What is THAT?
What is somatic bodywork therapy? Well, first what is somatic? If you don’t have a clue about that, and you have a moment, follow the link below and read about that word, its meaning, and use in my work.
Somatic bodywork therapy works on the theory that the body holds tension, strain, and pain in response to stressors, large and small, and that through attentive, informed, guided awareness that tension, strain and pain can be relieved.
What does that look like in practice?
This all depends on the practitioner you are working with and the skills they have. I will explain it from the skills I have, which are Somatic Experiencing, Craniosacral Therapy, and Transforming Touch.
Receptive bodywork
With Craniosacral Therapy and Transforming Touch, the interaction and work of bodywork is about attuned contact with your body. Touch has a wide range of functions and ways it initiates and instigates change. You can read in detail my thoughts on how light-touch bodywork works through the link below:
Attuned, informed, perceived-as-safe touch invites the body at multiple levels to begin to change. That touch initiates a feedback loop where sensation relates back to other systems what the current state of your body is. With that information your body can send corrective messages that nourish the cells and tissues of that area towards regeneration and recovery.
The majority of a session of CST or TT does not ask for your conscious attention. The body does the work and you can take that space and time to rest. You float in the juicy brainwaves that are the hallmark of receiving light touch bodywork.
Active bodywork
Now Somatic Experiencing (SE) asks for a different sort of attention. With SE, we both bring our attention to places that your body is expressing sensation. There is an active participation on your part, somewhat like a training, for how to be attentive. We learn together how your body presents sensation in the *present* moment in response to your stories, movement, and memory.
In this process, sensation elicits imagery (for example) and you move towards it with more questions and curiosity. Sensation, imagery and behavior (i.e., movement) become the pathways of inquiry. Our attuned presence creates the possibility of new information arising in the form of new sensations, shifted imagery and supportive movement.
The uses of interruption
In the midst of that is a lot of attention on my part to how stressful this process is for your system. Tools that I use to ease the stress include *a lot* of reminders to feel your body in contact with the treatment table or the chair, or reminders to take in details of the room. These can be odd or disruptive to the flow of things, but they are essentials aspects of what makes SE so powerful. Awareness of support is a way of slowing down processes that have the possibility of recreating a sensation of “too much.”
Slowing down the experience of sensation by bringing this type of awareness to the body helps create a new experience, one that is informed by the present moment. And there are things about the present moment that shift things for your body. You are in a relatively safe place, in the presence of someone who is providing a look-out and container for you. You are definitely not in the place where the overwhelming events took place and you are becoming aware of new information. When we settle that into the body through guided awareness, you have started the process of releasing the hold that event has on your body.
So…what is it?
Somatic bodywork emphasizes the wisdom in the body that communicates through sensation, imagery and movement. It seeks to use the body as entry-way to the issue at hand and percolate that up into awareness, creating a new experience of old information. This is the process of healing somatically.
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