Jennifer Slater : Somatic Psychotherapy

“Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong simple ‘I must’, then build your life in accordance with this necessity: your whole life, even down to its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”  RILKE

Somatic psychotherapy

Somatic Psychology works with the dialogue between mind and body to help healthy patterns reassert themselves. The process uses mindfulness, which invites the observing, non-judging part of us to witness our patterns, perceptions, and reactions with curiosity. The process of engaging a "neutral" part of ourselves in this way uses different parts of the brain than the parts occupied by stuck patterns and faulty perceptions. In and of itself, mindfulness helps the nervous system relearn to make accurate perceptions of its environment. As perceptions change, nervous system regulation and defense responses change as well. Bringing attention to thoughts, images, sensations in the body, and impulses all facilitate this new dialogue between mind, body, and emotions.

In summary, somatic psychology differs from other approaches in its value of the body mind connection, its conscious use of psychobiological regulation, as well as its invitation to both the client and therapist to mindfully observe the organization of experience in the present moment from a place of curiosity and nonjudgmental. This philosophy, more than any particular technique, fosters dialogue between the parts of the brain that have been out of touch following experiences of trauma and overwhelm in the past. The ability to perceive the internal and external environment grows out of this personal study, and helps retrain the nervous system to oscillate and cycle with patterns that promote rest, creativity, growth, and learning.

Somatic Experiencing
http://www.traumahealing.com/

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that trauma resolution must include the body as an essential part of the healing process. In Somatic Experiencing, a profoundly freeing modality developed by Dr. Peter Levine, trauma is understood to be held in the present nervous system, rather than the past event. Healing accelerates when energy trapped in the nervous system has an opportunity to discharge, renegotiate, and reorganize its locked-in fight, flight, and freeze responses that have remained in the body after the original traumatic incidents occurred.

Somatic Experiencing frees us to live in the present, bringing our bodies up to date, and also promotes the lost capacity to self-regulate, and the ability to spontaneously move from activation to relaxation. Because of the inherent blueprint for health that resides at the core of the mind-body being, the slow, careful pace of Somatic Experiencing offers you an opportunity to invite and allow the wisdom of your body to do the work of healing.

"Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the event itself. They arise when the activation, mobilized to meet an extreme or life threatening event, is not fully discharged and integrated. This energy remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak havoc on our bodies and our minds."
-Peter A. Levine

Spiritual practice can at times enforce dissociation and underlying trauma. If this trauma is not integrated, it occludes our capacity to know ourselves in both the shadow and free dimensions of our being.

Trauma overwhelms our ability to cope, and disorganizes our nervous systems, leaving broken zones where we seem to have very limited choices. Although our psychological patterning must eventually be understood through the story line of our early lives, neither talking nor emoting can restore balance to our deep brain structures, where the raw experience of trauma is encoded in our protoplasm. If we are able to reorganize this fundamental level of our biology, our access to free awareness can grow. With appropriate support, we can clarify this awareness as our own true nature, and integrate that awakening throughout our existence.