Further reading on aquatic bodywork and trauma healing

Below you will find links with summaries to a seven-part review of new treatments for trauma with special reference to aquatics.

Links to all the posts mentioned in the above series are also listed.

Suggest further links by adding a comment below or send me an Email

 

If this is a subject that especially interests you, please also consider joining  me and others in the Group Aquatic Healing for Trauma on AquaticNet (professional social network).

 

To see a list of the Questions posed to practicing aquatic bodyworkers in each of the posts in this series, go here.

 

New treatments for trauma: a review with special reference to aquatics

Aquatic bodywork (Watsu and related modalities) has unique potential when it comes to trauma healing. This is the first in a series of seven posts that looks at possible applications of new research on trauma treatments to aquatic bodywork practice.  The series was inspired by the recent NICABM teleseminars on trauma.

Bad trance to good trance: finding resource in the (aquatic) trance state ( after Bill O'Hanlon)

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.

Working on your own trauma history before working with others in the water (after Babette Rothschild)

Working with those who are courageously facing serious physical and/or psychological traumas requires honest humility and true compassion.... Highly developed awareness and responsiveness in a healer-practitioner can only be gained by facing one's own wounds and working with them. Here are some further thoughts on how this applies to aquatic bodywork in practice.

Fire and water: what happens in the brain during trauma (after Robert C. Scaer)

Are nervous system responses to trauma especially apparent and accessible in aquatic bodywork? This post gives some personal examples and relates them to insights gained from Robert Scaer's work on what happens in the brain when a person goes into the freeze state associated with trauma, and the significance of early childhood traumas in causing adults to be more vulnerable to later trauma events.

The body speaks its trauma: nonverbal and preverbal expression (after Pat Ogden)

Traumatic, attachment and developmental issues are often intertwined in trauma responses. Healing involves making a shift from passivity or dependency to self-empowerment.  How can this understanding inform our work in the water?

Caught fish or floating seaweed: signs of trauma in the water (after Diane Poole Heller)

Childhood attachment wounds and later relationship issues have been linked with trauma.  In aquatic bodywork with a traumatized person, we may witness this as sudden violent movements or extreme passivity. This post looks at the work of Diane Pooler Heller and gives an example of an aquatic session with someone showing a range of trauma symptoms.

Waking the tiger in water: trauma to tranquility  (after Peter Levine)

When an aquatic bodywork clients shows subtle shifts in posture or parts of the body begin trembling, vibrating, pulsing, or moving in other ways, they may be showing signs of the somatic release of old trauma. This is a natural, healing response shared with other mammals. Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing method demonstrates why the body matters so much in trauma healing.

Integrative opportunity: trauma healing and aquatic bodywork 

Aquatic bodyworkers and teachers Diane Tegtmeier and Inika Spence presented their findings at the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy Conference 'Unraveling trauma: Body, Mind and Science' (CA, 22 Oct. 2010).  The presentation article is reproduced here.

Healing boundary issues with prenatal aquatic therapy

Have you had personal or professional experience of boundary issues (positive or not so) while receiving or giving aquatic bodywork (Watsu plus) sessions?  This post looks at an approach developed by David Sawyer LPC based on prenatal patterns.

The posts listed below are referenced in the above series.

 

Aquatic bodywork and trauma healing

 Aquatic bodywork as a form of somatic psychotherapy

 Trance, dreaming and aquatic bodywork

 The age of dreaming has come

 Experiencing aquatic bodywork

 Deepening core awareness and the implications for aquatic bodywork

Part 1: Personal experience of psoas trauma

  Part 2: How aquatic bodywork can help with psoas trauma recovery

 Part 3: Some ways of working with the psoas on land and in water

 The shadow side of aquatic bodywork (Watsu-based)

 A return to the water

 A path to aquatic ecstacy

Pristine waters: murky depths

An aquatic kriya: the bodywave

Water bridges a therapeutic gap

 

Some other useful links:

 

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Dissociation

Suggest a link by commenting below ...

 

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