Traditionally associated with war, domestic abuse and other violent events, trauma also results from other incidents often overlooked such as: automobile accidents, routine medical procedures, sudden loss, sexual and/or physical assault. In addition, ongoing stressors of fear and conflict, among other potentially threatening circumstances are common contributing factors. To emphasize, the events on their own do not cause trauma. Two individuals can experience the same events, and have very different reactions and even narratives thereafter. In short, trauma results from an individual feeling overwhelmed not only in relation to a single incident, but even more often through the accumulation of stress over time.
Individuals I work with often struggle from the effects of:
- Abuse as children
- Chronic pain and physical symptoms
- Chronic fear and terror
- Collective trauma
- Dissociation
- Early developmental trauma
- Grief and loss
- Harassment
- Horror
- Hypervigilance
- Medical/dental trauma
- Neglect
- Oppression
- Physical abuse/assault(s)
- Post-traumatic stress symptoms
- Racial stress and trauma
- Relational trauma
- Sexual abuse/assault(s)
- Toxic and traumatic shame
- Transgenerational trauma
When a person’s body, psyche and nervous system fail to respond and adequately process adverse events, traumatic responses may develop. Whereas the effects of trauma can be long-lasting and pervasive.
At once, combining culturally-responsive and racially-sensitive perspectives with trauma-informed, somatic methods, our journey together will aim to:
- Resolve symptoms that result from trauma by re-balancing the nervous system
- Attend to and transform fight/flight/freeze as well as appease/attach/submit survival strategies
- Release chronic stress bound up in the body
- Restore protective responses and healthy aggression/assertion
- Cultivate assessment skills and discernment for natural safety-seeking impulses
- Reconnect with life-affirming behaviors
- Enhance resilience
Phases of trauma healing:
First and foremost, getting acquainted and building enough trust in our therapeutic relationship is essential. Not to worry, your apprehensions along with any mistrust are also welcome here. Second, learning and insights can only be gained when there is enough sense of safety and good-will present. Therefore, establishing a solid relationship with your therapist creates the container for trauma healing to be possible.
Urgency is a hallmark of traumatic responses.
In reality, trauma-informed, somatic therapy is gentle and requires slowing down. Unfortunately, so many individuals start off by wanting to tell me everything, which altogether can potentially flood your system. Trauma-informed approaches recognize that aims for a full narrative can be too triggering, and potentially counter-productive for many seeking trauma recovery. Instead, I hold space for an emergent narrative, which inevitably will evolve with your healing process.
Too much, too soon and not enough support are common markers of traumatic experiences.
General treatment plan:
- Stabilization and symptom reduction
- Trauma reprocessing
- Integration
While phases of treatment can be neatly outlined, however, healing from trauma is often not linear. Current stressors from life events may trigger stress responses, and therefore create too much instability to focus on traumatic memories. So, stabilization is essential, and emphasized, until capacity for more is developed over the course of working together.
Therefore, when you’re in crisis, we won’t be tackling the hardest stuff. It simply doesn’t make sense to. Since you’re already overwhelmed, first, reducing your stress levels and looking at what is working will be our top-priority. In the meantime, I emphasize sleep habits, exercise and self-care because they are foundational for stress relief. Furthermore, we will learn to recognize the tolerances and capacities of your nervous system.
Since turning towards trauma can be de-stabilizing, doing so from stable footing makes for more effective outcomes. Furthermore, sustainable transformations.
More often than not, the individuals I work with have a complexity of different traumatic experiences for us to sort through together. While not every single one needs to be targeted, certainly time and space are needed to nurture changes at the level of your nervous system. Chiefly, our aim will be to untangle traumatic responses from your intrinsically healthy ones.
Somatic, trauma recovery is akin to homeopathy—a little at a time. For emphasis, slowing down to the rhythm of the body’s innate wisdom nurtures trauma recovery and deep healing.
Once you’ve developed tools and skills for navigating life’s ups and downs, and while you are maintaining healthy habits to support yourself well, you may decide our work is done. Even though we may both feel sad to part ways, at the same time, I will gladly see you off to enjoy life as fully as possible. With grace. I wish to witness you enthusiastically embrace all the blessings and growth opportunities life presents you. Sometimes well after our work together, I am fortunate to receive brief notes of gratitude from former clients updating me about significant life changes—such as new additions to the family and so forth!
Ultimately, I am committed to supporting those suffering as a result of trauma to live with greater ease, choices, meaning, presence and vitality.
Without a doubt, what I love about supporting individuals to recover from trauma is the awe-inspiring power of life energy. Undeniably, in each individual there is an unstoppable, indestructible aliveness that remains untarnished in spite of the difficult, horrific and tragic events that so many of us endure and survive. To this end, I revere this source of aliveness, which is inherently wise, whole and healing.
“We are born knowing how to rest and listen to what our bodies need. It’s second nature and an inner knowing. Infants and children follow their body cues and, without doing so, would not survive. This inner knowing is slowly stolen from us as we replace it with disconnection. We have been bamboozled and led astray by a culture without a pause button… [and] are barely surviving from our sleep deprivation, worker exploitation, and exhaustion. We must rest.”
—Tricia Hersey, Creator and Founder of The Nap Ministry, author of Rest Is Resistance
Touch for Healing Trauma
“Providing physical and emotional communication at a level far deeper than words, touch is a vital aspect of experiencing meaning, purpose and joy throughout our lives.” —Michael C. Changaris, PsyD
Touch is a fundamental sense, and albeit one of the earliest ways to relate to self, others and the environment. Above all, it is a vital aspect of human experience as well as a form of communication which can contribute to a deep feeling of connection, care and togetherness.
Somatically-attuned touch can support you to find greater ease as well as relief from constriction, pain and other symptoms as a result of trauma and chronic stress held in the body.
To illustrate, while seated and talking, I might ask you to place a hand on your forehead or abdomen, for example, as a form of self-touch (and only with your willingness). You will discover how your body responds to the support, which actually may be different one day to another.
In certain moments of profound upset, I may ask to sit next to you, in order to offer physical support with my hand on your back. Meanwhile, I will also offer comfort verbally. Both physical and emotional support teaches your nervous system how to navigate the big waves of emotion.
Furthermore, similar to bodywork settings, I keep a table in my office—where you’ll be lying down fully clothed. While on the table, hands-on support may accompany verbal processing with a focus on somatic awareness and balancing your nervous system.
Gentle supportive touch combined with verbal dialogue increases awareness of yourself from the inside—where beliefs, memories, emotions and more can be processed at somatic levels.
To clarify, our explorations will not necessarily move to these directions immediately. In time, they are possibilities our work together may take. Overall, my recommendations will be based on the skills and awareness you build as your healing journey evolves.
As a result, touch can support movements and impulses to reach natural completion on many levels: cellular, emotional, energetic, muscular, systemic, psychological and more. Moreover, therapeutic hands-on contact can be profoundly healing for many, most especially for those who experienced traumatic events when very young.
“How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime” — Nadine Burke Harris, MD
Research often cites connections between medical conditions and adverse childhood experiences. In other words, addressing the root cause—trauma and the stress response—is fundamental, particularly for anyone exposed to chronic stress at an early age.
Frequently, clients who suffer from certain conditions are often drawn to bodywork recognizing that touch can be relieving. However, bodywork can sometimes feel like a balm – where relief is fleeting – especially for those who have experienced trauma of various forms. When tension patterns and other adaptive management strategies – often incomplete protective responses – remain in place, traumatic stress can contribute to chronic ailments such as:
- Autoimmune conditions: fibromyalgia, inflammatory bowel, psoriasis etc.
- Chronic fatigue: disrupted sleep, CFS, ME etc.
- Chronic pain: back, neck, nerve etc.
- Digestive conditions: chronic constipation, IBS, spastic colon etc.
- Environmental sensitivities
- Headaches and migraines
- Hormone imbalances, including PCOS, adrenal functioning etc.
- Joint issues: TMJ, frozen shoulder etc.
- Post traumatic stress symptoms
- Thyroid issues: hypo and hyper thyroid conditions
- Vestibular difficulties: auditory and/or visual disturbances, spatial disorientation etc.
For the most part, when the stress physiology from traumatic events remains unaddressed, the body attempts to manage in whatever ways possible leading to dysfunction, symptoms and complex conditions that can become exacerbated over time.
Specifically, addressing the underlying traumatic stress with a trauma-informed professional will inevitably reduce symptoms and bring about more sustainable relief.
Moreover, touch used in this way increases somatic awareness and greater connection with oneself. It is also an effective way to release shock and traumatic stress from the physiology, inviting the body’s intrinsic healing capacities to be restored. Finally, supporting the body’s organismic directive towards health provides deep, lasting and life-altering transformations.
Since I am committed to collaborative approaches and am clear about my scope of practice, I often refer to trusted prescribers, bodyworkers of various specialties, dieticians/nutritionists and other medical, alternative and complimentary health professionals in my networks. Some individuals I support benefit more fully from a multi-disciplinary treatment team, which provides both appropriate and necessary support for healing from trauma.
