This post is part of the series New treatments for trauma: a review with special reference to aquatics. (Subscribe to follow the series here.)
One of the things that fascinated me from the start about aquatic bodywork was the way in which it can induce a state of trance that involves a merging of mind, body, and medium. An aquatic session is non-verbal and the movements of the body in water often enable a very graphic expression of any trauma that is present.
It is not unusual for such trauma to have been locked in the body, remaining hidden or contained on land. The watery medium and a skilled practitioner can make its physical expression possible with safety and support that is much harder to achieve on land. The body tells a secret story if we can only translate it.
Bill O'Hanlon described trauma as an event that results in a kind of trance state, which in itself can be seen as a survival skill. He suggested that other ways of entering trance, such as his own work with Ericksonian hypnosis (or aquatic bodywork I suggest), might help with finding ways to transform 'bad' trance into healing trance.
My own facility in entering trance (and mild dissociation) states when being floated in water has given this aspect personal as well as professional interest for me. Many of my aquatic writings explore the interface between the dreambody (after psychotherapist Arnold Mindell) and the creative potential for healing in water.
I find that immersion in water often triggers an altered state of consciousness in which, as a willing receiver, I am flooded with images, perceptions, feelings, and sensations that have often made possible profound shifts in my being. These experiences seem to resemble the dream state and provide profound clues to personal healing.
Trance, dreaming and aquatic bodywork (elsewhere on Aquapoetics) Extract: I am not necessarily suggesting that aquatic bodywork is a form of hypnosis or the bodywave is a healing crisis/ convulsion, but the phenomena and the way I have found it arises spontaneously in someone and seems to be connected with sensations in my own body and placement of my hands offers some interesting parallels to both these aspects of healing. Read more.
The age of dreaming has come (on Diving Deeper by Sulis) Extract: Jungian psychotherapist, Arnold Mindell, described the 'dreambody', the part of us that does not conform to collective materialistic definitions, but hovers somewhere between physical sensation and mythic visualization when we surrender to the water. He wrote: 'The dreambody is released in every deep, sentient body experience.' Read more.
One traditional theory of trauma healing is that it is not just a matter of remembering but also reliving or reexperiencing the original trauma. However, there is a serious risk of reinforcing the traumatic experience. Bill O'Hanlon has found that, though some people need to go back to the past, this is not always the case.
Like other speakers in the NICAMB series, he considered it unnecessary consciously to relive a trauma in order to resolve it. He noted that most traumatized people are pretty strong - they are survivors - and emphasized that people can thrive as a result of trauma. 'Post-traumatic growth' is possible.
I would like to suggest that one dimension of that growth might be the ability to creatively process a real-life trauma so that it can be integrated into a person's sense of the meaning and purpose of their life. This would be different from reliving the trauma but make use of the faculty of the imaginative mind or realm that enters into alternative realities or dream states.
Question: As an aquatic bodyworker or receiver, do you have any examples of positive trauma outcomes? (Add your comment below. Please be careful to protect the confidentiality of clients in anything you share.)
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