Four Body Energy Release
Theory and Practice of Somatic Experiencing in relationship to
Trauma/Dysfunction in the Physical Body
The physical body is the first component of the four-body method (spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental) that I would like to articulate and explore. I am extremely grateful for what my own body has shared with me of its gracious, compassionate wisdom and its insatiable passion to share its knowledge with my declarative mind. I have observed and studied many holistic modalities and I subscribe to seeing the human body and its neurological and neurobiological essence as a fully integrated entity. For educational purposes, it is useful to separate my information into four conceptual components (spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental)..
The physical body has an organic, architectural design that creates its internal organic structures. We can apply the metaphor of architecture to the body in order to understand it as a complex whole. A house starts with some kind of design, dreamed by the architect to construct his structure. Our heredity (the dreaming architect) supplies us with our DNA and genetics (the design), which is the template for our construction. Our skeleton (frame of the house) and physiological systems (the interior walls, insulation, heating and cooling, electrical, etc), are then organized and shielded to make a functioning and interconnected organized organism. .
Our architectural design, given to us through our heredity and ultimately our DNA, plays a huge part in supplying us with imprinted understandings, a “felt sense” and knowledge about our physiological development. It creates a “portal” of information and wisdom, a supported way of entering our inner body and to embrace the inner wisdom of somatic healing. Having this inner knowledge of how the physiological systems works helps and guides me in addressing traumas and dysfunctional patterns, because the information to be contacted is already there and ready to be contacted by a gentle present supported touch.
My illumination and inspiration comes from learning and understanding how extremely “gentle” the body wants to be touched, guided and cared for. I have realized in the 35 years of practice and over 30,000 sessions, how blessed I feel in being able to touch with presence and respect of the inner world of my fellow human beings.
The physical body has many specialized divisions to its structure and functions. These specialized divisions assist in the functioning of our internal and external ecological environments. They transmit important neurological -neurobiological information to our brain, which guides us into understanding how we perceive and interact in our internal and external ecological environments.
The process starts with our parents (heredity), which determines how our physical body will be architecturally organized and presented to our social world. Our parents transmit certain physiological characteristics – neurobiological information that forms how the body is architecturally designed. With this architecturally designed information, we begin to communicate our needs and wants relative to our internal and external environments.
Our physical actions like playing, running, walking, hiking, swimming, accidents, traumas and any external physical activity that happens in our life create our internal ecological environment. These physical activities influence our physiological structures, behaviors, emotional instabilities and stabilities and in turn our spirituality. Physical activities can greatly influence our physiological systems with information that restructures them to keep up with the demands of our external activities. For instance, when we workout or exercise our muscles become larger and more dense, which make our bones increase in size and density to accommodate for the increase in muscular growth and activity. The heart, lungs, and other systems respond to our demands by becoming stronger and become more resilient. The lungs begin to hold more capacity for air and the heart muscle becomes stronger when a greater demand is sent for more circulation.
When a person experiences a physical trauma, like whiplash (neck injury), the event of the accident sends information to the ANS and then to the neural musculoskeletal systems prepares information to assist in repairing the dysfunction and trauma to the neck and other physiological systems. You can notice the response to the neck when the pain and stiffness begin and the neck become less flexible in its rotations, thus creating a “stiff neck” or the medical term used “Whiplash”.
When a person becomes abused physically, emotional, mentally, or spiritually the ANS system and rest of the physiological systems will be greatly affected. After such an occurrence, a person could complain of abdominal pain, shortness of breath, chest pains, paranoia, fears, and other objective physical discomforts. A child could hurt himself in a sporting event and not want to play sports any more. The experience affected his central nervous system and because the trauma event was not properly discharged, the child becomes straight jacketed in his physical fear. All activities positive or negative affect the inner woven fibers of our physiological systems.
The physical body is a huge cathedral of information that is contained in the woven fabric of our neurological and neurobiological systems. Alexander Lowen, noted American psychotherapist and student of Wilhelm Reich, spent his life’s work studying the physical activities of the body and how these activities influence the physiological structures of who we are and how we function in the world. He calls this work bioenergetics.
Lowen dedicated his life to helping people release stress and tension from the muscles and tissues of their physical body. Lowen suggests and supports the notion that our ecological relationships affect our physiological structures. If we are to achieve freedom and ecological space in our physiological systems, we need to face “gently” our emotional and physical discomforts hibernating in the woven fabric of our physiological body.
Another dedicated psychologist and author Alice Miller states:
The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, our perceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday the body will present its bill.
Here again, Alice Miller, a researcher and visionary, illuminates our consciousnesses with experiential support for understanding our suppressed physiological discomforts. She gently brings our awareness to the cusp of our physiological systems and allows our consciousness to embrace the hard and interwoven truth about our suppressed dysfunctions and traumas. Alice has inspired my work into really looking at how the body stores our life history, with metaphors, clues and cues on how and when it would like to unpack its stored dysfunctional energies. Our physiological body suggests overwhelmingly with many indications that the body does not want to be pushed or analyzed into releasing its stored dysfunctions. .
Some of the indications from the body are designed to offer a body narrative of how it wants to unpack its stored dysfunctions. For instance, when doing deep tissue bodywork with a client and the body responds to the deep pressure as an “ouch or a twitch” this is cue that the pressure is too much. The system then sends a liquid message through autonomic responses to the caregiver that the pressure is too much. If the caregiver reads these cues, they will stop the deep pressure and honor the wishes of the body’s autonomic liquid messages. I believe that our somatic body wants to be recognized as a highly intelligent manifestation of great knowledge and humbleness.
It teaches us to listen and to understand that the body knows how to release or unpack traumas and dysfunctions imbedded in the fabric of our woven physiological systems. Taking your time to watch, listen and be patient are the tools for release and healing.
A very useful tool of awareness in the exploration and recognition of traumas, dysfunctions and releases comes from an American philosopher Eugene T. Gendlin who is a psychotherapist that developed the catch phrase “felt sense”, which is imperative for a connecting with each other in our internal and external ecological environmental landscapes. Gendlin defines the catch phrase as:
A felt sense is not a mental experience, but physical one, a bodily awareness of a situation or person or event. It is an internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about the given subject at a given time-encompasses it and communicates it to you all at once rather than detail by detail.
For example, have you ever accidentally touched a hot stove and immediately retracted your hand from the stove and didn’t know it was burning hot, or have you blinked your eyes automatically to prevent an insect or flying objects from colliding with your eyes? If you have, then you would be experiencing your “felt sense”.
This is the response of your central nervous system (parasympathetic & sympathetic systems), which makes available a resilient capacity to sense and respond to our internal and external ecological environments. The importance in Gendlin’s work is to guide people in realizing their inner “felt sense” as a vehicle of becoming aware of the hidden traumas and dysfunction of the body, which will lead to their ultimate releases or discharges.
I would like to share an experiential story to help make clearer the direction of working with people and their felt sense might take.
I was working with woman who complained of headaches. I worked her back muscles, particularly the elevator scapulae and trapezius muscles, occipital ridges and had her turn over onto her back. I triggered her neck muscles, and occipital ridge. I suggested to focus on her sensations (felt senses), which we had talk about before the session and did some exercises to become aware of her physical sensation. About half way into working her occipital diaphragm, she started yelling out “I can see, I can see.” I asked her what was happening. She said, “I don’t have my contact lenses in and I can see clearly”. I replied with joy for her! I then asked her to notice what is the physical sensation she is feeling in her body right now. She conveyed that she was feeling heat and warmth and tingling in her neck and head. I softly suggested to follow the sensation and to share what was happening while she is tracking her sensation. She started to follow the sensations and said the heat and tingle were spreading all through her body and that she felt extremely safe and comfortable. She noticed that her eyes were becoming clearer and more three-dimensional as she looked around the room. After the session, she wanted to know what had happened. I told her the work on the occipital ridge, which is connected to the eye muscles, and the sensing of her felt sense gave an opportunity to unpack a trauma that she was experiencing. She was amazed that working with muscles and sensing her body sensations created a change in her eyesight. She then stated a story about when she was a young girl. She remembered a memory of sadness that happened with her parents. I notice when she had mentioned her sadness a sensation moved into her body. I asked her, “Are you okay to stay with your sadness?” and she replied, “Yes, it is okay.” She cried for a while and I did some somatic experiencing work and some orientation and resourcing to her external environment (for grounding, organizing and coherence).
After a time she got up and stated: “Wow, I can really see clearly.”
The information suggested by Miller, Lowen, Gendlin and my own personal experience about the empirical wisdom of the human body, guides me into discussing some concepts and theories in treatment strategies taken in the resolution of dysfunctions and trauma in our bodies.
The concepts and theories given to us from the scientific medical therapies and the somatic alternative therapies, offer us information to help explore the complexities and nuances of human physiology awareness. Physiology teaches us that the body is a group of interacting harmonizing systems, constantly working together to form one unified system of integration, coherence and resiliency. This will help in understanding how neurological and neurobiological dysfunctions are store and released in our physiological bodies.
Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who developed the contemplative theory of the “triune brain” suggests a metaphor comparing our nervous system to an automobile. The following is an expansion on what MacLean is attempting to show with his metaphor.
First, the Reptilian brain “will-to-power” is the oldest of our three brains, which includes the brain stem and the cerebellum forming the remnant of our prehistoric past. The reptilian brain governs reproduction, instinct, muscle reflexes, sleep, digestion, circulation, respiratory, balance and coordination of voluntary movement, allows the body and brain to communicate and initiates response to fight and flight. The Reptilian brain forms the “neural chassis” of our metaphor. This chassis is the foundation of the car, which contains a place for all the parts to ride on. Qualities of rigid, obsessive, paranoid, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and all manner of deception, ritualistic behaviors and memories of our ancestral history represent the reptilian responses. When we find our self out of control with rage and anger, it is our reptilian brain taking over control of our rational brain and all manners of deception.
These are reactions of our subjective mind being overridden by our objective reptilian brain reactions. The main trait that is generated through the reptilian brain is the drive to establish and defend our territory. Think of nature in the wild and how animals protect their homes, family and food from other creatures invading their environment.
The second component adds the “wheels” to the chassis and this would be the Limbic Brain, which forms the middle part of the brain. The limbic brain works with emotions, instincts, eating, fighting, fleeing, motivational drive, sensation, compassion, attachment to others and sexuality. It includes the amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, and hippocampus.
The Amygdala (which means “almond-shaped”) is part of the limbic system and is an alert to threat to our body. The basic role of the amygdala is formulating and storing of memories associated with emotional events and the emotional processing of fear or threat. The amygdala transmits responses to the parasympathetic system for distribution to the rest of the systems. In the book Trauma and the Body by Ogden, Minton & Pain suggest a hypothesis;
That the lack of amygdala activation may indeed be adaptive under certain circumstances is born out by the animal literature, which suggest that a lack of amygdala activation may allow continued functioning in situations characterized by an on going threat.
In the book, Traumatic Stress by Bessel A. Van der Kolk, Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth also substantiates functions of the amygdala and further states the pathways to the hippocampus, thalamus and pre-frontal cortex facilitating the task of organizing the information to and from the amygdala. The Amygdala is also believed to integrate internal stories of the external experiences in the content of reflective memory images. The attached emotional experiences in relation with those stories (Calavin, 1990).
There have been various studies on neuroimaging that shows increased activity to the amygdala in PTSD (Bremner, 2002; Hull, 2002; Lanius, Bluhm 2006 and others) that suggest generalization of the fear response,
leads to an increase in fearful behavior responses. The amygdala cues of activation are freeze reactions, sweaty palms, and the tense-mouth articulation. The amygdala releases adrenaline and other hormones into the blood stream, creating the defensive response and interrupting the control of rational mind.
The Hypothalamus= Homeostasis (The ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes) is a small cone-shaped structure is the limbic brain. The hypothalamus regulates homeostasis, thirst, hunger, body temperature, water balance, and blood pressure, and connects the nervous system to the endocrine system. The hypothalamus organizes and controls emotions, feelings and moods, as well as all motivational states including hunger, appetite and food intake, and the concept of pleasure including satisfaction, comfort and creative activities. There are four neurotransmitters (chemical substance used for communication between cells): epinephrine, nor epinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine and neuropeptides. The hypothalamus secretes a number of neurohormones. The pituitary gland provides an example of neurohormonal activity.
HPA Axis (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) is a major part of the neuroendocrine system that control responses to threat and other body responses that use energy, like digestion and immune.
The Thalamus is the key for organization of the central nervous system. It sends and distributes sensory and motor signals to the cerebral cortex. The thalamus supplies a role in regulating states of sleep and wakefulness, motor control, receives auditory, somatosensory and visual sensory signals.
The Hippocampus, (shaped like a “sea horse”) focus is responsibility for spatial learning, awareness, memory, direction, episodic/event memory, associational recollection and more. Damage to the hippocampus will lead to an inability to store new information into memory.
The third component to our automobile metaphor is the “Driver of the chassis” – the neo-cortex, which is divided into left and right hemispheres. The right hemisphere is spatial, contemplative (problem solves with hunches, looking for patterns and symmetry), free with feelings, musical and artistic. It reacts on previously accumulated and organized information. The left hemisphere is dimensional, control feelings, rational, reflective memory and verbal expression.
A recent researcher and therapist doctor revealed her personal story after having a stroke and her integration of the left and right hemispheres.
I have always been a serious student of consciousness...I thought I understood the Left brain (I am present)...and the Right brain (Unlimited oneness) process ...(I thought)... Until I saw her film, where she talks about her stroke in a video. Click on the below link to view this video.
"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is
fighting some kind of battle."
http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/tedtalks-jill-taylor-2008/7150436
The cortex assimilates qualitative patterns that are not organized into sequences, which are clustered with our images. Using the left hemisphere gives us information, which helps in guiding the person in their internal and external landscape. The images are particularly important for guiding the traumas and dysfunction of the client’s experiences in their internal body.
For example, remember Gabe experience of his activation with the image of colors? Using the colors and sound to titrate and pendulate give us images that we can use to accesses the ANS and to slowly uncover the first view of the grapes of Gabe woven trauma. The images of the colors help us to secure a safe place for Gabe to enter the portal of his trauma experience.
Gabe experienced colors that he felt safe and secure with (ground zero) and colors that were uncomfortable and extremely activating. By titrating and guiding Gabe to organically and safely move from uncomfortable images to comfortable images, educates his system to experience the coherence and resiliency that is innately built into his physiological systems. As we move along slowly, pendulating his awareness and exercising his empowerment, we are building a permanent arena to release, discharge and organize Gabe’s traumatic event.
Response/sensations are housed in the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS regulates primal functions of our physiological systems. The ANS is an automatic response to our survival instincts. The Sympathetic System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic System (PNS) are combined to form the ANS. The SNS & PNS mirror each other in opposing their physical and emotional reactions to our environmental moment. The parasympathetic keeps us balanced and regulated organically. The sympathetic system at times, regulates us out of balance and stuck in our event or story. The PNS is the brake pedal and the SNS is the gas pedal of our nervous system. Using ANS in a dance with titration and pendulation brings awareness to the client’s process with coherence to their trauma and dysregulation. When a client starts to get aroused like in the case of Gabe with the activations of the colors, it is time to put the brake peddle on and secure a safe place for Gabe to slow down his ANS. The bumblebee offers Gabe an external brake pedal of release of his over arousal. He sees the Bee and brakes out of his immobility and into his flight of freedom and release. Working with the ANS becomes our friend and negotiator of homeostasis and safety.
The chart below gives us a chance to study the connection and functions of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) in action.
Figure 1-1
The PNS assists us in resting, unwinding how it regulates from threat or stress. During arousal, the PNS acts as a stopping system to slow the body process. Then it initiates a fight, flight, and freeze responses to defend against the incoming threat. The SNS readies us for action in times of stress and threat. It also supports us in times of emergency and protection.
The PNS and SNS are crucial in understanding and supporting the discharges of ANS in relation to our equilibrium in our body. Working with the arousal and dysregulation of the central nervous system is a fascinating and enlightening experience.
This brings me to a theory suggested by Stephen Porges, who presented to the scientific world that there is a third system of communication in the ANS. Porges proposes his “Polyvagal Theory” which states that the ANS is comprised of three sequential systems, not two, that follows brain evolution.
Porges tells us the “Dorsal Vagal System” (DV) is an oxygen conservation system, and gives us the “pull the plug” switch and creates freeze in life threatening situations. The DV performs the state of shock and immobility in the body, activating sweat glands, and stopping metabolic functions. He goes on to suggest that the “Sympathetic Nervous System” (SNS) is a mobilization system. It prepares for emergency by increasing blood pressure, activating sweat glands, and inhibiting metabolic functions. The “Ventral Vagal System” (VV) is the social engagement support system. Our face is a critical component of a social engagement system in humans. The face reveals many clues and cues to what is happening with a client or anyone, just by noticing facial expressions.
Figure 2-2
The face is wired to the neural regulation of visceral state through the neural circuits. The Polyvagal theory explains the relationship of the autonomic nervous system to affective experience, emotional expression, facial gestures, vocal expression and spontaneous social behavior. Thus, the theory provides a plausible explanation of social, emotional, physical and expressive behaviors/disorders:
The vagal systems control eyelid opening, facial muscles, middle ear muscles, filtering human voice from background noise, muscles of chewing and ingestion, vocalization and language, head-turning muscles, social gesture and orientation techniques.
These expressions or cues are extremely helpful when working with people to remain calm in times of over arousal to their ANS. The gestures happening in the face are an excellent indicator that the system is starting to be aroused and is usually a good time to apply the brake pedal, before anymore arousal can happen. This will allow a time for discharge and self-integration before moving on.
The importance and significance of Porges theory becomes extremely apparent and helpful when working with releases of trauma and dysfunctions in our physiological structures.
I would like to introduce an amazing discovery that will help us to further understand the traumas, dysfunctions and releases in our physiological systems. Dr. Candace Pert discovered the functions of the Neuropeptides (nerve proteins), which are biochemicals that regulate almost all life, processes on a cellular level, and thereby link all body systems. Dr. Pert uses the analogy that cells (the basic functional unit of life) are the engines that drive the human body. This specific peptide is the finger that sparks the engine and gets it started. The neuropeptides support a metaphor of the car’s ignition system. The sparking and the transmitting of energy keep the engine running, just as if the neuropeptides spark the nervous system for it to keep functioning. Also, realize that the sparking is not an electrical spark, but a liquid wave of fluid transmitting neural biological information.
The neuropeptides are messenger molecules because they send liquid messages from the brain to localized sites in cell membrane throughout the entire physiological body. These neuro-transmitters containing neurological and neurobiological information are extremely necessary in working and understanding physiological changes happening in the woven fabric of our neurological systems.
Observing how a trauma strikes and fractures our central nervous system and the bolting of two trauma vortexes appear in our physiological world, which represent the trauma event in the woven fabric of our neurological body.
Figure 3-3
The above illustration is trauma in action. The trauma starts as a fracture to the boundary of our body. It literally and physically breaches the core nervous system. Shown with the arrow saying “Shock Trauma Boundary Breach” with such force that two “Vortex’s” (vortex can be any circular or rotary flow that displays vorticity) come flying out. One vortex the “Trauma Vortex” (as seen above) is the event fracture. The second vortex called the “Counter Vortex” is the now experience for the fracture. These vortexes form the mechanism of deregulation of the trauma when worked in a “Pendulation”and a “Titration” of awareness and discharge. Working with an event fracture or rupture to the fabric of the physiological system needs to have some way of carefully uncovering the event. An example of our illustration can be seen in Gabe’s birth trauma with his umbilical cord being wrapped around his neck and suffocating him. The fracture is the umbilical cord relationship at the time of Gabe’s birth. The trauma vortex is Gabe’s event at the time of his birth. The fear and the immobility is Gabe’s counter vortex of his now experience. Working with a careful titration and pendulation of Gabe’s trauma, would be imperative for him to negotiate a complete recovery of his trauma event.
The following are seven steps develope by Dr, Peter Levine, which he calls “Tripods” for short are very helpful and important to use in working with trauma and deactivation. These steps would be a typical method of dysregulation of a trauma event.
• Titrate or titration means to give a minimal agitation to the client. Go slowly and carefully to settle before the next agitation. Only use little amounts of activation to cause a shift in the nervous system.
Take small parts of disorganization, and preserve the system from merging into overwhelming disorganization. Hold space for the arousal or constriction in small micro steps. Manage the stimulus or charge into manageable pieces that can be integrated and moved through to a contract (renegotiation) of balance.
Imagine a grape vine clustered with lots of grapes that are grouped altogether and using this image as metaphor or working with one grape (trauma) at a time. Thinking of the image as part of a cluster of grapes hanging on a vine and using titration and pendutaltion to release small amounts of grapes at the ends of the clustered grapes is extremely helpful in not trying to merge into the whole cluster of grapes, but acknowledging small little grapes of work.
• Resource or resourcing is the connection to something that preserves a format of organization in the body, which brings a deeper connection.
Look for anchors (Internal and external) that help a client feel calmer and less aroused, so that they have the strength needed to manage the renegotiation process. Do not overwhelm the client. Create positive sensory-motor states in the body using internal or external resources. Set the environment for pendulation and support for stability of the vortexes. Examples are the external environment (trees, flowers, contents of a room, some external objectivity) or internal sensation of wellbeing that feels calm and supportive in the body. Remember the story of Gabe and using some of the colors that felt good with him and the bumblebee that flew into the room.
• Integrate: Allowing space or time for the changes to integrate fully into the body. Letting the nervous system adjust to the reintroduction of the instinctual pendulation mechanism. Integration happened when Gabe ran around the room chasing the bumblebee.
• Pendulate: the instinctual rhythm of the nervous system to move between expansion and contraction. The pendulation is an instinctual behavioral mechanism of the neurobiological systems that is inherent in our physiological system.
• Organization: Establishing coherence (feeling of deep wholeness and integration), reorganization and completion of survival responses.
Nervous system pathways and function are reorganizing its behaviors. Self-regulation produces self-organization.
• Discharge: Arousal of energy begins to release in the ANS, which induces self-regulation in the system. Calmness is reinstated to the system.
• Stabilization and Orientation: the client begins to feel a sense of euphoria and curiosity and connection with the external environment is reconnected. The internal environment establishes rebalancing and calmness. The feeling and sensations of centeredness establish itself in the body. I often hear from the client “what happened to the event” as a response to stabilization and orientation.
When working with the tripods work slowly and carefully to notice the subtle clues and cues of its sequences. When I first started observing the tripods, I was missing clues and cues at times. I have learned through experience to react as slowly as the communication of the ANS is sending. The ANS is the main transmitter of information (to and fro) to the rest of the physiological body (movement or gestures are blatant cues and clues to activity in the ANS). The image of the snail (Any of numerous aquatic or terrestrial mollusks of the class Gastropoda, typically having a spirally coiled shell, broad retractile foot, and distinct head) moves extremely slow and methodically. The snail accounts for all its environmental responses.
Another helpful awareness tool also develope by Dr, Peter Levine for tracking and working with the regulation and deactivation of a trauma event is called “SIBAM” for short. Working with a trauma is being aware of the internal responses the client experiences, when activated or aroused in a session. There are five responses of SIBAM when working with someone: sensation, images or impressions, behavior, affect, and meaning.
- Sensations define as muscle tension, constriction, bracing, and movement impulses, which are kinesthetic awareness. Then the Autonomic nervous system and involuntary sensations like temperature, digestion, heart rate, viscera intuition, gut feelings, tension, respiratory, and space.
Proprioception are part of the body in relation to another part, joints, where we are in space and time. Finally our vestibular responses of the inner ear, relationship to gravity and balance, equilibrium, dizziness, vertigo, and a sense of acceleration and de-acceleration.
- Image or Impression defines as an internal interpretation of an external stimulus. Internal images are visions, dreams, symbols and mechanism of gestalt awareness as a vehicle of supporting the imagery.
- Behaviors are observable responses of the client verbal (words, sounds, expressions, pitch and speed of words) or non-verbal (movements, gestures, eye movement, breath, their walk, etc.) activity. Other signs to be aware of are voluntary movements, emotional expressions, postural shifts, ANS responses (yawning, sweating, burping, tears, stomach expressions, heat, cold, goosebumbs, heart beat, breathing patterns fluctuations etc). Then there can be spiritual gestures with the hands like mudras, prayer holds, and other cultural signs of expressions.
- Affect (emotions) like fear, sadness, anger, joy, love, disgust, rage, shame, subtle shift in perceptions, pleasure, warmth, and a soft feeling.
- Meaning the attempt to make some kind of understanding to what is happening, beliefs, ideas, judgments, thoughts, interpretations and using the mind with words.
Another helpful awareness with a client is the use of a “Coupling Dynamics” (overcoupling and undercoupling) technique helps when negotiating a relationship between stimulus and response. This dynamic develops through the methodologies of “SIBAM”, which I have just introduced to you. Conscience awareness between the different components of SIBAM is defined as flexible, variable, congruent, and non-fixated to arousal and activation. This will allow a range of resiliency and coherence to the ANS.
The coupling dynamics gives us a way of working with a traumatized person, with the utilization of overcoupling and undercoupling. Undercoupling is a lack of coherent connectedness within the components of SIBAM. Here the SIBAM components are separated in the experience. The memory is there, but the affect is missing. For instance, the person experiences nightmares, flashbacks, or undefined bodily sensations. This is the place where dissociation can occur. The client will seem spacey, foggy, disorientation and the body appears collapsed. The aspects of SIBAM are not working together. When working an undercoupling reaction, support the response by building safe connections. Work with the puzzle to piece SIBAM together. Start with the edges, borders, and container (the clusters of grapes) to fit the pieces together. Working with coupling and overcoupling are working with the same spectrum. Managing them both together as a working format of discharge of bounded survival energy. The body is always in negotiation in moving out of states of fight, flight, and freeze leading to a discharge and self-regulation.
When I first starting working in bodywork, I spent a lot of time just working with the plasticity, muscle tension, immobility’s in rotations of the body parts, and emotional arousal and discharges.
I was not aware yet of the deep wisdom of the other parts of the body that create a great container of information that addresses the deep knowledge about cardiac, smooth and skeletal muscles. There are three types of muscle tissue that compose the musculoskeletal systems. They are the Skeletal (or voluntary/striated), Smooth (or visceral) and Cardiac (or heart) muscle systems, which is important to understand, because of their specialized functions and relationship to each other’s homeostasis.
1. Skeletal (or voluntary/striated) muscle, the biggest percentage of tissue in the human body. Skeletal-muscle fiber is cylindrical, inside is the nuclei.
Fibers bind together, through connective tissue, into bundles; and the bundles, in turn, combine to form muscles. Pain and dysfunction can be buried in any of the connective fibers that build our musculatures. The somatic nervous system (SNS) controls organs and skeletal muscles.
2. Smooth (or visceral) muscle, forms the walls of the digestive tract, bladder, arteries and veins, and other internal organs. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls the smooth muscle.
3. Cardiac (or heart) muscle, comprising the heart tissue. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) supplies the nerves to the muscles. Discharges from these three types of muscles will create physical sensations of heat or tingles, numbness, shaking, vibrations, itching, warmth, lightness, directional movement of sensations, cold and other physical sensations. When I first starting working in bodywork, I spent a lot of time just working with the plasticity’s of the muscles and emotional discharges. I was not aware yet of the deep wisdom of the other parts of the body that create a great container of information that addresses the deep knowledge in the cardiac, smooth and skeletal muscles. I feel very fortunate to have learned and personally experienced the truth about the wisdom of sensations in the visceral systems.
The lungs and breath are great monitors for how a client is assimilating their emotional and physical functions. Monitoring their breath will help in tending to their needs, activations and releases. Working with a person and observing their respiratory system plays a crucial and exciting role in determining the direction in negotiating the client’s treatment. Observing the respiratory system will develop information in addressing the physiological responses to bodywork and somatic experiencing.
Figure 4-4
Contact the lower diaphragm just above the illium crest and the sacrum with the person lying on their backside with the client lying supine and your hand entering from the side and moving underneath to the center of the body. Contact the shoulder diaphragm just about at the top of the thorax’s spine, just below and near to the 7thcervical vertebrae with the client lying supine and your hand entering from the side and moving underneath to the center of the body. Contact occipital diaphragm above the occipital at the back of the head with the client lying supine with your hand entering from the superior and moving underneath the backside of the head with hands on both sides of the occipitals.
Working with these diaphragms opens areas in the respiratory system that aids in the regulation of traumas, dysfunctions and releases. Ultimately this will lead to a sense of coherence, self-regulation and resiliency in the physiological systems, bringing an inner quality of empowerment and beingness. Working with the diaphragms will bring a deep sense of trust with your client.
I am always amazed that if I do nothing, except to rest my hands with these diaphragms the body will automatically start to give cues and clues of information in the direction and discharge of the ANS. Some physical sensation responses observed or felt could be warmth, cold, tingly, wave like water sensations, itchy, pulsing, referred sensations, pain, excitement, and many other physical sensations.
Guiding the client to sense their sensations by asking them to share with you about “how does your sensations move? (Up or down, towards the feet or up towards the head or out towards the sides of your body?), does the sensation have color or shape? does the sensation create any images or thoughts for you?. This will help you understand more about where they are and what kind of dysfunction or trauma are you uncovering.
The heart is one of the most active ingredients in working with stored and released energies of the internal physiological environment. This is also where the origin of the vagus nerve is located, which gives direct transmissions of neurological and neurobiological information to and from the ANS.
The vagus nerve starts in the brainstem (within the medulla oblongata) and journeys, through the jugular, down below the head, to the neck, chest and heart. The importance of the vagus nerve connection is for dysregulation, coherence and resiliency in working with trauma and dysfunctions in the physiological system. When I observe the heart increasing in its circulation, this indicates to me that the client is becoming aroused in their ANS and to move slowly, carefully and perhaps using some orientation techniques to build coherence and resilience. The vagus nerve is also part of Porges Polyvagal theory supporting the connection of the heart to the brain.
The gastrointestinal system is a wonderful place to monitor discharge when a person is working with their traumas, dysfunctions and releases. Indications are burping, passing of gas, and abdominal sounds (gurgling). Stay alert for abdominal sounds and cues to activation and releases.
The digestive system has its own nervous system called the “enteric or intrinsic” nervous system. The immenseness and complexity of the enteric nervous system reveals itself in so many incalculable ways of information and procedures it offers the body. The enteric system contains almost the same amount of neurons as the spinal cord contains. The enteric nervous system, in conjunction with the sympathetic, parasympathetic nervous systems, and the vagal systems create our autonomic nervous system.
Knowing this information gives us another indicator and barometer for following the activations and releases of the abdominal visceral area. The information of the intrinsic nervous system will lead into a greater coherence and resiliency in the healing of traumas and dysfunctions. Through these interwoven connections, the abdominal region can provide sensory information to the CNS, and the CNS can affect gastrointestinal functions. The connection to the CNS also means that signals from outside of the gastrointestinal system are transmitted to our digestive system: for instance, the seeing or smelling of appetizing food stimulates secretion in the salivary glands and stomach. These connections are also related to our thoughts of uncomfortable situations.
I believe that many things that may go wrong with the physical body are objective physical conditions, rather then subjective psychological conditions or modifications. My belief is based on working with people objectively with their traumas and dysfunctions and noticing that when the body is given a chance to reveal its inner discomforts that it quickly goes towards objective resolutions. For instance in the story of Gabe, when he was activated by the color red his body revealed to us its fear and immobility. When the objective bumblebee flew into our process and Gabe found himself unable to respond, all I had to objectively say was “Hey Gabe did you see that Bee”. That was enough for Gabe to lift himself up and to spring with his flight of release and discharge of his ANS. I did not have to discuss with Gabe his subjectivity of his fear, which created the response of immobility.
Gabe’s decision in choosing a path of objective movement gave him his release in his physiological body.
When working and understanding where the locations, containments and releases occur, I have found my intuition playing a big part in working with forms of trauma and dysfunctions in the human body. I always trust my gut feelings or “felt senses” when working with my clients.
When a client is activated or aroused my felt senses are heightened and I begin to receive neural liquid messages on where to focus and how to react to the client’s activation and releases. The importance of our physiological systems in working with anyone in the resolution of traumas and dysfunctions is a great way to consciously deactivate discomforts and facilitating discharges of the physiological systems. Learning and studying the physiological systems opens a huge gateway of information in the resolution of traumas and dysfunctions in our physiological body.
I have been so profoundly moved by the information of these systems that I want to encourage and implore everyone to explore the vast knowledge of our inner physiological systems. One of the most important aspects of working with a person’s physiological body is to be extremely gentle, while moving slowly (titrate) when approaching and touching the body. The human body expresses knowledge and wisdom from its experiences of thousands of years of evolution. The body knows how to regulate, organize and to heal itself organically.
I have experienced the body wanting to educate me with its empirical knowledge and spatial wisdom, wanting to share with me the intricacies, complexities and healing methods of its internal medical toolbox of conscious awareness.
Bibliography
1. Lowen, A. 1975. Bioenergetics. New York: Penguin.
2. Miller A. Thou shalt not be aware: Society’s betrayal of the child.
Translated from the German by H and H Hannum; with a preface by L deMause and a new introduction by the author. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1998. p 315.
3. Gendlin, Ph.D. Eugene. 1984. Focusing. New York, NY :Bantam Books.
(p. 64)
4, 5. Ogden Pat, Minton, Keuni, & Pain, Clare. 2006. Trauma and the Body.
New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
6. Pert, Candace B. 1997. Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel.
New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. p.17
7. Levine, Peter A. with Frederick, Ann: Waking the Tiger. Healing Trauma.
North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 1997.
8. Health and Fitness News Article #12- Water: The Body’s Most Important Nutrient. http://www.sissel-online.com/article/water.php.
9. Berceli, David. 2005. Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)
California: BookSurge Publishing.
10. Juhan, D., 2003. Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork. 3Rev Ed. Barrytown, NY: Barrytown Ltd, U.S.
11. Somatic Experiencing Manuals, The Human Enrichment, Boulder, CO.
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Figure 2 http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/121?C=N;O=D
Figure 3 Created and designed by Arthur Munyer.
Figure 4 Somatic Experiencing Manuals, The Human Enrichment, Boulder, CO.