remembers everything - your Body is like your self written diary. As it is described in this excellent very popular and accessible book by Dr. Bessel VanderKolk. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.: 9780143127741 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
This is only one example of the avalanche of writings and research by psychologists who realized that involving the Body enhances the therapeutic outcome. Recently, professionals from the field of bodywork are sharing their expertise on the topic, and this is the aim this article.
We are pretty much “educated” on the detrimental effect of the current global trauma on health by the daily grind of the media. Even beyond that - it’s reinforced to the point of feeling your depleted Body is about to crash.
How can Trauma Informed Bodywork help you prevent this?
The short answer is: by reinforcing the strong communication between different parts of the body and particularly broadening the connection between brain and peripheral tissues, including critical organs. This communication transmits information bidirectionally between CNS and the periphery, and it’s conveyed by the Autonomic Nervous System(ANS). Your ANS plays vital role in shaping your response to any threat.
And that is how it may happen, in more details:
By gradually building a bridge between places in the Body that hold incapsulated Trauma State(s) and places that hold a State(s) of Resource - feeling safe and calm.
These are bridges between parts of traumatic storages (places of tightness or weakness) and places of comfort and ease.
I hope you hear this - bridge, connection, communication. When we lose connection with the body, we may do things that unintentionally hurt it and which start a trauma cycle. This cycle doesn’t affect only your inner world, it gradually spreads to the external world - the others, the ecological system{s) etc.
A typical session focuses on somatic (body) awareness in the form of interoception ( sensations arising from inside the body), perception (our 5 senses)(ed.) and mindfulness techniques (meditation, yoga, imagery etc.). Specific palpation techniques enable you to understand the relationship between impaired function, body sensations and internal and external factors.
No two sessions are the same but each goes through 4 phases- establishing of therapeutic relationship, stabilization, confrontation with bifocal integration and integration into everyday life. Each phase is dependent on careful monitoring of the autonomic response of the body - subtle changes in your heart rhythm, breathing patterns, skin temperature color and reactivity, eye movements, changes in the tone of your facial musculature that conveys different expressions, your voice, your movement patterns etc.
Palpation of heart field and harmonization among heart, abdomen and head provokes the state of so called “ventral Vagal tone “. This state of the autonomic nervous system is associated with pleasant and calm sensations, with feelings of ease that promote cognition, optimal performance, desire for communication, and also proper immune response. It may sound similar to relaxation but in reality it is quite different - instead of falling asleep, you may find yourself starting to plan a next event or experience a sense of warmth and caring about someone, or you start thinking about an abandoned project because you feel you are fully capable of accomplishing it. This state is known as Physiological Coherence between several of your physiological systems and organs- heart and brain.(5). This video is an example of how visceral manipulations can be used for facilitating this coherence:
Breathing exercises are a milestone, almost always, and along with the above approaches are examples of “bottom-up” autonomic regulation.
In other occasions, you may be lead through Bifocal Integration - an osteopathic approach to synchronizing perceptions of body sensations and feelings. This is known as “top-down” approach for enhancing autonomic regulation.(3,4)
Guided meditations are also an example of top-down regulation and are a part of each session. As also are neurogenic hesitation and neurobic exercises.
Inviting the patient to perform movement(s) with/in a context along with the manual approach ( meaning during or immediately after the manual technique) allows the immediate integration of the new awareness coming from the tissues. This is an example of simultaneous use of “bottom-up” and “top down” modes of engagement.
Embodiment of hope for pain.
I wish I could say these are techniques only ... but i can’t ...It’s a constant exchange of information between the clinician and the tissues through infinite interoceptive, proprioceptive, vestibular and peri- personal perceptual inputs.
The goal is to invite and accept the messages from your body (because “it’s not only in your head”) and built on them adaptability and resilience to stressors. Because they are HERE, in the daily life.
Research shows that during a life span pretty much everyone is bound to experience traumatic event. And on top, research reveals that the norm is multiple traumatic exposures.
If you still experience your unexplained symptoms and all your medical tests came negative (which is a great news! Congratulations!!) or you’ve been told “it’s in your head”, you are exactly in need to look closer into the way you think of your body:
Do you think it’s a container?
Do you think it’s totally separate from your thoughts, emotions, spirit?
Or you haven’t even given it a single thought ...
This is an article debriefing the struggle medical doctors go through to overcome the bias of “It’s All in Your Head” —Medicine’s Silent Epidemic
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2751253
Trauma Informed Bodywork could be an excellent supplement to your work with a psychologist by releasing trauma through the body.
Trauma- personal or collective, tribal, ancestral, trans generational, physical, non- physical, non- intentional ... you name it ... no matter which one, no matter the differences, there is only One Body for all of them. Reading about it, talking about it (no matter how incessantly!) is proven not sufficient.
Proven not only by research but also, by the evolutionary impulse.
Invite your body to a date and see how deepening your relationship with it may help you to meet the uncertainty of our time with presence:
References:
1. Steven W.Porges:The Polyvagal Perspective
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1868418/
2. Ann Gill Taylor, Lisa E. Goehler, [...], and Cheryl Bourguignon: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Mind-Body Medicine: Development of an Integrative Framework for Psychophysiological Research
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2818254/
3. Torsten Liem, DO, W.Neuhumber MD: Osteopathic treatment approach to trauma by means of bifocal integration https://jaoa.org/article.aspx?articleid=2762061
4. Mathew Sorenson, PT, Matt Wallden , DO, ND : Visceral Factors in Rehabilitation & Health https://www.bodyworkmovementtherapies.com/article/S1360-8592(16)30196-6/fulltext
5. Cardiac coherence, self-regulation, autonomic stability, and psychosocial well-being; Rollin McCraty and Maria A. Zayas https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4179616/
6. State-Dependent Entrainment of Prefrontal Cortex Local Field Potential Activity Following Patterned Stimulation of the Cerebellar Vermis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6828963/
7. Effect of Continuous Touch on Brain Functional Connectivity Is Modified by the Operator’s Tactile Attentionhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00368/full
8. The Effect of Massage on the Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System and Markers of Inflammation in Night Shift Workers: a Pilot Randomized Crossover Trialhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454237/
