When anxiety strikes, it not only consumes the mind . . .
. . . it can take hold in the body as well.
And chronic anxiety can contribute to a wealth of physiological problems, including chronic pain, fatigue, and insomnia – just to name a few.
Below, you’ll see how Pat Ogden, PhD worked with a teenaged girl to release anxiety that was stored in the body.
Pat is a pioneer in Somatic Psychology, and founder and director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.
Check it out – it’s less than 4 minutes.
Anxiety can be so limiting for our clients. It can leave people feeling isolated and hold them back from having meaningful relationships.
But as Pat demonstrated, when we work skillfully with anxiety, it can help our clients develop confidence and embrace healthy change.
So now I’d like to hear from you. What have you found to be effective in working with anxiety?
Please leave a comment below.
I believe in educating people in language they can understand I start with:
Demystifying anxiety which is a physiological and useful response.
Giving permission slips to know when they can let go of that feeling and find it’s safe to do so.
I teach people to breathe in a variety of ways which makes a huge impact on physiology and the mind
I use meditation and conversational hypnosis to locate an anchor and a safe retreat and offer language pattern changes here.
I have a huge toolkit and use whatever feels appropriate.
This is a great resource for me thank you
I’m always grateful
Hi I’ll be 36 at the end of the month and I’m legally blind and I have cerebral palsy and I just don’t know when the anxiety and depression will stop because I’ve suffered since childhood I tried to take my life once in 2012 and I’m living in disabled living and I just don’t have any more hope for the future or anyting I have my mom and dad but what happe
ns when they are gone and what if I never get to see my friend in Canada?
Hi Jill
Wishing you a happy Christmas and Birthday. It sounds like life has some great trials for you. But I imagine that there are some wonderful moments with your family, housemates and care team.
I’ll share my mother’s wisdom with you. She always said worry doesn’t add anything to your day, it just steals your happiness.
Find joy in the small things Jill. Tell your story often, play your favourite song and sing at the top of your voice as if no one is listening. And then take time to truly listen to others and give them the benefit of your experience. You can do this.. you can extract every bit of beauty in every experience and let it nourish you.
And remember to breathe!
Susi x
Dear Jill – It doesn’t seem to matter how many years are by, life just have its way to throw at you the bad and the goods. Knowing that you have yourself to take care of and not alone, is the first stepstone to the next milestone. I would put aside any questions about “what if” since the future is mostly now. I know that there are taped and podcasting or books that you can learn from just by hearing and music that are for the public to check out. I trully believe that the opportunity for you to learn to take care and grow is much more than one can think of. Wish you best to come and Happy Bday.
Dear Jill : folktale has a saying that the past cannot be changed, the future is yet in your power. and for what you are going thru I think there is still so much hope. Your parents and good friends will always be with you, the best you can do to help yourself, to show them your love. And I would find someone, a close person you know well and who can bring change into your life, are you in a relationship or have made friends? depression and anxiety have cures , so there is hope
Ingenious and very adroit. But it implies that the pain and weakness in the body haven’t become chronic and it suggests that talk therapy is not enough for the inner child work. Over the years, I have become and felt more comfortable in my own way into my relationships with teens by using mostly motivational interviewing plus sport and movement. Great video.
Motivational interviewing has been remarkable with both teens and even adults lately.
Anxiety affects the body and the mind.
It is also for sleepping . my friend waz deprezzed end she had splitted personalities. Her marriage was fafected badly. She believed nothing can help her. She used natural medicine. Dozen see a therapist. May be tis is what can heop her heal.
I have found the “stopping the bleeding” by teaching an effective relaxation/stress reduction technique immediately give a client a tool to use, a feeling of b eing able to “do something” themselves, which introduces them to the concept of personal empowerment…a good beginning.
Thank you for the video. This shows a very powerful technique to release unconscious tension and strong emotion in the body and to address some changes relatively rapidly. I like Dr. Ogden brief talk about her therapy here. Would it be possible that relying on hypnotherapy or sport medicine could bring the same outcomes?
I strongly believe so. Using effective imagery in hypnosis has proven to be very useful.
As a Trager practitioner, I have been using Dr Milton Trager’s approach for ~ 20 years. The body does keep the scire, and the myofascia has a distributed nervous system. I have seen a woman with an entire R chest wall contracture and limitedR arm movement release completely after a single session.
The need to contract and protect the wounded area was gone. The job was complete. Fear and pain were gone. Freedom remained.
Please check this healing path,
Virginia Beck, NP
I was beaten and molested by my father ,
Massages have taught me what a relaxed body feels like, a body not constantly on alert and stressed.
Massage and years of good therapy have helped me thrive.
I need this. Always on high stress from years of abuse.
Really touching . A sharing I can personally identify with. Very helpful. Thank you Pat.
I am grateful for your deeply embodied approach.
I worked with Feldenkrais practitioner, Rosen method practitioner, a very skilled massage therapist who teaches other massage therapists and knows patterns in the body, Hanna Somatic Practitioner. I have read Stanley Keleman’s Emotional Anatomy Atlas, Patterns of Distress, Embodying Experience, and other books that explain patterns in the body. In my experience Life Centered Therapy is the most effective and efficient form of releasing old patterns from the body
I identified with this segment AND there is, in my case, a physical component that was hidden from me due to multifold collusion to keep me from the truth of why i was the way i was,
This was much later revealed through detailed X-rays…that the position of my cervical spine was permanently swayed to the left, due to very early developmental physical injury. I am only just thanking the chiropractor, who in 2017 dared to share those x-rays with me….you cannot SEE the head tip (I carry myself erect in space)–except in sleep–and sometimes I wake up with my neck locked to the left side.
Now that the chiropractor has released the cervicals, I am able to, with two hands, one on c1-2 and one on C-6 -C-7….sort of bring my spine over to the center–by turning my head left to right simultaneously and ratcheting the group of vertebrae to the center. It does not stay there at this point, but the change in mobility is marked.
Thanks to much to share this valuable information. In my practical experience, mindfulness practices have been a very useful tool to adress anxiety and cronic painful. It’s not easy at the beginning, but as patients feel the efect of a mind in calm gradually, they conect and apreciate the terapeutic impact for them.
Thank you for sharing this! It is like “Gestalt Pastoral Care”, developed by, Tilda Norberg. GPC focuses on the body part where distress is felt most. In an experiment the hurting person speaks in the ‘first person’ as if speaking from that body part. I have seen effective healing results.
The book is, Consenting to Grace, An Introduction to Gestalt Pastotal Care, by Tilda Norberg.
Hi Joyce- yes to Gestalt Pastoral Care’s effectiveness! It’s the most effective and holistic healing work I have ever done- I would love to connect with you back channel- how do we do that? My email is alexandra@gestaltleadershipcoach.com let’s chat?!
Alexandra
Beautiful, enriching share!!!
I do a great deal of hypnotherapy to help clients access the inner child and heal their mind, body and spirit… What you describe is important work…
Do you deal with DID, PTSD,GENERALIZE ANXIETY & MDD from ongoing early childhood abuse?
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Thank you for sharing this expirence and Iwould like to ask you if you can give a more extended talk abour body language.
I love the way you share all this wonderful information that can help many people move out of limitations created in the past.
Thank you!!
I’m currently in therapy because of social anxiety. I found it very challenging during my presentations to fully express myself. My anxiety stems from past trauma and attachment issues during childhood. Thanks for sharing this important information that practitioners need in order to work on our stuff as well as the population to services and clients we treat. Lamont/ Fordham….
Wow! So powerful!
The Emotional Freedom Techniques Aka Tapping are unsurpassed in working with anxiety. I teach nationally how to integrate EFT into clinical practice. It has the mind-body component and is gentle but effective.
I think EFT can be helpful for some but I have not seen it work or resonate for many people. I have found being fully present as the therapist and supporting the clients natural desire to heal using techniques/tools to supplement that much more effective.
Jayne, this is so true, especially for this young gal. She needed a voice which was absence at teh initial interview. Pat gave her that avenue to only hear her 13 yo voice but also honor the 8 yo in subsequent interfacing with Pat’s warm acknowledgment of her fears while honoring the nervous system at the same time.
Jayne, this is so true, especially for this young gal. She needed a voice which was absent at initial interview. Pat gave her that avenue to hear her 13 yo voice but also honor the 8 yo in subsequent interfacing with Pat’s warm acknowledgment of her fears. At the same time the child was also interfacing with the nervous system of both ages.
Dear Jayne,
Just for clarity may I say that EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is a set of techniques that is used within a framework of practitioner presence and is based on the capacity of the client’s ability to heal physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically. It is NOT a therapeutic modality to be used outside of this framework – just as other techniques need to be used within a healing paradigm. Practitioners using EFT or any other techniques outside of this compassionate empowerment framework are not safe nor effective.
I have noticed that I hold stress in my hips. I think many people hold emotions in their body. Thanks for the blog, it is always enlightening
It is amazing how we hold on to fears and it shows through our bodies. I am going to try this technique on one of my clients.
Very good info. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I have book-marked it for later!
I really like it whenever people get together and share opinions. Great blog, keep it up!
Now I see what BS this all is. I have to sign up for more courses to get more information. I am wasting my time reading this to find out I have to take another class. Not fair!!!!
You have to buy a beer to get free peanuts. And sometimes, like this here, you get free peanuts first and then if you want to and if you’re thirsty you can buy a beer.
niceee
Oh my goodness! an amazing article dude. Thanks Nonetheless I’m experiencing difficulty with ur rss . Don’t know why Unable to subscribe to it. Is there anyone getting an identical rss problem? Anyone who knows kindly respond. Thnkx
Ridiculoᥙs quest there. What happened after? Good luck!
Awesome!! Great information that brought me insight. Thank you.
Thank you for teaching us to listen to the body as well as to the words.
I appreciate learning about the need to address the child and the source of trauma (and shame) for the 8 year old before trying to help with the physical presentation in her posture.
Thank you.
Thank you for teaching us to listen to the body as well as to the words.
Also to seek the early decisions we made and to recognize how we are
using them today. And then to dialogue with them and see if we want to
keep obeying their limiting commands. Then you showed us how comforting
the body part which is holding the fear is essential as we begin to consider in our more
grown up brain how to reengage in relationships as a person who is intentionally
recognizing how valuable and likeable she is. Thank you.
Mindfulness practice definitely helps me with my anxiety.
I have found that mindfulness practise really helps with anxiety.
Thank you. Clear and simple but powerful.
Feldenkrais Method comes to mind.
Wonderful exercise- thank you!
Yes, I often think of Feldenkrais lessons during these talks. It’s well known that during the training to become a Feldenkrais practitioner, there are “meltdowns” among the trainees when focusing on the pelvis for an extended period of time. So many emotions are frozen in the habitual muscle tension holding patterns around the hips, that when these holding patterns are released, emotion is released. In particular, I believe that incorporating Feldenkrais lessons into treatment for those with eating disorders would be invaluable.
Inteesting
I resonate with the experience that first, the girl needed to understand what was happening (being bullied, not deserving respect), then the emotional response could have arise, and just lately, the body experience could have been addressed. I am going through my own process in this sequence… It touched me as I was also bullied for being “too clever” (x in the family bullied for being too stupid), I also had mother who was doing all the talking…
I remember having most anxiety in my stomach, losing weight when going to the bullying school, becoming anorectic almost, becoming silent, closed in (additional abuse in family going on).
I remember being also abused by one teen boy about my brain (too much) and my sexual development (curious what my body would say how it affected me).
I had nobody to help, but I changed the school (I wanted, I read my first book on psychology that time: about low-self esteem, I thought that “I was the problem”, I was at cardiologist -he told the mother I was a hopeless neurotic, I had so high blood pressure..), got new friends, more intelligent teachers and I got well very fast. However, the effect of the abuse at school stayed in my body and mind until much later.
Glad that these information are available, hope it would help the girl for now, and for the future, that these experience don´t need to be stored in her body.
I have started doing Yin yoga which really helps to relieve the anxiety. It is slow and gentle but really stretches the body and the joints are loosened.
Great technique… thank you
This was a wonderful video, thank you! I most often assimilate these videos in relationship to my clients, however, there are definitely those times where I personally resonate with the information. This is one of those times. Interestingly, I have a head tilt similar to what Pat described. I’m curious to see what I experience when I consciously straighten my head to be centered.
Thank you, Pat and Ruth. I’ve been doing more and more body work with clients, with positive results. Breathing into the place in the body that holds the anxiety has been very helpful.
Hi Ruth,
For some people , releasing all trapped emotions with The Emotion Code, asking the unconscious questions in many different ways can help in a couple of sessions.
Love and light,
Solveig
Yes this is a good approach among a number of others. As a Marriage and Family Therapist as well as a nurse practitioner, I have used a technique similar to this plus others related to Mindfulness; Motivational Interviewing, and other such as Yoga, etc.
EFT is also effective at connecting the body part, with the age, the feeling and the intensity what level) of the memory/experience. Tapping counteracts the depth of that grid, to loosen and lessen its impact on confidence and belief limits. It is the pea or the pebble that is embedded and has to be dislodged.
She doesn’t say how…Dr. Ogden mostly describes what happened. This doesn’t translate into helping me. I have a great deal of respect for the work she does but I’m not sure she can effectively teach it in this format…Its not enough to share a successful case, I would like to understand the process of success interventions.
Jean Pierre Barral, in his Visceral Manipulation courses, talks about C3/4 being the ‘centre of anxiety’ . In my practice as a PT, I often need to release the RAS , the nerve roots of C3/4 and the connection with the rootlets from these levels that connect with the vagus nerve.
The above video clearly shows how ‘the body hugs the fascial lesion’
You mean, in other words, you need a physical manipulation for these releases or you can you get that without some kind of Chiropractic adjustment?
Wow! I have had neck problems since my youth, and they Center on C3 and C4. I also have a great deal of Developmental trauma. I feel like the past 20 years of effort have healed my heart and brain but my body still holds the tension. Thank you for making this link between anxiety and the problem with my neck.
Yea, I always knew it was related, but just keep taking it.
I hope that more teenaged girls and boys find their way into relationships like shared by Dr. Ogden and her client. Letting the body speak and be heard is portrayed in this relationship in a manner where the client’s injured self, a wound to self-concept, begins to heal. Lovely. Thank you.
I like that she attended to the posture and worked with understanding why she was positioning her head in that way . Although I would have liked to know how she worked with the 8 year old- how she brought that 8 year old into the session and helped her access her- whether she did that using trance or how she did this.
I loved that the client was able to recognize how she was storing these memories of shame and unworthiness in her body. Tuning into how she stored these feelings in her stomach and demonstrating self-compassion was powerful.
It’s a great outcome, and I totally get that the key to it was her body language….I’m not a practitioner, but I know a lot from reading and observing and I appreciate getting exposed to new therapies, etc.