Somatic psychotherapy and Brainspotting defined...
WHAT IS SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY?
Soma means body. Psyche means mind. Somatic psychotherapy is a wholistic approach that works with both the body and mind in the therapeutic process. The tenants of somatic psychotherapy hold that the integration of the body and mind is essential for any effective healing process.
Somatic Psychotherapy is also referred to as Body Psychotherapy. It is an interdisciplinary field of therapeutic approaches to the body, experience and the embodied self. The word somatic comes from the Greek somat meaning body. The word psychology comes from the Ancient Greek psyche meaning breath, soul, mind. The psyche lives in the whole body, not just our heads.
“Body-inclusive, body-oriented or body-centered psychotherapy is an expansive, emerging, multi-faceted method of therapy that affirms the inseparability of mind, body, and spirit. Drawing from Somatic Psychology that sees the mind revealed not only in relational styles, cognitions and dreams, but in neurophysiology, posture, gestures, movement, bodily tensions and more.”
- Excerpt taken from the United States Association for Body-Psychotherapy (USABP)
Somatic Psychotherapy is very different from conventional forms of “body-work” or “talk-therapy” in that it involves the potential for working not only verbally but also bodily. It is three-dimensional, multi-faceted and organic in the truest sense of the term. Somatic Psychotherapy is a good choice for problems that have not responded to talk therapy alone since the root of our experiences is deeply stored in the body.
The Somatic Psychotherapeutic approach looks at the role of the body in the development and expression of psyche. In addition to tracking and trying to understand clients’ verbally related stories, histories and difficulties, Somatic psychotherapists are attuned to their bodily enactments of feeling and meaning.
At any point in time, the mind/body interconnection can create joy through muscle expansion or fear through muscle contraction. If we don’t like the feelings and sensations arising, such as stress, then we may tend to distract ourselves or protect ourselves from them. This may manifest in the form of tightening our chest, shoulders or holding our breath. It can also lead to negative behaviors like alcohol/substance abuse, anger outbursts, depression, and anxiety.
“Over time, working inside the mind/body interconnection can lead to sustainable increases in wellbeing and aliveness. The reason it’s sustainable is because we are actually learning what we are doing in a situation, not just what we are thinking, feeling or experiencing. With that learning we have the opportunity to practice new actions which lead to new and exciting experiences in life.”
-by Donna Molettiere
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WHAT IS BRAINSPOTTING?
David Grand, PhD, developed Brainspotting in 2003. In his words, BSP is a new psychotherapy approach that theorizes that the field of vision can be used to locate eye positions that correlate with relevance to inner neural and emotional experience. After they are located, these eye positions, or Brainspots, may, through maintaining eye fixation, lead to healing and resolution of issues that are held deeply in the non-verbal, non-cognitive areas of one’s neurophysiology. BPS utilizes both focused activation and focused mindfulness as its mode of operation. It aims at a full, comprehensive discharge of activation (emotional distress) held in the brain and body.
Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional mind/body pain, trauma, dissociation and a variety of other challenging symptoms. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment. It uses bilateral sound and fixed eye positions to enhance deep, direct and powerful healing. The therapist helps the client locate internal resources to contain emotional reactions.
BSP functions as a neurobiological tool to support the clinical relationship. It allows the release of experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and cognitive language capacity. Brain spotting works with the deep brain and the body through its direct access to the autonomic and limbic systems within the body’s central nervous system.BSP is accordingly a physiological tool/treatment, which has profound psychological, emotional and physical benefits.
BSP is especially applicable for treating overwhelming experiences and trauma. Approximately 75% of requests for medical care are linked to the consequences of overwhelming trauma and stress. People typically respond to traumatic experiences through primitive fight, flight or freeze instincts. BSP allows clients to significantly reduce and eliminate the tension and hyper-arousal associated with these survival instincts. Clients can look forward to integrating healing on emotional, somatic, psychological, spiritual and even physical levels.