Here is some information on trauma first aid.
Bombay needs us at this time, hence i am facilitating this training free of charge.
The pre-requiste is that in leu of charges those attending the training are available to help the survivors affected by this terror attack.
In helping you will be deepening your trauma first aid skills and is really a wonderful opportunity to help in the healing of mumbai, thus making it a safer place for yourself and your loved ones.
Please invite friends, colleagues and family who are willing to learn this very effective method of trauma first aid.
If you have any influence with any newspapers i hope that we can run some articles educating the public at large about trauma first aid, this will help to prevent a whole city being traumatized because of these events.
My intention is to ?build a trauma first aid network so that those that are affected now and in any future disaster ma y receive help.
If you are willing to help in anyway please let me know.
Just a little reminder that by exposing yourselves and loved ones to the sensationalist news programs will more than likely trigger emotions of fear, anger, hatred, helplessness etc, i recommend that you limit yourselves to a few minutes per day to update on the facts if you have to.
under no circumstances should you expose your young children to these horrid scenes of terror. If they are curious exlpain to them the facts and reassure them they are safe in your care.
Much love and care?
Suraag
9870472228
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trauma First Aid
A three day trauma healing training will take place:
Dates : ??5 - 7 December 2008
Place: Don Bosco, Matunga
Time: ? ?9am - 5.30 pm
Fees: No Charge
For registration contact :suraagl@gmail.com?or call : + (91) 9870472228.
What is needed in disaster treatment is a new science of disaster relief, one that gives immediate aid not just to the body or to the mind but to the two together, as inseparable parts of the whole survivor. Dr Laurie Leitch Phd
In large-scale natural disasters, the effects are not limited to a brief period following the event; disruption effects can go on for months and even years, contributing to further traumatic stress and highlighting the importance of early stabilization interventions. A single brief exposure to an overwhelming event can throw a normally functioning individual (especially an infant or young child), into an abyss of emotional and physical suffering, a significant portion of human behavior is attributable to hyper-aroused post-traumatic states.
??Unless we can successfully treat the effects of trauma, we may be unintentionally spawning hyperactive, learning-impaired, violence-prone, brain-damaged ''citizens''.? Dr Peter Levine,?
If survivors? traumatic symptoms can be decreased soon after a disaster, it is likely that they can be better advocates for themselves and that family and community relationships will be more stable.
Trauma research is increasingly linking the mind and the body as more is understood about the biological basis of traumatic stress and the many physiological symptoms arising from alterations in the endocrine, autonomic, and central nervous systems.
Raja Selvam Phd? points out that during life-threatening and overwhelming experiences, the physiology (brain and body) of human beings appears to be hard-wired to respond with a number of inter-related survival/coping strategies: constriction or flaccidity of body/brain tissue, high or low nervous system arousal, terror or its apparent absence, stress or its apparent absence, and overactive or underactive defensive responses of orienting, flight, fight, freeze, and dissociation, to name the more important among them. When such basic physiological survival/coping responses (we will call them basic survival responses) are unable to deal with the overwhelm, the physiology might even undergo extreme states of dis-regulation, such as convulsions and various autonomic nervous system disturbances.When such basic survival responses and extreme states of dis-regulation persist, for whatever reason, they can become a source of troubling trauma symptoms in human beings.
The Value of Somatic Healing
Somatic Healing has much to offer disaster survivors because it approaches survivors holistically, and it draws on verbal and emotional processing only secondarily to sensory-motor processing.?
This intervention is not culture bound, as it draws on the neuro-biological basis of traumatic response that is evidenced in a variety of observable and reportable somatic states.
Somatic healing works with the patterns of dis-regulation that generate significant risk for the development and chronicity of symptoms, both psychological and or somatic. This outlook recognizes that what manifests as a physical symptom (e.g., a stomach ache) may be a traumatic response that can be alleviated by working with sensory-motor processing.?
In disaster settings, in which survivors are often difficult to locate for more than a single session, brief interventions are extremely relevant. Treatment that can be effective in low dosages is also less costly and can provide stabilization to more people in less time
Somatic Healing Intervention Protocol?
Somatic Healing is a structured, manual-based protocol with specific interventions that focus primarily on self-regulation (i.e., restoring equilibrium to the nervous system) and secondarily on working with associated emotions and cognitions. Somatic Healing based on Dr Peter Levine?s Somatic Experiencing offers concrete skills to reduce hyper-arousal and dis-regulation, including (a) tracking shifts in the nervous system by following a survivor?s report of internal sensations and by observing breathing (rapid, shallow, panting), heart rate (increase, decrease), muscle tension, shifts in posture, changes in skin color, and involuntary body movements (eyes, head, neck, shoulders, hands, legs); (b) tracking sensations of discharge; (c) grounding techniques; (d) pendulation (moving between states of relative organization and disorganization within the nervous system); and (e) titration (the process of gradually accessing somatic activation, body sensations, feelings, and thoughts associated with the traumatic experience so that the nervous system can adjust to each increment with-out becoming overwhelmed; Levine, 1997; Miller- Karas & Everett, 2005).
Educating trauma survivors about the physiology of trauma, how it behaves during trauma and how it behaves naturally after trauma to heal itself is a critical part of our treatment strategy.
We also use touch as an important component of our approach to help restore self-regulation in the physiology of survivors. Touch can be effective because human bodies are designed by nature to interactively regulate each other, especially in times of stress, as every mother knows. What is true for children is true for adults as well when they are in overwhelm. ?
References
Levine, P. (1996). The body as healer: A revisioning of trauma and anxiety. In M. Sheets-Johnstone (Ed.), Trauma healing articles?(pp. 1-22). Niwot, CO: Foundation for Human Enrichment.?
Leitch M. Laurie, Somatic?Experiencing Treatment With?Tsunami?Survivors in Thailand: Broadening?the?Scope of?Early Intervention.?(2007)?Traumatology
Selvam R. Treating tsunami survivors for trauma, Journal of Holistic Healthcare, Volume 2, Issue 4, November 2005.
Levine, P. (1997).?Waking the tiger. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Press.
Scaer, R. (2006). The traumatic spectrum: Hidden wounds and human resiliency. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Case Study
I began working with a young girl of 11 by asking her what difficulties she has been experiencing in her body since the cyclone. Her chest was heavy and both her chest and throat were tight, we checked in too see the intensity of this tightness and then I asked permission to support her with my hand on her back strategically to encourage the autonomic nervous system to release this difficulty through discharge sensations of warmth, tingling, trembling, shivering or shaking etc and move to a more regulated state. I encouraged her to look for these sensations and to witness how they help her to start to feel better, after about ten minutes she found that the tightness and heaviness lifted and her chest was lighter and she felt brighter, she then began to relate her story of being in a small hut as the water kept rising, she remembered being very cold. As she related this her whole body actually became icy cold as she went into a shock state, a state of frozenness and constriction. I had one of my assistants touch her feet , whilst I supported her with one hand on her upper back and the other on her one knee to provide her body with support to move through this dis-regulation, and giving her body the time it needs to regulate. In trauma things happen so fast and its too much for the body to handle, now the body needs the time and support for it to regulate, this is what we provided and after about eight minutes her body became extremely hot almost to hot to bear before it settled into a more regulated and comfortable warmth. Her whole demeanor and physiology changed, she was able to breath more easily and freely, her chest became lighter, she felt much better, she reported feeling light, mobile and happy. In this one session we helped her nervous system and body to re-negotiate the frozen state of shock and move through to comfort and flow which are essential ingredients of a resilient nervous system.?
Hopefully our intervention is sufficient to restore enough self-regulation to the physiology that it will take care of the rest of the healing with the support of a greater understanding of the healing process on the part of the client. She was encouraged to use the concrete skills she learned in the session on her own, after treatment, to continue reinforcing equilibrium in the autonomic nervous system.
Rising to the occasion
India needs a large team of trained trauma therapists
For two reasons, the first is to be prepared when natural or man made disasters hit and? the second so to help heal the millions of India?s already affected citizens.?
Why wait for tragedy to happen before making appropriate provision for helping to heal the devastating somatic and psychological effects of trauma, the truth is we have all experienced trauma at some time in our life and knowingly or unknowingly it has affected the way we perceive the world, our health, our behaviors, our thinking and our learning abilities and the way we interact socially. Somatic Healing is an effective intervention to help us heal and to become more loving, compassionate and empowered.
Those interested in training as a trauma therapist or sponsoring or hosting trauma healing training may contact Suraag on?suraagl@gmail.com?or call : + (91) 9870472228.
Trauma First Aid (TFA)?offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma based on Somatic Experiencing developed by Dr. Peter A. Levine.
A therapy that helps people access their body's natural immunity to stressful events.
TFA facilitates the healing process by helping traumatized people release stored survival energy and complete interrupted biological patterns that are "stuck" in the nervous system.
TFA?offers a comprehensive theoretical and clinical approach to helping clients work through symptoms of traumatic stress from a variety of traumatic situations in a variety of clinical settings.
The training employs awareness of body sensation to help people "renegotiate" and heal their trauma, rather than relive or re-enact it.
It "titrates" survival energies when discharging traumatic stress, rather than catharsis, which can re-overwhelm the regulative mechanisms of the person. The training helps eliminate the pitfalls of re-traumatization.
This training will help you to:
- Understand the physiological basis of trauma.
- Learn about containment, re-sourcing and empowerment.
- Study tracking skills, titration and establishing continuity through the felt sense.
- Practice establishing defensive orienting responses, completion and discharge.
- Be able to identify, normalize, and stabilize traumatic reactions.
- Attain skills to avoid pitfalls of re-traumatization.
- Investigate the transformative qualities of trauma.
Acquire short-term solutions to acute and chronic symptoms.
Who will benefit:?Health/Helping Professions from all disciplines: Psychotherapists, physicians, body worker, nurses, chiropractors, etc.?
Everybody who wants to heal his/her own traumas and would like to know more about this amazing work.
Specially all the mothers, fathers and teachers wanting to help their kids in a safe and supportive way!
Quanta Health Care Solutions
Quanta has been established as a centre for holistic healing and self-discovery. The programs at Quanta aim towards Health at the level of body, mind, and spirit. The work offered here is resource oriented; healing individuals rediscover the source of wellness within them. Quanta offers therapies, workshops, and programs that support the healing journey, improving the quality of our daily living.
Suraag?is a therapist and trainer based in Mumbai, India. He shares his passion for self-growth and transformation by facilitating personal development seminars and training workshops. He combines the latest discoveries in stress resolution based on cutting-edge neurobiology and energy therapy. He uses Somatic Experiencing?, meditation and a wealth of other techniques. His teachings relate directly to the powers held within every person.
Dr. Kalpana Khatwani's Testimonial
For those of you interested in knowing a little bit more about Suraag's Somatic Experience workshop, here is my personal experience. ? I signed up for the class without much information on the subject, basing my decision simply on what I read about Suraag, as well as my impression of him when we met a few days before the start of class. ? At the time I was also suffering from a debilitating pain in my shoulders that I knew was psychosomatic. ? I entered the class thinking I would learn something to work through my pain. ? I had a vague idea that it would have something to do with developing an awareness of how our emotions are experienced by the body. ? It turned out to be that and a lot more. ? This workshop had us focus not so much on the emotions, but on bodily sensations, particularly those that when left unattended in the body cause a host of problems, which we then learned to discharge using awareness, self-touch, movement and therapist's touch. ? I walked out of the four day class with my aches and pains 50% better.? Since then, whenever I go through an activating experience I take the time out to discharge the trapped energy to prevent any adverse build up. ?
When I used it on my patients, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that they were able to feel the tingling, tremors, shaking and flowing of the discharge without too much education. ? It completely validated my own experience of the class.? Patients have walked away feeling very relaxed and with a tool that they can use to help themselves when they are not in session.
I now feel that, so far, my work with my patients had focused on understanding how our negative emotions affect us, but was missing this next step of releasing that powerful energy that negative emotions and experiences leave in the body.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma developed by DR. Peter A. Levine. SE is based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized. The most primitive animal portions of the brain are activated when a person experiences trauma and at the same time, certain higher areas in the cortex associated with language and planning are shut down. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the higher levels of energy-arousal associated with survival behaviors. The animals' built-in "immunity" to trauma enables them to return to normal after a highly "charged" life-threatening experience.
Although humans are born with virtually the same regulatory mechanisms as animals, the function of these instinctive systems is often overridden or inhibited. Our restraint to experience the instinctual prevents the complete discharge of these survival energies. This un-discharged energy remains "stuck" in the body and the nervous system. In bringing together the "highest" cerebral functions of refined awareness with the primitive animal instincts, the human is able to heal and transform trauma, becoming more fully human.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friends
Here is some information on trauma first aid.
Bombay needs us at this time, hence i am facilitating this training
free of charge.
The pre-requiste is that in leu of charges those attending the
training are available to help the survivors affected by this terror
attack.
In helping you will be deepening your trauma first aid skills and is
really a wonderful opportunity to help in the healing of mumbai, thus
making it a safer place for yourself and your loved ones.
Please invite friends, colleagues and family who are willing to learn
this very effective method of trauma first aid.
If you have any influence with any newspapers i hope that we can run
some articles educating the public at large about trauma first aid,
this will help to prevent a whole city being traumatized because of
these events.
My intention is to build a trauma first aid network so that those
that are affected now and in any future disaster may receive help.
If you are willing to help in anyway please let me know.
Just a little reminder that by exposing yourselves and loved ones to
the sensationalist news programs will more than likely trigger
emotions of fear, anger, hatred, helplessness etc, i recommend that
you limit yourselves to a few minutes per day to update on the facts
if you have to.
under no circumstances should you expose your young children to these
horrid scenes of terror. If they are curious exlpain to them the
facts and reassure them they are safe in your care.
Much love and care
Suraag
9870472228
?
Trauma First Aid
A three day trauma healing training will take place:
Dates : 5 - 7 December 2008
Place: Don Bosco, Matunga
Time: 9am - 5.30 pm
Fees: No Charge
For registration contact :suraagl@gmail.com or call : + (91) 9870472228.
What is needed in disaster treatment is a new science of disaster
relief, one that gives immediate aid not just to the body or to the
mind but to the two together, as inseparable parts of the whole
survivor. Dr Laurie Leitch Phd
In large-scale natural disasters, the effects are not limited to a
brief period following the event; disruption effects can go on for
months and even years, contributing to further traumatic stress and
highlighting the importance of early stabilization interventions. A
single brief exposure to an overwhelming event can throw a normally
functioning individual (especially an infant or young child), into an
abyss of emotional and physical suffering, a significant portion of
human behavior is attributable to hyper-aroused post-traumatic states.
“Unless we can successfully treat the effects of trauma, we may be
unintentionally spawning hyperactive, learning-impaired, violence-
prone, brain-damaged ''citizens''.” Dr Peter Levine,
If survivors’ traumatic symptoms can be decreased soon after a
disaster, it is likely that they can be better advocates for
themselves and that family and community relationships will be more
stable.
Trauma research is increasingly linking the mind and the body as more
is understood about the biological basis of traumatic stress and the
many physiological symptoms arising from alterations in the
endocrine, autonomic, and central nervous systems.
Raja Selvam Phd points out that during life-threatening and
overwhelming experiences, the physiology (brain and body) of human
beings appears to be hard-wired to respond with a number of inter-
related survival/coping strategies: constriction or flaccidity of
body/brain tissue, high or low nervous system arousal, terror or its
apparent absence, stress or its apparent absence, and overactive or
underactive defensive responses of orienting, flight, fight, freeze,
and dissociation, to name the more important among them. When such
basic physiological survival/coping responses (we will call them
basic survival responses) are unable to deal with the overwhelm, the
physiology might even undergo extreme states of dis-regulation, such
as convulsions and various autonomic nervous system disturbances.When
such basic survival responses and extreme states of dis-regulation
persist, for whatever reason, they can become a source of troubling
trauma symptoms in human beings.
The Value of Somatic Healing
Somatic Healing has much to offer disaster survivors because it
approaches survivors holistically, and it draws on verbal and
emotional processing only secondarily to sensory-motor processing.
This intervention is not culture bound, as it draws on the neuro-
biological basis of traumatic response that is evidenced in a variety
of observable and reportable somatic states.
Somatic healing works with the patterns of dis-regulation that
generate significant risk for the development and chronicity of
symptoms, both psychological and or somatic. This outlook recognizes
that what manifests as a physical symptom (e.g., a stomach ache) may
be a traumatic response that can be alleviated by working with
sensory-motor processing.
In disaster settings, in which survivors are often difficult to
locate for more than a single session, brief interventions are
extremely relevant. Treatment that can be effective in low dosages is
also less costly and can provide stabilization to more people in less
time
Somatic Healing Intervention Protocol
Somatic Healing is a structured, manual-based protocol with specific
interventions that focus primarily on self-regulation (i.e.,
restoring equilibrium to the nervous system) and secondarily on
working with associated emotions and cognitions. Somatic Healing
based on Dr Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing offers concrete
skills to reduce hyper-arousal and dis-regulation, including (a)
tracking shifts in the nervous system by following a survivor’s
report of internal sensations and by observing breathing (rapid,
shallow, panting), heart rate (increase, decrease), muscle tension,
shifts in posture, changes in skin color, and involuntary body
movements (eyes, head, neck, shoulders, hands, legs); (b) tracking
sensations of discharge; (c) grounding techniques; (d) pendulation
(moving between states of relative organization and disorganization
within the nervous system); and (e) titration (the process of
gradually accessing somatic activation, body sensations, feelings,
and thoughts associated with the traumatic experience so that the
nervous system can adjust to each increment with-out becoming
overwhelmed; Levine, 1997; Miller- Karas & Everett, 2005).
Educating trauma survivors about the physiology of trauma, how it
behaves during trauma and how it behaves naturally after trauma to
heal itself is a critical part of our treatment strategy.
We also use touch as an important component of our approach to help
restore self-regulation in the physiology of survivors. Touch can be
effective because human bodies are designed by nature to
interactively regulate each other, especially in times of stress, as
every mother knows. What is true for children is true for adults as
well when they are in overwhelm.
References
Levine, P. (1996). The body as healer: A revisioning of trauma and
anxiety. In M. Sheets-Johnstone (Ed.), Trauma healing articles (pp.
1-22). Niwot, CO: Foundation for Human Enrichment.
Leitch M. Laurie, Somatic Experiencing Treatment With Tsunami
Survivors in Thailand: Broadening the Scope of Early Intervention.
(2007) Traumatology
Selvam R. Treating tsunami survivors for trauma, Journal of Holistic
Healthcare, Volume 2, Issue 4, November 2005.
Levine, P. (1997). Waking the tiger. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Press.
Scaer, R. (2006). The traumatic spectrum: Hidden wounds and human
resiliency. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Case Study
I began working with a young girl of 11 by asking her what
difficulties she has been experiencing in her body since the cyclone.
Her chest was heavy and both her chest and throat were tight, we
checked in too see the intensity of this tightness and then I asked
permission to support her with my hand on her back strategically to
encourage the autonomic nervous system to release this difficulty
through discharge sensations of warmth, tingling, trembling,
shivering or shaking etc and move to a more regulated state. I
encouraged her to look for these sensations and to witness how they
help her to start to feel better, after about ten minutes she found
that the tightness and heaviness lifted and her chest was lighter and
she felt brighter, she then began to relate her story of being in a
small hut as the water kept rising, she remembered being very cold.
As she related this her whole body actually became icy cold as she
went into a shock state, a state of frozenness and constriction. I
had one of my assistants touch her feet , whilst I supported her with
one hand on her upper back and the other on her one knee to provide
her body with support to move through this dis-regulation, and giving
her body the time it needs to regulate. In trauma things happen so
fast and its too much for the body to handle, now the body needs the
time and support for it to regulate, this is what we provided and
after about eight minutes her body became extremely hot almost to hot
to bear before it settled into a more regulated and comfortable
warmth. Her whole demeanor and physiology changed, she was able to
breath more easily and freely, her chest became lighter, she felt
much better, she reported feeling light, mobile and happy. In this
one session we helped her nervous system and body to re-negotiate the
frozen state of shock and move through to comfort and flow which are
essential ingredients of a resilient nervous system.
Hopefully our intervention is sufficient to restore enough self-
regulation to the physiology that it will take care of the rest of
the healing with the support of a greater understanding of the
healing process on the part of the client. She was encouraged to use
the concrete skills she learned in the session on her own, after
treatment, to continue reinforcing equilibrium in the autonomic
nervous system.
Rising to the occasion
India needs a large team of trained trauma therapists
For two reasons, the first is to be prepared when natural or man made
disasters hit and the second so to help heal the millions of
India’s already affected citizens.
Why wait for tragedy to happen before making appropriate provision
for helping to heal the devastating somatic and psychological effects
of trauma, the truth is we have all experienced trauma at some time
in our life and knowingly or unknowingly it has affected the way we
perceive the world, our health, our behaviors, our thinking and our
learning abilities and the way we interact socially. Somatic Healing
is an effective intervention to help us heal and to become more
loving, compassionate and empowered.
Those interested in training as a trauma therapist or sponsoring or
hosting trauma healing training may contact Suraag on
suraagl@gmail.com or call : + (91) 9870472228.
Trauma First Aid (TFA) offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It
is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing
of trauma based on Somatic Experiencing developed by Dr. Peter A.
Levine.
A therapy that helps people access their body's natural immunity to
stressful events.
TFA facilitates the healing process by helping traumatized people
release stored survival energy and complete interrupted biological
patterns that are "stuck" in the nervous system.
TFA offers a comprehensive theoretical and clinical approach to
helping clients work through symptoms of traumatic stress from a
variety of traumatic situations in a variety of clinical settings.
The training employs awareness of body sensation to help people
"renegotiate" and heal their trauma, rather than relive or re-enact it.
It "titrates" survival energies when discharging traumatic stress,
rather than catharsis, which can re-overwhelm the regulative
mechanisms of the person. The training helps eliminate the pitfalls
of re-traumatization.
This training will help you to:
- Understand the physiological basis of trauma.
- Learn about containment, re-sourcing and empowerment.
- Study tracking skills, titration and establishing continuity
through the felt sense.
- Practice establishing defensive orienting responses, completion and
discharge.
- Be able to identify, normalize, and stabilize traumatic reactions.
- Attain skills to avoid pitfalls of re-traumatization.
- Investigate the transformative qualities of trauma.
Acquire short-term solutions to acute and chronic symptoms.
Who will benefit: Health/Helping Professions from all disciplines:
Psychotherapists, physicians, body worker, nurses, chiropractors, etc.
Everybody who wants to heal his/her own traumas and would like to
know more about this amazing work.
Specially all the mothers, fathers and teachers wanting to help their
kids in a safe and supportive way!
Quanta Health Care Solutions
Quanta has been established as a centre for holistic healing and self-
discovery. The programs at Quanta aim towards Health at the level of
body, mind, and spirit. The work offered here is resource oriented;
healing individuals rediscover the source of wellness within them.
Quanta offers therapies, workshops, and programs that support the
healing journey, improving the quality of our daily living.
Suraag is a therapist and trainer based in Mumbai, India. He shares
his passion for self-growth and transformation by facilitating
personal development seminars and training workshops. He combines the
latest discoveries in stress resolution based on cutting-edge
neurobiology and energy therapy. He uses Somatic Experiencing®,
meditation and a wealth of other techniques. His teachings relate
directly to the powers held within every person.
Dr. Kalpana Khatwani's Testimonial
For those of you interested in knowing a little bit more about
Suraag's Somatic Experience workshop, here is my personal
experience. I signed up for the class without much information on
the subject, basing my decision simply on what I read about Suraag,
as well as my impression of him when we met a few days before the
start of class. At the time I was also suffering from a
debilitating pain in my shoulders that I knew was psychosomatic. I
entered the class thinking I would learn something to work through my
pain. I had a vague idea that it would have something to do with
developing an awareness of how our emotions are experienced by the
body. It turned out to be that and a lot more. This workshop had
us focus not so much on the emotions, but on bodily sensations,
particularly those that when left unattended in the body cause a host
of problems, which we then learned to discharge using awareness, self-
touch, movement and therapist's touch. I walked out of the four day
class with my aches and pains 50% better. Since then, whenever I go
through an activating experience I take the time out to discharge the
trapped energy to prevent any adverse build up.
When I used it on my patients, I was pleasantly surprised to notice
that they were able to feel the tingling, tremors, shaking and
flowing of the discharge without too much education. It completely
validated my own experience of the class. Patients have walked away
feeling very relaxed and with a tool that they can use to help
themselves when they are not in session.
I now feel that, so far, my work with my patients had focused on
understanding how our negative emotions affect us, but was missing
this next step of releasing that powerful energy that negative
emotions and experiences leave in the body.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma.
It is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and
healing of trauma developed by DR. Peter A. Levine. SE is based upon
the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely,
are rarely traumatized. The most primitive animal portions of the
brain are activated when a person experiences trauma and at the same
time, certain higher areas in the cortex associated with language and
planning are shut down. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms
to regulate and discharge the higher levels of energy-arousal
associated with survival behaviors. The animals' built-in "immunity"
to trauma enables them to return to normal after a highly "charged"
life-threatening experience.
Although humans are born with virtually the same regulatory
mechanisms as animals, the function of these instinctive systems is
often overridden or inhibited. Our restraint to experience the
instinctual prevents the complete discharge of these survival
energies. This un-discharged energy remains "stuck" in the body and
the nervous system. In bringing together the "highest" cerebral
functions of refined awareness with the primitive animal instincts,
the human is able to heal and transform trauma, becoming more fully
human.
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