In this realm you have allies: fluids and the potency within fluids. Yes, you can start to sense potency within the fluids, the ocean. Fluids that pass everywhere, go around any obstacles and patiently try to erode the barriers. ....The fluid may be your ally provided that you learn its language, know how to work with it and know the nature of these forces that move it. Candice Marro
Trauma research based in neurobiology is indicating that the long-practiced approaches of talk therapy often risk re-traumatizing clients. Many of the newer methods being adopted are now body-based. Aquatic bodywork (Watsu and related modalities), the focus of this blog, has unique potential when it comes to trauma healing.
However, these are not waters to dive into lightly. As trauma expert Peter Levine's book title Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma suggests, we may need to be ready to face the wilder - more instinctive and unconsciously expressed - sides of ourselves and those we share the water with. Water seems to be an effective transmitter of these submerged messages of hurt and healing.
If you've had a client thrash about in the water, or go strangely floppy in your arms, or go into undulating body waves, you might have witnessed trauma symptoms. If this is so, what you do next matters. If someone thanks you but leaves looking shocked, you may have tapped hidden trauma, and perhaps left them scared or vulnerable. Read on to learn more about working with trauma.
When that doesn't happen it seems that, whether a traumatic event impacts someone physically or emotionally at first, the effects of it may pervade a person's life in limiting or debilitating ways that have not always been fully acknowledged. Some people seem better able to cope with and overcome such events than others, and this can provide important clues to healing trauma.
NICABM on new treatments for trauma
During May 2010, I listened in to an excellent six-part teleseminar series from The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM) on New Treatments for Trauma: Setting Free the Trauma-Locked Brain. I recommend signing up for the next cycle. At some point, you will come across someone in trauma and, again, what you do or say to help them matters.
This particular repeating NICABM trauma series of interviews focused on: how to harness the power of somatic experience and memory: how to use breakthroughs in sensorimotor processing; and how to incorporate new concepts in dissociation and attachment theories. What will you do with what you have learned here? was the call-to-action posed to all listeners.
In the light of this encouragement to integrate the information presented and to apply new insights to whatever field a healer practitioner works in, I have compiled this latest series of posts. These are my extrapolations based on my own experience of working in the water personally and professionally. There is much to explore further. I invite your comment below, or by email, in the spirit of sharing and learning.
Don't miss the next posts in this aquatic bodywork and trauma series: Subscribe to Aquapoetics here.
I have interspersed summaries of other posts on my weblog Aquapoetics that relate to trauma work, and some anecdotal examples from my practice. The application of aquatic bodywork in this arena is in the early stage of development but it offers great possibility, especially in combination with good training in other trauma modalities. You will also find examples of some of training methods that are available.
Aquatic bodywork and trauma healing (elsewhere on Aquapoetics) Extract: Aquatic bodywork has the potential to integrate well with some of the new energetic and somatic modalities known to help heal trauma. Experienced aquatic bodyworkers, comfortable with the concept of free flow, are very likely to come across the phenomena of spontaneous movements in the water. Some of the forms this spontaneous movement takes may be an indication of past trauma. These body memories buried under circumstances that were not safe and long-since suppressed by the mind, may rise to the surface as the body is supported and moved in the unique ways that water allows..... There are some important guidelines and specific techniques for working in the water with people who have suffered trauma. Read more
Aquatic bodywork presented at USABP
Later on this year, aquatic colleagues Inika Spence and Diane Tegtmeier will be presenting their findings in treating trauma with aquatic bodywork at the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy Conference 'Unraveling trauma: Body, Mind and Science' (CA, 22 Oct. 2010). Their breakout session is described on the conference website as follows:
Below you will find links to my reviews of each of the six NICABM trauma teleseminars in which I focus on aspects that I believe relate particularly well to aquatic bodywork.
Please note that because of the risk of re-traumatizing someone, it is important to have some understanding and training before attempting to help someone with chronic or debilitating trauma symptoms.
Aquatic bodywork as a form of somatic psychotherapy (elsewhere on Aquapoetics) Extract: Aquatic bodywork can be practised as a purely physical form of manipulation in the safe and supportive medium of water. It also offers opportunities to work more holistically with someone since immersion in warm water, of itself, seems to facilitate body-mind integration. However, few aquatic bodywork practitioners are trained to work intentionally this way unless they bring outside skills to their practice. This post looks at what further skills a practitioner needs in order to work effectively with mind and body integration. Read more.
Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) can develop after exposure to traumatic experiences(s) and results from imbalance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). From Babette Rothschild's website.
Posts in this series on new treatments for trauma:
Select list of other posts on this blog mentioned in this review of trauma treatments (click link)
List of websites for each of the trauma experts interviewed in the NICABM series:
