The Body Keeps the Score

We are all affected by trauma. The statistics are widely available about the prevalence of major traumas such as abuse. What people may not realize is that more “minor” events, such as falls, medical procedures, and accidents, can also be traumatizing, especially for children. Being around family members or working with clients/patients who have been traumatized can also result in secondary trauma.

This new book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD offers an excellent summary of new research and treatment methods related to trauma. The case studies make it engaging and the science presented is accessible to the lay person, as well as providing important information for professionals. The new functional MRI studies offer fascinating and vivid evidence of the altered brain activity of those experiencing flashbacks and other symptoms of trauma. One of the most interesting to me was the evidence that individuals with PTSD experience a shut-down in the speech center of the brain when triggered by talking about their traumas. This is further evidence that talking your way out of trauma is not effective.

The body-centered treatments presented in the book include Somatic Experiencing and yoga. The key is regaining the ability to self-regulate, to connect with our inner vital energy, and to fully experience the present moment.

From the book:
“Self-regulation depends on having a friendly relationship with your body. Without it you have to rely on external regulation-from medication, drugs like alcohol, constant reassurance, or compulsive compliance with the wishes of others.”

If you are a helping professional interested in learning more I highly recommend training in Somatic Experiencing. For the first time the training will be available in St Louis, beginning in January, 2015. Information is available at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.

If you are in mid-Missouri and want to schedule a private session for Somatic Experiencing (along with bodywork and/or yoga) contact me at 573-338-0104.

 

Professional training in Somatic Experiencing comes to St Louis for the first time!

A professional training program in SE is being held for the first time in St Louis, beginning in January 2015. Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle, but powerful approach to the prevention and resolution of trauma and stress-related conditions. This is a great opportunity to have this training so close to our area! The instructor is Dave Berger, MFT, PT, PT, LCMHC, SEP, of the SE Trauma Institute’s faculty. For registration information visit http://www.traumahealing.com and click on SE Professional Training.

To help promote this training I will be offering a two-hour introductory SE workshop in Columbia, MO. This workshop is open to anyone with an interest in trauma, but is especially recommended for psychotherapists, massage therapists, bodyworkers, medical personnel, and other professionals who are interested in pursuing training in SE. Date: Saturday, November 15, 2-4 PM. Cost: $30. Location: Yoga Sol, 210 B St James, Columbia, MO. Call Jan at 573-338-0104 or email to harcourt.jan@gmail.com to register.

Somatic Experiencing was developed by Dr. Peter Levine and is practiced by over 8000 professionals in more than 25 countries. SE is a powerful psychobiological model that brings understanding of stress physiology, psychology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices and more to create an effective treatment for trauma.

Click to hear Peter Levine discuss this groundbreaking work:

http://www.seaustralia.com.au/somatic-experiencing-australia-resources/

 

Your Body & Stress 101: The basics

Stressed? Can’t relax? Tight muscles that won’t let go? Can’t find your “get up and go” energy? Join Jan for this workshop and learn simple tools you can use every day to better handle stress, have more energy for life, and even to heal from past events.

A sample of the basics:

1. Why shaking or trembling after a traumatic event is a good thing.
2. How to put the brakes on your fight/flight response to make stresses more manageable.
3. Why awareness of internal body sensations is key to managing stress and to healing from trauma.
4. Why releasing the physiological shock of traumatic events from the body requires minimal talk about the story of the event.

We’ll use discussion, movement, guided meditations, and the healing effects of laughter to explore these concepts in a safe and supportive environment. Very gentle and no experience is necessary. (Based on the practice of Somatic Experiencing (R), developed by Dr Peter Levine.)

Instructor: Jan Harcourt, certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.

Cost is $40. Size of class is limited. Please pre-register by contacting Wilson’s Yoga Studio at 573-634-3036 or 128 E Dunklin, JC, MO.

For questions about the workshop contact Jan at 573-338-0104 or harcourt.jan@gmail.com.

 

Free sessions for vets & special rates for new clients

This fall I am offering special rates for private bodywork sessions in order to introduce my work to new clients.  For new clients the first one-hour session will be only $40. (The regular hourly rate is $60.)  And for veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the first session is free, with additional discounts available for follow-up sessions.  My primary practice is Somatic Experiencing, which is a body-centered approach effective in the treating of PTSD, post traumatic stress, and other lingering effects of traumatic experiences.

Sessions are by appointment, weekdays, with some evening and week-end hours available.  My office is located at 203 E. Dunklin, Jefferson City, MO, above the Buddhist Center. To schedule an appointment call me at 573-338-0104.

Wishing you good health,
Jan

 

The Unthinkable

The morning after the unthinkable.

Unthinkable.   Like freakish weather, the unthinkable of mass shootings appears to be the new normal.  And the unthinkable got a whole lot worse yesterday.   Mass murder in a kindergarten classroom.  I can’t type that sentence without crying. It was so horrible it took much of the day for me to start letting in the story.  I’m glad that I don’t have TV any more.  I can feel the pull. Even though I know it’s unhealthy for me to focus on it too much, I still feel that almost irresistible pull to look, to get drawn into the trauma.

As much as anyone I want to know. Why?

As much as I want to know the story,  I know that spending too much time focused on it can be traumatizing. Witnessing traumatic events happening to other people can cause secondary trauma. Watching images of these events over and over is the worst thing that we can do.  It’s less shocking to our nervous systems to limit our exposure to reading about the story and in very small amounts.   It’s important to balance this with taking plenty of time for connecting with others, with nature, with our spiritual practices, with whatever gives nourishment.

I did spend some time online reading about the Newtown shooting and was surprised that the article I found to be the most compassionate, the most real, and the most useful for processing the initial shock, came from an unexpected source, the satirical publication, The Onion:

It’s okay to spend the rest of the day curled in the fetal position under your desk.  Yes.  Thank you.  Thank you for acknowledging that it really was that bad.

Last night I was also surprised to find that lighting a candle helped, much more than I would have expected.  I felt a pull to the quiet, still, calm of the flame in the dark. It was real, physical, unexpected.    I lit candles throughout the house and turned out most of the lights.  Sometimes it’s finding whatever works to get us through the night.

 

Heal trauma to dissolve chronic pain

Cover via Amazon

“(With chronic pain) there is generally an underlying bracing pattern, and when the bracing pattern resolves, the pain dissolves.”

This quote is from In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness” by Peter Levine.  In this section of the book Levine is telling the story of treating “Vince”, a fireman who had developed a frozen shoulder.   Vince had tried physical therapy with little benefit and an orthopedist had suggested a painful and invasive next step:  forceful manipulation done while under anaesthesia.  Vince’s therapist instead referred him to Levine for Somatic Experiencing.  

As Levine worked with Vince, guiding him to explore moving his arm very slowly and with focused awareness, Vince began to experiencing a releasing of the unconscious bracing that had been preventing him from moving.  He experiencing this releasing in the form of trembling, shaking, sweating, changes in his breathing, and gradually,  the ability to move his arm freely and without pain.  During the process he was surprised to make the connection between his frozen shoulder and a traumatic event that had happened many months earlier.  At that time he had responded to a car accident and upon reaching into the car to turn off the key had discovered a horrific scene involving a child killed in the accident.  He remembered his strong impulse to draw his hand back to turn away from the image, but instead he forced himself to finish what he was doing. The shock and the conflicting impulses  set him up for eventually developing this unconscious holding pattern, in the form of a frozen shoulder. 

I’m currently reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone who has an unexplained chronic pain issue.  Somatic Experiencing helped me release painful bracing in my neck years ago after a car accident.  It’s good stuff and it really does work.

More on that story later. Back to reading.

Jan

 

A story of transformation

Watch a preview of the “Healing Neen” documentary on Sunday, February 27, 9:15-10:15 am. Location: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Jefferson City, 1021 Northeast Drive, JC, MO. Everyone is welcome to this UUFJC forum discusson event. For more info call Jan Harcourt at 573-338-0104.

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• Where there’s breath, there’s hope (toolsforstress.wordpress.com)

 

Where there’s breath, there’s hope

The film, ‘Healing Neen’ documents the assent of Tonier ‘Neen’ Cain from a childhood of abuse, neglect, and violence, through a journey of drugs, prostitution, and prison, into a life-changing trauma-treatment program where she turned her past around. She is now a world-traveling mental health advocate, working to better the lives of the people she used to sleep with, under bridges. It’s a tale too dramatic to be made up, and Tonier herself is a character too full of life to be dreamed. 

The above quote is from Caleb Stine, the musician who wrote the score for the documentary Healing Neen, the story of Tonier Cain.  A friend told me about this film and I immediately ordered a free copy.  It’s an emotional and powerful story that shows the transformative power of healing from trauma. 

The film points out the very high percentage of trauma victims among prison populations.  The National Center for Trauma-Informed Care, where Tonier Cain now works, also points out that most of the consumers of mental health treatment are themselves victims of trauma.  The Center’s mission includes promoting alternatives to practices in institutions that can be re-traumatizing, such as the use of restraints and isolation. 

I was disappointed that the movie doesn’t say much at all about the actual treatment that led to Ms Cain’s healing.  What is revealed is that her healing came when she was a pregnant inmate and became involved in a program called Tamar’s Children, which gave her the opportunity to keep her baby and to learn healthy parenting.  From what I can find online this program unfortunately was discontinued.  

I highly recommend this movie.  Watch the trailer.  Order a copy.  If you would like to arrange a showing or for information on trauma healing in the Jefferson City contact me at 573-338-0104 or toolsforstress@yahoo.com.

~Jan Harcourt

 

It makes sense: A body sense approach to healing trauma

Trauma is the condition of being overwhelmed by threatening and chaotic events over which you have no control. A trauma from outside the body … creates a reaction in the body (behaviors like fight, flight or freeze, alterations in gut function, cortisol and other hormones, etc.) The body will keep reacting in these ways – a primitive and essential survival response — so long as it perceives the threat.

Here’s the problem: We may not be aware that our body responses to threat remain activated even after the threat has vanished.   This is because the threat pulls our attention toward it and away from the body. In a survival situation, you may not even notice the pain and fatigue from exertion, wounds, etc. until you reach relative safety.  ~ Dr Alal Fogel

Read more about new body sense approaches to working with trauma on Dr Fogel’s Body Sense blog on the Psycholology Today website.

 

You CAN recover from post traumatic stress.

Note to colleagues:  Please stop saying PTSD is incurable. You can recover from post traumatic stress. Certainly, you can significantly reduce – not just manage – its symptoms. But – and here’s the thing – not with traditional treatment. The problem is, a lot of my colleagues don’t know this yet. So they go about it in traditional ways and pronounce the condition incurable, based on the results they get.   ~Belleruth Naparstek

This article in the Huffington Post  got my attention today and it was too good not to share.  In it author and psychotherapist Belleruth Naparstek discusses several alternatives to traditional talk therapy for dealing with post traumatic stress.  In her article she talks about the response to 9/11 by “ignorant, but well-meaning psychotherapists”,  herself included, who tried to talk people through their trauma, with poor results.  Since then she has learned about methods that are effective, like Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and several others.   She goes on to summarize what these effective trauma healing  techniques have in common:

1. They first and foremost find ways to re-regulate the nervous system.

2. They destigmatize and normalize the experience by explaining PTS as the somatic and neurophysiologic condition it is.

3. They offer simple, self-administer-able tools that empower the end-user and confer a sense of mastery and control.

4. The interventions are cast as training in skill sets, not the healing of pathology.

Post traumatic stress symptoms can surface years after common events like car accidents, falls, surgeries and other “normal” bumps in life’s road. If you experience symptoms like panic attacks, nightmares, trouble sleeping, and racing thoughts, or low energy, depression, and feelings of worthlessness these may be a sign that your nervous system is not self-regulating properly.  This can change.  Give me a call. I would be happy to talk with you about Somatic Experiencing sessions in Columbia, MO.