You may have heard that if you put on a happy face, you’ll actually start to feel better.
But did you know that the physical patterns of our body not only reflect how we’re feeling inside but can actually cause those feelings?
When it comes to working with trauma patients, noticing patterns and changes in body language gives us greater insight into what patients are experiencing. We can also use these observations to develop healthy body
exercises that patients can use to help manage their symptoms.
Pat Ogden, PhD, is the founder and director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, which provides training in somatic and body-based approaches to trauma treatment.
Please check out the video below for one way to work with the body in the treatment of trauma.
The effects of trauma run so deep that they often become ingrained in our patients’ body language.
By using a body-oriented approach to treatment, we can recognize and use these body patterns to help people further understand and explore their trauma.
To what extent do you use a body-oriented approach when choosing interventions for your patients? Please leave us a comment below.
I have worked with the body in Cranio-Sacral therapy (CST) which I use to facilitate somato-emotional release as an adjunct to my clinical work. This I have found to be very powerful in shifting people forward. I also use it when traditional talk therapy is not working for them, due to many reasons for e.g. for those who are not ready to verbalize their trauma or distress to those that have chronic pain and other physiological conditions that have manifested due to emotional trauma. Talk therapy alone cannot give them the relief and long term success they are looking for. Working with the body along with psychotherapy in my view is the gold standard of trauma treatment and holistic care.
If you are open to it, I would love to chat regarding how you incorporate CST into your mental health practice. I also do energy work and would love to incorporate it into my mental health practice and I’m a little reluctant because all the legal people in my area are telling me I need to keep the two separate from one another.
With Heart Assisted Therapy ( John Diepold) we always observe the client. Not only we ask what is coming up in the mind/body (feelings, thoughts) and then let the client speak “deep in my heart i love myself, THOUGH i feel x (or i think x)” (and while saying that, the client breaths out), but we observe the cliënt and let the client say what we observed. For example, if its a positive movement: I love myself AND i move my hand. If its a negative muscle movement then we use THOUGH i move my hand. All kinds of bodymovements can be used. Also hormonal reactions (tears in the eye, red head), or Vagus Nerve reaction (different voice)
Thank you very much for sharing this, Ruth! Insightful and helpful!
Yes all of these comments are excellent. Having utilized many modalities to heal my own Trauma, I discovered BOWEN THERAPY which was a profound gamechanger for me. I am trained
In 16 practices yet continue to use Advanced Bowen Practice to gently unwind the Neurological system with my clients to bring the body mind back to wholeness and calm. BOWEN IS A CRITICAL PIECE of the Trauma puzzle.
Mmmmm I work with both physical and etheric equivalent of Bowen plus Rhythmic Pulsing and it so unwinds a stuck body.
Dance Movement Therapy has been a field of practice for over 50 years. Movement is a direct expression of the self and how one connects to others. DAnce Movement Therapists deal with synchronicity, mirroring, spatial awareness, kinisphere, gesture and are trained to observe the various intricacies of non verbal communication. Experiences are also processed verbally. I am astounded that the discovery of the body by leading practitioners in the field of Psychotherapy in the last 10 years never refers to any of the work, literature and research In the field of Dance Movement Therapy. There is much to be learned from the field as well as from Art and Music therapy. For anyone interested in learning more you can contact te American Dance Therapy Association.
Tai Chi and Qi Gong actually is a portal for this.
Thank you Pat – I’m currently doing a webinar series with Janina Fisher, so have just begun to make those kinds of observations with a client with a history of trauma. Your example is fascinating – I need to practise observing even more closely as I listen to my client.
I have found Reggie Rays body somatic meditations the best personally …it’s all about getting in touch with the body wisdom or consciousness and asking the body and dropping into the earth …just utube and he has numerous meditation. ..i have had such energetic shifts in the body it has been amazing…i had a misdiagnosed bust appendix for awhole week lucky to be alive and it sent me into hyper thyroid extremely high panic and anxiety and i have many skills and i hit the wall and Reggie and Carolina have really saved me with their meditations
I have used Tara Brach phrase: “put your hand on your heart” approach with Traditional Christians. For them “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jer.17:9). So I say: Jesus died for your sins. So tell your heart, “Jesus loves you and he died for you to pay for your sins´. Let him fill you with His love. As they say this literally to their heart, not in a symbolic way, but speaking to it. I see scores of faces light up and tell me: this feels good. Then I tell them as well: I know there are things you might feel guilty about, but you can tell your heart: “it is all paid for, there is no guilt anymore”. I let them do this on a regularly basis and it has rather remarkable results.
I also tell trauma victims: “don´t dig into the past. Your body needs to experience first somewhere some peace. Ask God to show you where that is`. usually I tell them: when you were baptised, Jesus put a thumbprint on you and said: that is a place I reserve for me. Now you say you are a Christian, so Jesus has come there, literally,(“your body is a tempel of the Holy Spirit”). Where Jesus is, there IS peace, if you feel peace or not. You might have a feeling problem, not an existential problem. Only go into trauma areas from experiencing some peace somewhere, when the pain is too strong, go back to peace alone”. This has helped many traditional believers facing unbelievable levels of trauma.
I recomment for you HAT (J. Diepold) you can adept it for Christians.
Thank you for this. This is beautiful.
Thank you. I will try this with my client
I’m a licensed clinical speech-language pathologist and am aware of how learning a language causes changes in the brain so I am not at all surprised that experiencing emotions can also cause changes in the brain.
I am a teacher of Tai Chi and Qigong. I have had some success treating PTSD in Veterans utilizing training principles of the above mind body arts. It is my observation that treating the mind as well as the body is just common sense. You might say that one is a pathway to the other. Such an approach seems to magnify, support or intensify any result.
I am puzzeled as to why anybody is surprised by an approach to health that incorporates the mind and the body. First of all, such an approach to rebuilding health has been celebrated in Chinese culture for hundreds of years.
—-The origins of the Qigong set called “THE EIGHT PIECES OF BROCHADE” tells the story of a great military leader who needs to quickly allow his troops to rest and recover from a difficult battle. He uses a set of exercises that emphasizes breath control, relaxation and mental focus. After a short period of time, the troops set out for another successful campaign.
Trying to treat only the mind is foolish.
I recently worked with a sensory-motor psychotherapist to help with desperation and grief and seemingly endless tears and sorrow (and depression) over a series of losses, and what felt like the trauma and shock of those losses. Before this, I tried breathing techniques and DBT and EFT and meditation and gratitude and couple’s therapy to help with a broken engagement and the subsequent break-up, and whatever else my therapists suggested (except I refused medication). It was only after listening to Peter Levine say that trauma can only be healed through the body and how he helps his clients find “resources” through the body that I came up with the idea that my body is trying to “hold on” to things, after losing so much. I remembered Pat talking about the basic developmental movements such as reaching and grasping, and for me “holding on” and “keeping” were the key. Through experiences and playfulness and explorations with “holding on” to different items in the room, I got to finally have the experience of being well-resourced and strong in my body, being able to hold on tightly and keep what I have and not let my things go and not to think I had to let them go (discovered it could be anything: my ideas, my furniture, my children, my friends, my home, my relationships, my job). And just as Peter Levine said, it started to feel like I had an island of ground under my feet. And I consequently discovered all sorts of “unfortunate beliefs” stemming from what I would call a neglectful childhood in the messages I was given about “holding on”, such as “you don’t matter enough to keep your things” and “other people’s happiness matters more than yours” and “people won’t like you if you don’t give them your things” and “you’re mean if you don’t give people your stuff”. And through the experiences and games, these came up and could be played around with and explored with a therapist who could say, “that wasn’t mean when you held on and wouldn’t give it up, even though I wanted it” or “I still like you” or “you are really, really strong, you are so strong”. So that was the biggest shift after years of crying and sadness. I felt better than I had in the past 7 years (since my divorce after 27 years of marriage). I also do neurofeedback and the two work really well together. It’s amazing, now, to think of how often people think it’s helpful to advise people to “let it go” when that’s the opposite of what ended up helping me, and it’s my own body that knew it.
Ru
Ignore previous note
Good point about not a “letting go” process.
Healing from trauma IMO is not a “letting go” process. Ironically, it is a process of adding something POSITIVE in, specifically love compassion and gratitude among other things.Reduction of the “charge” of an unintegrated, disorganized fear-based energy in the mind and body is the goal of treatment.
It is my belief that tear based energy cannot be integrated directly. It must first be transmuted into love based energy. I note with my patients a great resistance to add love to fear. I believe this is the reason many people stay stuck i.e. the resistance to add love to the fear is impaired because they are trapped in what Dr. Joseph Ledoux calls primitive defence circuits that make access to love much more difficult as the patient has entered survival mode. Integration and resolution occurs when the disorganized fear energy gets transmuted into organized love energy where it can be stored in XPlicit, autobiographical memory that allows a coherent narrative or integrated story that “makes sense” of a persons negative, traumatic experience of the trauma that occurred in the patient’s life. One of the processes involved uses the hippocampus to “time date stamp” the traumatic memories so the mind and body have a reference point that this has happened in the past and is therefore no longer happening. Indeed, there is growing evidence that the hippocampus and it’s ability to integrate a time on traumatic events is impaired by the stress hormone cortisol and with epinephrine. So, if a patient experiences a traumatic event, the hippocampus goes off-line and is unable to firmly record that trauma into explicit or autobiographical memory, but it remains strongly recorded by the sensory/implicit memory system. It is important to note that the sensory/implicit system is a type of amygdala only recording and these implicit only memories have no basis in time i.e. it is like they are still happening. This, of course is the basis of PTSD.
So, I agree with you in that it is not so much a letting go OUT process as an integrating IN process, Moving highly charged time independent implicit only negative fear energy states into explicit autobiographical time defined Love energy states that become integrated into a coherent narrative and no longer a source of intrusive, disorganized fear based energy.
I believe using the body integrates the left and right hemispheres, integrates the body and the mind, and integrates time independent sensory-based memories with time to find explicit an autobiographical memories and all these Love based processes facilitate the transmutation of unmanageable disorganized fear energy into much more manageable and organized love based energy that can be essentially “filed away” and not be such a drain on the patient’s current concentration,consciousness and working memory in day today life..
On a more personal note, we medical doctors were never trained to even look at the body in relation to the mind. Most MDs are very uncomfortable even with this concept. On a positive note, I believe this is changing, albeit slowly.
– thanks for posting this forum Ruth!
Thank you for all the above feedback. I am a christain and also secular counsellor and use many different methods for body work, but the most effective for me is asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to the client were the pain in their body is trapped and earliest memory of when this happened if appropriate. I also find asking the client to ask there body, what is your body saying to you. Also sometimes I have found the body needs to be reminded, especially with fear or anxiety that it can stand aside it doesnt need to protect the person any longer, some people then picture there protector being put in a cage, when this happens it releases the person to get to the pain of the trauma or memory and the anxiety decreases or in some cases when memory has been dealt with and they have told the protector or what they want to call it, to go, complete freedom.
I’m use skills of mindfulness with client’s who are coping traumatic memories, but I will like to learn more of your body language wisdom and exercises from Pat… thanks
I completely rely on the body for the healing of trauma with the understanding that the neurophysiology must be experiencing safety in order for the frozen material to be remembered, re-experienced and released. Without this safety the system will recycle the existing traumatic material and its effects, or possibly become re-traumatized. I practice and teach a model called The Comprehensive Resource Model or CRM which recognizes this need for body-brain safety before processing can occur. This allows for dual-focused processing in an organic and gentle way that is rapid and which “sticks.”
I use self-compassion, love and kindness mindfulness meditation with my clients. Its really powerful especially for those with history of trauma who experience significant degree of shame, guilt and have forgotten how to self-nurture and self-soothe.
Thanks to Pat, would love to hear more. I often bring client’s awareness to their breath as they are telling a story, it seems to serve as gateway into the shifting sensation in the body.
Client body language is everything when doing experiential activities with horses. The horses themselves are quite adept at noticing body language, and their behavior in response to the body language is quite illuminating for clients. Through tailored interventions or activities we can work with the client to amplify or modify the body language (and accompanying negative or positive thoughts) to affect client sense of mastery, safety, self compassion, and leadership of self and others. The beauty of this process is that the horse as facilitator is able to give natural feedback, and clients are not as defensive as they would be if a human did the noticing.
Well said. And the horses themselves are deeply embodied beings. As animals with extremely large and sensitive guts and hearts, horses exhibit heightened emotional perception. I see this every day working with my clients, and this is borne out in HeartMath research studies.
The volume is not only turned up higher in their bodies, but because they operate primarily from their limbic systems , they don’t have the relentless mental chatter drowning out important messages like we human beings do. Horses cannot be easily manipulated or lied to. They respond to inauthentic and incongruent human behavior with agitation, disinterest or by taking charge. They respond to authentic, congruent behavior by connecting with eye contact or movement (even from far away), willingly interacting, and becoming entrained (neural frequencies falling into step). In other words, they give immediate feedback and can detect minute shifts in energy immediately.
Sometimes words aren’t adequate to describe what shifts or opens up when working with the horses, yet the learning stays deep in the cellular awareness of the body, surfacing and emerging in new behaviors and ways of being.
I used body orientated approaches for many years with children who had experienced family violence, we would have a group chat about what kinds of things we notice in our bodies when around violence and or when we feel anxious. The kids would mention many different feelings and body sensations and we would discuss them in detail like how you feel when curled up in a ball or when your shoulders are all hunched up or chest caved in etc then i would teach them different yoga poses to counteract those body patterns, it was all done in a spirit of fun whilst deepening the childrens awareness and teaching them skills that will serve them for life, a deep self awareness.
Simultaneously i worked with many adults who were struggling with depression and anxiety with many physical symptoms they didn’t understand I could see that if they’d had support as children to learn self awareness skills it may have saved them many years of unnecesary suffering, that fuelled my passion for teaching the children i worked with the skills to know their bodies and notice what happens within them and how to counteract it.
I am not a therapist of any kind. Just a simple artist. (like that’s simple, right?) I do, however, have fibromyalgia in which the emotional centers and pain processing centers coincide within the brain so brain chemistry has an immense effect upon the processing of pain. (as well as other things). I have noticed that, often, when I am in extreme and agonizing pain, that if I can change my thought patterns or even think of something soothing or happy that the body responds and the pain tends to lessen. I often do meditation all practices which definitely helps.
i also find tension and release as well as many of peter levine’s body movements/gestures very helpful
First, psychoeducation on the limbic system, the vagus nerve, stress/danger responses, how the feedback system works. Then how “working the feedback mechanisms in reverse”, via breath, muscle relaxation, posture can bring this under control. Then education on the trauma memories and how they can be reprocessed. I use PC, Progressive Counting (Dr Ricky Greenwald, Child and Adolescent Trauma Institute, Greenfield, MA), and EMDR. Body- centered work, supported by educating clients first about how it works, is the foundation of my practice.
Took your Trauma series a few years back, it was excellent. Ginny Pond, MEd, MSW, LCSW
In the MBCT training we use the body a lot – via yoga, via the body scan, via the short Breathing Space etc.
I am a trauma therapist with more exposure to EMDR and SE — which both include the awareness to the body. As Pat Ogden said, “The body is wise” and that is something i stress to my clients. The body stores so much information that the brain may not connect. Pat’s illustration of just noticing the client’s own natural way of bringing her hands together to calm her dysregulation self was brilliant — and we need to such close attention to our our patients body speak right in front of our eyes.
I’d love to be able to study more about Pat’s approach sometime in the future!
I have practiced David Berceli ‘s Tension and Trauma Release exercises as an individual and as a practitioner for over 5 years now. It is a way to allow your body to Re Set, with minimal talking. This is amazing, some people want to talk after TRE & can connect with a Psychologist or Social Worker/ Counsellor for that. However those with PTSD really seem to prefer to allow their body to release, while their focus is to learn a safe speed —at which this happens. Learning self regulation begins with co regulation & that is why a certified TEE provider is important. Their gut feels better first , in most cases..what a relief for them to experience this! Thinking & talking is often just too much overload for them.
Pat Ogden has done great work & has insights that are indeed valuable. David Berceli has a new digital book in which He & other TRE providers share their experiences and insights. Thank you for this opportunity.
I start with body intervention, because I think it’s foundational to all other treatments for trauma, or stress for that matter.
The art for the client is needing to learn self-regulation, which needs co-regulation until that time. In the meantime, it is a top-down technique because the awareness is always in the room at the moment, as well as creating new neural pathways, and a bottom-up technique beause the body is the driver of the experience.
What cals my attention in this moment is that there were two aspects there, the traumatic, the way the mother died & the tender one, the intertwining of the hands. Very often we take for granted it´s the trauma we need to bring to consciousness; but, in this clinical example, it seems both might have been needed to bring up the bodily expression. Maybe, if we can see both aspects: the traumatic & the satisfactory, we can ask the person to choose the aspect where the true self appears.
Pat, as a Rolfer myself, I had usually addressed head traumas through the back of the neck with a CV-4, the hyoid muscles, the root of the tongue, the clavicle area, and the SCM. But quite recently on myself, I discovered..(looking at a selfie picture I’d taken sitting down with my head turned to the side) … I noticed something way-out-of-align! I guess you could call it the front of my spine or all the soft tissue including my esophagus. It blew me away.
I straightened my spine, placed my hand deeply into the the upper neck, and (like IDA, *asked for movement) and I heard clicking and popping…and realized that my cervical spine had LOOKED straight when I was standing or sitting straight, but in fact it was only appearing so from the outside. Such a find….that none of my Rolfers or CST’s have ever noticed. These funny little observations COUNT.
Guiding awareness towards one’s own body is so helpful – thanks for sharing this piece! In my work, I ask clients to become aware of what their body’s “shame signature” is, because people often find it easier to first notice how they’re holding themselves, and then name the emotional component. Aside from body awareness, as Ruth talks about here, we can also use our bodies to influence our own emotions. I make use of this in my practice, drawing on the growing science of embodied cognition, particularly Amy Cuddy’s work. Thalma Lobel brings a lot of this together in her book: Sensation: The new science of physical intelligence
Pat Ogden just makes me smile…what wonderful work with her sense of delight! Great clip. Itreminds me to always pay attention to the signals from the body. Thank you Ruth for the gift of Nicabm !!
Although I have paused in my therapy practice due to ill health – but hope to return soon! – I have trained in Sensorimotor Psycotherapy with Pat’s Institute and can truly acknowledge how effective it when working clients / patients who have been traumatised.
What I especially value is that by following the wisdom of the body and engaging with it through the cues provided by body language, is that it enables access to those blocked energies by staying in the present moment.
Narrative may have some part to play subsequently, but it is guided initially by the wisdom of the body and crucially helps to prevent re-traumatisation so often triggered by other therapeutic modalities.
Drawing attention to her hands when she is talking is the signal to what deeply touches her. And the transformation of trauma is integrated with building secure attachment.. A lovely example. Thanks for sharing it .
Working with the body is most important, as mind and body are one.
The combination of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy as taught by Pat Ogden and Brainspotting as taught by David Grand has produced some of the most amazing results for me working with clients.
I utilize Bowen Therapy along with Litios to soften and release the energetic charge around traumatic experiences. Bowen and Litios is non-invasive and allows the body/mind/spirit to balance in space of gentle security and trust. It offers deep stillness and is highly effective. My clients love it.
As an EMDR therapist and also a yoga and mindfulness teacher, the body plays a big part in the therpat room. Sometimes we just track the pain and sensation througout the body, acknowledging it gently, and sometimes there is an insight, most of the time it lessens and leaves. Some things don’t require words, and often thinking gets in the way….
To Michael: Thanks for the info. We do have one or more people in my area that offers Brainspotting, & just trying to get some opinions as to how effective & helpful it has been personally for others, or in their treatment of others. Would welcome any other comments.
Awareness of body
Touch toes
Think of an X
Lift arms to sky
Say to yourself 3 times in the mirror
“I learn easily and effortlessly”
In gratitude for knowledge and sharing
Thanks |Suzy. I tend to feel I have difficultly learning.
Love Izzy.
I am a graduate of Level 1 Sensorimotor Therapy training and find it extremely valuable. It is difficult for some of my clients to grasp the idea of non-verbal (or less verbal) approaches–these tend to be clients who just want an immediate solution to immediate problems. For those who are able to take the body-oriented approach, it’s wonderful. And Pat Ogden is amazing.
After reading the 90 or so comments about Ruth’s last posting about “What’s common between Beethoven & Jimi Hendrick,” & now this posting, it’s obvious that there is a multitude of techniques, therapies, etc that are being used to try heal those of us & their clients who still suffer from PTSD. Several people have mentioned EMDR as what is working for them in their treatments, which obviously relates our visual perceptions with trauma ingrained in certain areas of the brain. Have recently become aware of a “technique” known as Brainspotting, which is an offshoot/development of EMDR, which supposedly allows the therapist to pinpoint the “spot” on the brain where the trauma exists, addressed & relieved. Was surprised that there were no comments about the use of Brainspotting & wondering if there is not anyone out there that is using this method or knows more about it than me & how effective it is. Thanks to Ruth for her concentrated attention to PTSD the last several months, as most of us, if not all of us, have suffered from some degree of PTSD, & need the latest research findings for what works the best for treating this problem for ourselves & others.
I just want to say that I know someone who is a licensed therapist and did brain spotting for himself and found it helpful.
Moshe Feldenkrais talked about exactly this need to work with both body and mind- for of course there is no separation- in his seminal book published in 1949 “Body and Mature Behavior”. Learning to pay attention to the physical sensations of experience is at least as important as talking about experiences.
Pat Ogden — with her hands, gestures, tone of voice — really embodies the sensorimotor approach. I would like to learn more about this.
I take a body-oriented approach all the time. I’ve trained with Ruella Frank in Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy, which explores developmental relational movement, gesture, and posture patterns as they are lived in the present. This is stand-alone, theoretically grounded body of work, as well as an approach that will augment and supplement any therapy orientation. DSP has enabled me to sensitively tailor my own non-verbal communicating to attune to my clients’ patterns; it has given me ways to bring into awareness, in a very body-felt way, my clients’ habitual relational patterning; and it has given me a way to work and play with creating new patterns (which is forging new neural pathways and giving my clients greater agency in their own change). I use DSP extensively when working with clients with trauma histories (especially traumatic attachment). I’ve also recently schooled in Somatic Experiencing which has given me a better understanding the biological aspects of trauma.
Ruth,
This is fascinating information.
Amazing how that one hand gesture can be so powerful.
The timing of your video is amazing. Your email arrived the very week that I’ve been doing research into body movements and cravings.
I hope it’s okay to post here — I’m not a therapist, who works with trauma patients, but I’m quite intrigued by the information you post.
Perhaps one of the reasons I’m so intrigued is that I recently healed from PTSD myself (after my terminally ill Mom angrily died while unknowingly abusing me). I do, however, help people but not as a therapist — I’m a life coach, health coach and author.
(By the way, Ruth, I had the pleasure of meeting you recently at Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula Live.)
Anyhow, thanks for posting this.
I am just touching the surface in this kind of body work when I say to my groups now listen to your body and move in a way that supports and nourishes you.
However mostly I am working on myself and realising that its the quality of awareness that I bring to my movements that really makes the difference. if I am present and really slow down and catch all the sensations with an attitude of curiousity and befriend and accept what I find and allow it to be and watch how it unfolds moment to moment then I notice the fruits in my life of more energy, less fear, more connection and joy whilst doing my work.
and I notice enjoy particular movements more than others, its the wisdom of my body saying “this way, this is the way” until it doesn’t and then I find something else is asking for my attention. Thankyou body.
As a graduate of Ilana Rubenfeld’s four year training in Rubenfeld Synergy i have used body work for recovery from trauma in clients for over fifteen years. RSM is the most elegant body work among many others. Trainning Programs are available and highly recommened for therapists who want to do more to assist in the healing of loss , grief, emotional stuckness, family issues as well as self worth, addiction recovery, life skills clearification, and truama. Clients report massive boosts in motivation and sucessful trsnsition to positive life changes. Personally I have delighted in working with young women who are adjusting to independence and personal impowerment. We clearly need additiona recgonition for body centered treatment. Everything we need already resides within . Finding the doorway in is powerful and healing.
My practice is called bodydialogues.com
Please ck out my site. I have been working with trauma for over thirty years,
bodydialogues.com
I think it is awesome that the therapeutic community has finally come to see the role the body plays in healing trauma. Pat has been on the front lines. I , too , have been using my work in conjunction with therapists for decades. One such arena has been in retreats I do lead with my colleagues who trained with me through the marion woodman foundation.. You can learn more at
reclaimingourlives.com
Thanks ruth
Janice rous
thank you Ruth for this lovely video. My favourite part was Pat saying with such authentic awe, “The body is so wise.”
Thank you, Ruth, for this inspiring interview with Pat Ogden.
As a retired Osteopathic Chiropractor, I only regret not having this information available to me when I was in practice; for the benefit of my much-loved patients.
I will look up Pat Ogden & The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, via a netsurf, to improve my understanding of Pat Ogden’s work.
Very lovely. Thank you for this easy and powerful teaching. Judith Rivera Rosso, Master EFT Practitioner in Italy 🙂
Thank you for that lovely brief & clear example of how observing how the client already is able to comfort themselves may hold meaning for them if they are able to bring awareness to that sensation or action. I am beginning to work with trauma clients with some yoga techniques adapted to each individual and am inspired by Pat Ogden’s work.