Working with Our Felt Sense of Being: The Power of Somatic Therapy

Working with Our Felt Sense of Being: The Power of Somatic Therapy - Written by Jourdan Tymkow

In my own grief and trauma journey, as well as working with a diverse range of clients, I have come to recognize how powerful it can be to work with the innate intelligence of the body to help me identify, process, and digest challenging experiences. The body acts as a sensory sponge, constantly picking up cues from our environment to determine whether we are safe to relax and connect, or if we are in danger and need to act.

Through this process, we learn psychological patterns that translate that sensory information into emotions and thoughts. Sometimes these patterns wire us for resiliency, but in other cases, we can get stuck in unhelpful ideas, difficult emotions, and unhealthy coping mechanisms that may have at one time been adaptive responses to this sensory information, but no longer serves us. Learning the language of the body and how to communicate with it can disrupt these unhelpful patterns, move out stuck emotions disguised as pain or tension, and create new ones that are more flexible, spacious, and healthy.

Working with the body to digest grief, trauma, stress, or any mental health concern is referred to as a “bottom-up” process. This means that this approach targets the subcortical areas of the brain - that is, the instinctual and emotional centres of the brain that regulates the autonomic nervous system, rather than trying to address the issue through the thinking, planning, and cognitive centres of the brain. This is in part because the subcortical structures are developed first in utero, suggesting that the cognitive brain regions are somewhat functionally dependent on the subcortical structures.

For example, when a situation activates our fight-or-flight, we feel an increase in heart rate and adrenaline that is ready to mobilize us for action before we cognitively are aware of why these changes are occurring. This nervous system design has ensured our survival as a species, as we are biologically wired to appraise and move away from danger as quickly as possible, which often means our minds are delayed in comprehending what just happened when these instances occur.

Polyvagal theory, developed by behavioural neuroscientist Stephen Porges, suggests a nervous system hierarchy that helps to illustrate how to work with the nervous system based off the cues the body provides. Under conditions of safety and connection, we experience a ventral vagal nervous system experience, which is the parasympathetic branch responsible for “rest and digest” or feelings of calm, joy, peace, and openness. When we are presented with a danger cue, the sympathetic nervous system will activate, preparing us for “fight or flight”, such as elevated heart rate, breathing rate, perspiration, and feelings associated with anxiety. When these mobilizing actions are not possible, a different part of the parasymapthetic nervous system will activate a “freeze” or shut down response, also known as the dorsal vagal branch, which can look like dissocating, numbing, sleeping, or typical depression symptoms.

In knowing these three branches of the nervous system and their cues, we can up or down regulate ourselves when we are no longer in situations of danger to help move any residual, stuck  sensation or emotion associated with previous experiences of danger that was unavailable at that time, leading towards resolution of that experience and increased resiliency. Coming back into a state of emotional regulation is also known as your “window of tolerance”, a term coined by Dan Siegel. Everyone has a different window of tolerance which can be impacted by factors like personality, social context, physiology (being tired, substance use, etc.), culture, as well as mental health factors such as types, recency, and frequency of trauma events and exposure, anxiety, depression, etc.

However, in learning how to work with your window of tolerance and recognizing when you start to go outside it - either becoming hyperaroused through sympathetic, fight-flight cues or hypoaroused through parasympathetic freeze cues - you can begin to use tools and practices that bring yourself back into feelings of safety and connection towards the parasympathetic ventral vagal state, such as noticing posture, swaying, self-soothing touch, therapeutic tremoring, gentle breathwork, singing, and even just remembering positive experiences and noticing how bodily sensations change.

A helpful way of recognizing these states is asking yourself these questions outlined by Nkem Ndefo:

-        Am I regulated right now? How do I know?

-        Is this response appropriate for the situation (am I actually in danger?)

-        If not, what can I do to regulate myself?

If you are finding it challenging to notice or be with somatic sensations, mental health practitioners who are trained in somatic therapy may be helpful in building and expanding regulation skills safely.

References

Fisher, J. (2019). Sensorimotor psychotherapy in the treatment of trauma. Practice Innovations, 4(3), 156–165. https://doi.org/10.1037/pri0000096

Goodman, R. D., & Calderon, A. M. (2012). The use of mindfulness in trauma counseling. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 34(3), 254-268. 

Kuhfuß, M., Maldei, T., Hetmanek, A., & Baumann, N. (2021). Somatic experiencing – Effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: A scoping literatur review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023

Payne, P., Levine, P., & Crane-Godreau, M. A. (2015). Somatic experiencing: Using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00093

Siegel, D. J. (2020). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. Guilford Press.

Corrigan, F. M., & Hull, A. M. (2015). Neglect of the complex: Why psychotherapy for post-traumatic clinical presentations is often ineffective. BJPsych bulletin, 39(2), 86–89. https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.114.046995

Ogden, P., Fisher, J., Hierro, D. D., & Hierro, A. D. (2015). Sensorimotor psychotherapy: Interventions for trauma and attachment. W. W. Norton & Company.

Berceli, D., Salmon, M., Bonifas, R., & Ndefo, N. (2014). Effects of self-inducedunclassified therapeutic tremors on quality of life among non-professional caregivers: A pilots Study. Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 3(5), 45–48. https://doi.org/10.7453/gahmj.2014.0322

Blog Written by Jourdan Tymkow

Jourdan Tymkow is a Master of Counselling Clinical Intern on our team.

Grief has been a close companion throughout much of my life – losses through human and animal deaths, relational partings, significant identity and worldview shifts, and heartache prompted by legacies of colonialism and climate change lived heavily within me for many years. These sticky feelings and perspectives diminished my sense of vitality, belonging, and openness, which were compounded by traumatic experiences that made me want to protect myself from the world at all costs. It wasn’t until I started my own therapeutic journey that I began to metabolize my grief and trauma safely and be able to live my life with a sense of expansion, peacefulness, play, and open-heartedness. This has led me to my passion and purpose - holding space for others in their shifting of grief and trauma. - Jourdan

To learn more about Jourdan or to book a session with them, click here.