Transcript Somatic Focusing, Chakra Meditation, Visualization: Tools for
Tools for Trauma Unwinding
By Victoria Lorient-Faibish MEd, CCC Holistic Psychotherapist
TRAUMA TRAUMA TRAUMA
Norman Doidge says in
The Brain that Changes itself “ The idea that an image from the traumatic past can be frozen in the mind and remain unchanged since the time of the trauma is not unlike what happens to patients who have their wounded limbs put in casts and then develop frozen phantom limbs after amputation…”
Norman Doidge says in The Brain that Changes itself “The image of a parent lost in earliest childhood can haunt a child the way a phantom limb does and be experienced as a felt presence that makes unpredictable distressing intrusions.”
The Trauma Vortex
RAGE: the thwarted fight response
TERROR : the thwarted flee response
When too much rage and terror person FREEZES
Peter Levine PhD is a researcher of Medical and Biological Physics at the University of California.
He conducted a thirty year study on stress and trauma.
Author of seminal book: Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
Levine says in Waking The Tiger:
“When our nervous systems prepare us to meet danger, they shift into highly energized states. If we can discharge this energy while actively and effectively defending against threat, the nervous system will move back toward a normal level of functioning. Our felt sense will feel complete, self satisfied and heroic. If the threat has not been dealt with successfully, the energy stays in our bodies.”
The trauma lives in the nervous system, not in the event and needs to be unbound and unwound slowly and consciously
Trauma becomes stuck and can develop Compulsive Repetition behaviours.
The brain is trying to resolve or understand the trauma event.
Levine says in Waking The Tiger:
“Many compulsive behaviours, whether benign or destructive, may be explained as repeated strategies to resolve frozen energy. Anxiety, insomnia and chronic fatigue are just a few examples of the many possibilities.”
The Trauma Vortex (Cont’d)
Reptilian response
Fight/ flight/freeze: Sympathetic nervous system (Periferal: Arms and legs)
Moving to the Healing Vortex
To bring about the healing vortex, Levine says that working with imagination and visualization is a very effective way to assist the nervous system in organizing itself when processing trauma. (Doidge concurs)
When starting to work with the trauma: Important to start at the edge of the trauma, not at the centre.
Need to turn on the Para-sympathetic nervous system: the relaxation response to facilitate unwinding and resolution of trauma (back to core)
Visualization: The Key to Trauma Unwinding
The slower the better: Sensory specific; detailed
Titration model: Science terminology for “One drop at a time”
Allow the brain to muse on sensorial details of the image
Closed eyes is a wonderful way to easily access the client’s sub-conscious.
Create visuals in which the client can take “control” of an event
Allow “Ah Hah!” moments to come from the visuals
Using the imagination to self regulate and self heal through imagery and journeying, storytelling and memory recreating.
“The Felt Sense”:Beyond The Intelligent Mind
The “Felt sense” is tuning into the awareness of the subtle senses, images and body messaging sensations as one turns within for the answers.
Must contact the “felt sense” in order to communicate with the reptilian brain where the trauma is registered.
Turning on the Para-sympathetic nervous system: the relaxation response to facilitate unwinding and resolution of trauma
MELTING of the frozen parts
Client is brought through a process that goes way beyond the intelligent mind (which is rationalizing and making inaccurate conclusions; bypassing the reptilian brain).
Process includes: Visualizing finding the power again that was lost; finding resources by using imagery to reclaim power stance in the trauma event.
Also using the imagination to re do and recreate the outcome of the event. Revisiting all the details and noticing the senses and the images that come forward.
The “Felt Sense” Model versus the “Catharsis Model”
By going over the event in a fast and un-careful way, the mind is not distinguishing between the re-living and the actual event thus emitting again and again the biochemicals of trauma. (Levine)
Catharsis model is too fast, too uncontrolled, too right to the centre of it all. (Levine)
Need to have it all be more about Observing, Slowing, Sensing, breathing, visualizing, imagining in order to speak with the reptilian brain (Levine)
Focusing: Created by Eugene Gendlin
Eugene Gendlin Author of foundational book called Focusing.
Created focusing as a technique in response to his years of research.
He was a psych. professor at the University of Chicago (1963 95)
Conducted experiments over years to see what made the psychotherapy experience successful or not.
He discovered that the successful outcome depended whether the client was able to connect deeply inside themselves or not.
Also their success depended on the client being able to stay with the bodily felt sense of an issue not just the intellectual knowing of the issue.
Focusing
Focusing is tuning into The Felt Sense: paying attention to something inside that is not yet clear but bodily felt and listened to in an empathic way by the client and therapist.
It is an inner open ended process that speaks in images and metaphors.
A deep listening to what the body/mind is saying
When Focusing: sensations are more important than content
Focusing
Language of the reptilian brain
Sensations VS. intense emotion
Titration: One drop at a time
Images, dreams: sensations not events
Somatic Focusing
Sensing at the level of body sensations, nuances, subtle messaging
Steps for Somatic Focusing?
1. Clearing a space 2. The felt sense 3. Naming 4. Resonating 5. Asking 6. Receiving of it all
1. Clearing a Space
Clear the shelf
A place in nature
Sensory specific
Feel it in the body
RELAX RELAX
2.The “Felt”Sense
Choose an issue: allow it to bubble up
Stand at the edge of it; not at the centre
“What do you sense in your body when you recall the problem?”
Slowly sense all of that. Even if it unclear or a murky sense of it all in your body Be neutral curious: have no agenda Slow it all down. Create space. Breathe.
PEACE
PEACE
4. Resonating…
Go back and forth between the images and words and the felt sense Check to see if it all matches and feels “right” Get a sense of it all resonating within you. If something is missing, follow the felt sense until it all matches.
Calm Journey
3.Naming it…
What one word or phrase or image comes up from the felt sense.
Let the word or phrase or image come from the felt sense.
Try it on for size. See if it fits.
When you get the right words or image, there is an easing within usually.
FLOW Flow
5.Asking…
What is it about this problem/issue that makes me so…?
What is behind the feeling?
What is the worst of this?
What’s it all about?
The path to healing…..
6.
Receiving it all…
Welcome the information that came in.
Take it all in.
Receive a shift or “Ah hah” that may have occurred
Breathe. Slowly. Taking it all in.
Stay neutral curious. Stay away from the inner critic.
May need to go back to step 2, “The felt Sense” to get more information or this may be a good place to stop and continue at the later time.
UNWINDING
Visualizationworks!
Journey Through The Chakras
Earth, Survival, Base 1st BASE OF THE SPINE: FOUNDATION
Water, Emotions, Money, Creative 2nd
NAVEL ,REPRODUCTIVE, SEXUALITY
Fire, Focus, Power Confidence 3rd Solar Plexus
Air, Love, Heart, Grief Compassion 4 th Heart, Thymus, Lungs
Ether, Space, Communication 5th Throat, Thyroid
Third Eye, Intuition , “Felt Sense” 6th Centre of Brow
Divine Inspiration 7th CONNECTION to Higher Self
At the “Crown” top of the head