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Somatic Resourcing

What is Somatic Resourcing
Somatic Resourcing (SR) is a body centered way of working with clients to assess and build or repair basic developmental resources we are suppose to have developed in early childhood.  Without these basic resources any form of psychotherapy can be cumbersome and other than effective.  Our core sense of self is developed in our formative years, along with a sense of safety, security, and having a right to exist.  Essentially our formative years equate to building the foundation of a house.  When the foundation is unstable or not there, eventually the house will fall, physical, emotional, cognitive and psychological symptoms will arise.  If we are missing a basic sense of safety and security our ability to be successful at psychotherapy is compromised, both client and clinician.

Somatic Resourcing is used as an initial phase of treatment and can be revisited or incorporated in later phases of treatment to strengthen internal resources.  Why?  Starting treatment with SR gives you a way to clearly assess:
  1. if your client can: read their own experience, dual focus, and give you accurate information.   Working mindfully both identifies whether they have these skills and builds mindfulness (self awareness).
  2. if your client can experience safety and trust with you.  Testing out and building a safe relationship with your client is crucial before attempting to do any kind of trauma resolution.
  3. if your client can ground.  If they are unable to ground they cannot give you accurate feedback because they cannot accurately read their own signals and experience.
  4. if your client can contain strong emotions.  If they are easily overwhelmed or become overwhelmed during trauma treatment they will lose their grounding and boundaries and become re-traumatized.
  5. if your client can stay centered.  If they are unable to stay centered they will not accurately tell you what is right for them or may try to please you instead of staying with what is right for them.
  6. if your client has and/or can they maintain their boundary.  If they are unable to stay boundaried they will not be able to give you accurate feedback and may take on what you think is right for them.
Using SR activities at the beginning of treatment gives you information to build an accurate treatment plan, allows you and your client to learn each others communication style, builds trust and develops a relationship.  These same activities can be used later in treatment to reinforce or more deeply build these resources.  Often in trauma treatment the age these resources were breached will show up and using them again; ie: cognitive interweave during EMDR, Adult self teaching Child self these skills; builds the original missing experience or rebuilds what was breached.

Please note: Somatic grounding, centering and boundaries are different from other forms you may have encountered.  Many programs teach imagination and energetic techniques.  These can be useful if your client already has early developmental grounding, centering and boundaries in place.  If there has been disturbance early in life (in utero through early childhood) imagination and energetic skills will be other than effective.  Each of these activities are related to specific muscular activation at different ages.  So we learn to ground, center and boundary differently at different ages.  Boundary activities are often taught from a defensive position, “to defend boundaries”.  So people learn to “defend” boundaries from an activated stance.  Setting boundaries should be easy and natural.  When a person knows what is right for them they can be clear with others what their boundaries are.  Defending boundaries is a last stage in a hierarchy of responses.  If there has been interference or trauma at any stage these basic resources may be missing.  People can also lose these resources if there has been shock trauma at any stage of life.  People make significant changes in a short period of time just doing these somatic activities.

From my perspective (from over 30 years of experience) most mental disorders are our innate wisdom’s way of getting our attention and telling us we are off the mark, off course from who we really are.  These symptoms start small and continue to magnify when we ignore them.  Just missing the basic resource of being mindful (self aware) will contribute to an increase of symptoms.  Our society’s structure of ignoring or medicating symptoms add to problems and cause further symptoms.  We medicate headaches, stomach aches and fatigue instead of listening to ourselves and making life sustaining and enhancing changes.  Parents have become so disconnected “I am too busy, I have kids.”, schedules are more important than what is authentically happening for a child in a given moment.  How do children maintain and live from their innate wisdom if their innate wisdom is never acknowledged or nurtured?

    Using Somatic Resourcing allows you to assess what internal resources your client has, rebuild what is missing, empowers your client to self repair and trust their innate wisdom.
 
For EMDR therapists, Somatic Resourcing is an excellent way to assess your client’s readiness for EMDR, ie: can they stay grounded, can they dual focus, can they give you accurate information about what they are experiencing or are they pleasing you?  Is there an adequate relationship built?  Somatic Resourcing activities can answer these questions.

For therapists who are practicing Lifespan Integration (LI), Somatic Resourcing will help you assess whether your client can stay grounded, stay present, communicate with you during the process safely and accurately, and if they can have dual focus, all necessary to be successful with LI.  Client’s with early developmental trauma may have difficulty with accurately reporting to you what they are experiencing.  LI is very effective to repairing early trauma and if your client cannot accurately report (because of internal safety issues or trying to please you) they will be unable to benefit.
 
Starting treatment with Somatic Resourcing allows you to build a solid relationship with your client, gives both of you the opportunity to develop a clear sense of communication and trust, a must before doing trauma work.

Successful use of Somatic Resourcing
To be a successful practitioner of SR you must also have these resources.  This is true for being a successful LI or EMDR practitioner.  If you cannot stay grounded, centered or boundaried your client will have difficulty as well.  (See more information under Entrainment).

For more information on philosophy and various perspectives Somatic Resourcing is built from click here.
   
Upcoming Somatic Resourcing 1 Workshops in February 2010
4 Mondays, February 1, 8, 15 & 22
                    or
4 Fridays, February 5, 12, 19, 26
Somatic Resourcing Curriculum

Somatic Resourcing is a program I developed combining the best of tools from a variety of body centered approaches to psychotherapy.  There are three courses available and they must be taken in order.  These are experiential activities and they build on themselves.  There is some cognitive information you will gain and you will get most of your learning through activities and practice in class.

Somatic Resourcing 1
Somatic Resourcing 1 sets a foundation for competent administration of somatic activities.  You will learn:
  • How Somatic Resourcing (SR) was developed, how to conceptualize building internal core resources, how to use somatic resources as an assessment tool, why it is important to use SR at the beginning of treatment.
  • The importance of you having these resources to be successful in working with them with your clients and what happens if you do not.  And you will go through your own assessment and development of each of these resources.
  • How to stay out of your client’s way, how to work within their pace (including how they will learn what their pace is), how to work within their timing, how to use neutral language when administering each activity.
  • The overall structure of Somatic Resourcing
  • As an initial assessment and treatment modality
  • Doing one resource per session
  • Assessing what resources your clients have to identify timing and pacing, and if they have resources already in place how you can add resourcing activities more quickly, following their pace.  This includes how to read their physical and emotional responses since what they think they can do and what their body and emotions are able to do can be different.
  • Setting up a homework program
  • Staying consistent week to week with building resources
  • Work mindfully yourself and how to teach mindfulness to your clients.  Learn to use neutral language and increase your awareness of working neutrally.
  • Somatic Safety, how to identify your client’s Grounding, Containment, Centering, Level of Safety & Relationship with you and their ability to take in support.
  • How these activities can flush out subtle levels of dissociation often not picked up by the DES.
  • Learn how these activities will assess appropriateness and readiness for Lifespan Integration and EMDR, how SR can prepare your client for these modalities and how you can use SR activities later during LI and EMDR to deepen developmental resources and repair breeches.
  • EMDR practitioners will learn how to use Somatic Resourcing activities with a shortened version of the RDI protocol using the Butterfly Hug.
Consultation in Somatic Resourcing is strongly recommended after completion of Somatic Resourcing 1.  Ten hours is recommended before attending Somatic Resourcing 2. 

Upcoming Somatic Resourcing 1 Workshops in February 2010
4 Mondays, February 1, 8, 15 & 22
                    or
4 Fridays, February 5, 12, 19, 26

Somatic Resourcing 2
We will:
  • Discuss your application of SR from SR1.
  • Explore what worked and what appeared to fail.
  • Explore your own progress in your own somatic resources.
  • Learn somatic boundary activities.
Consultation in Somatic Resourcing is strongly recommended after completion of Somatic Resourcing 2.  Ten hours is recommended before attending Somatic Resourcing 2. 

Somatic Resourcing 3
Somatic Resourcing 3 explores:
  • How you have progressed in applying SR in your practice.
  • How you have progressed in your own somatic resourcing.
  • Provides time in class for some example cases.
  • New activities will be presented according to questions asked and case examples discussed.
Ongoing consultation after Somatic Resourcing 3 is encouraged to increase your proficiency.


Instruction Structures
    Somatic Resourcing is best learned on a progressive weekly basis so you are going through the experience much as your clients do.  Due to time and location issues I can structure classes differently.  Here are the different options and pros and cons.

Weekly: You will be most successful in integrating Somatic Resourcing by doing a weekly class.  This allows you to more fully integrate the material both in developing your own resources and in applying this modality and these activities in your practice.  You also will be able to ask questions weekly to apply to your practice.

Biweekly: Somatic Resourcing can be taught biweekly which will require you to create a structure for yourself to stay on task with your own practice and implementing with activities with your client.

2 Day Workshops: Two day workshops are most challenging because of the overwhelm factor.  Somatic Resourcing is experiential learning and your own nervous system can become overwhelmed in doing so many activities at a time.  Just learning to work mindfully, stay out of your client’s way, learn timing and pacing can take a great deal of time to learn.  The amount of material introduced in a two day workshop may be reduced so material can be learned thoroughly in Somatic Resourcing 1.

Internet Video Conferencing: I have been able to teach some of Somatic Resourcing skills via internet video conferencing.  I am currently exploring group conferencing as well to run classes on line.  Video conferencing allows me to teach the course weekly or biweekly so you can integrate them into your practice.  The drawback is you will not experience the entrainment factor.  Boundary activities have to be done in person so we can set up an in person class specifically for boundary activities and other activities that will require in person experience.

Please note: There is a timing and pacing to Somatic Resourcing.  This is also true when you are learning.  If you go too fast with a client or do too much at a time they can be overwhelmed or traumatized and they will not receive benefit.  This is true when you learn yourself.  Working with your and your client’s timing and pacing is part of learning Somatic Resourcing.

Upcoming Somatic Resourcing 1 Workshops in February 2010
4 Mondays, February 1, 8, 15 & 22
                    or
4 Fridays, February 5, 12, 19, 26

Out of Town Classes: I can be flexible in creating out of town programs.  If you are interested in hosting me to your area we can talk about various possibilities: ie: a daily meeting with shorter hours so clinicians can still see some clients, with built in individual work during the week.

If you would like to be put on my e-mail list to be notified of upcoming programs click here and enter your information.

To set up a workshop in your area I can be reached at: 425-747-5774 or email me.
More Information

My Perspective
    From my perspective, much of what causes physical and emotional symptoms comes from thinking, feeling, believing and acting in a way that is other than from who we are authentically.  How do we lose connection from our authenticity?  There are many sources.  Parents may be sick, under stress or other than aware of important developmental activities that are crucial to our foundation.  Children can be affected by parents’ illness, stress or disconnection from themselves.  We are programmed by our families, culture, society, schools, media, etc.  We create beliefs and perspectives to get us through challenges in our lives.  Our beliefs and perspectives may have been all we had available to us at the time, to manage what was going on.  At some point beliefs and perspective that are other than who we really are, are no longer effective and cause symptoms.  Identifying beliefs we created  and making new choices can decrease symptoms.  I often tell clients, symptoms are a way our authenticity is attempting to get us back on course to who we really are and what is right for us. 

Innate Wisdom and Modern Interference
    Developmental activities such as creeping, crawling, cross patterning and spinning are important for neurological development, emotional and psychological development.  Companies have developed products which interfere with our important developmental activities.  These products are developed to manage kids so parents can do other things.  Keeping babies off of their bellies with swings, walkers, seats that keep them on their backs all prevent kids from developing focus, concentration, impulse control, math and reading skills.  We now have an explosion of ADD and ADHD.  Many kids and adults have often been deprived of important developmental activities.  Did you know when infants learn to push themselves up with their arms while on their bellies they are developing boundaries, an ability to push burdens away?  So if a child is kept on their backs how do they develop this skill.

    There is this false notion that infants require “tummy time”.  The fact is all time is tummy time (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) until our innate intelligence moves us to our next developmental stage.  Our curiosity of  sights we see and sounds we hear pulls us into activating required muscles at each developmental stage, pulling us into new skills, ie: pushing ourselves up, creeping, crawling, sitting and then standing.   Challenges we experience, activating and mastering new muscles, contribute to our capacity to face challenges in life, master new abilities, and develop confidence.  A must in living a satisfying and successful life.

    Scientists keep reporting kids under 2 years of age should watch 2 hours or less of TV a day.  They say it is because of the influence of the fast changing pace on TV.  How about the fact they are not bellies doing their developmental job for their age?  Is the fact that our television commercials and programming changes every three seconds because our industry is now being driven by the ADD/ADHD generation?  They say to avoid leaving kids on their backs for long periods of time due to flat head syndrome.  What about leaving them on their stomachs to they can complete their developmental milestones laying a foundation for life?

How Somatic Resourcing was Developed
    Where did I come up with this perspective?   I did some of my own initial work with Betty Lamont who does Developmental Movement.  She has very clear activities for testing how each part of our brain is functioning and then prescribing appropriate developmental activities to rebuild neuropathways.  She is very successful with ADD/ADHD, crack cocain babies, aspergers, head injuries, etc.  She currently travels to various parts of the US working with clients as well as to the UK.  You can find more about her work and contact her through her website.

      I also took the Foundation training of the Bodynamic program.  Bodynamics was developed by Lisbeth Marcher in Denmark.  The early developmental information in Bodynamics has arrived at the same conclusions as Betty Lamont’s Developmental Movement.  You can look at the Bodynamic program at by clicking here.  Bodynamics has mapped all muscles in our bodies and identified when each muscle becomes active and what emotional and psychological issues are associated with each muscle and developmental phase.  Clinicians who have finished all five years of Bodynamics are called Bodynamic Analysts.  They can palpate our muscles and clearly identify what issue requires addressing just by noticing the tone of each muscle.  A clear choice can be made from a Body Map about which issues a client wishes to address.  I have received feedback from clinicians whose clients come to them who had body maps done by Bodynamic Analysts   After doing their own initial evaluation of their new client they found their clients’  Body Maps were very accurate.

    In the 1960s schools in the US were well funded.  Kids with poor focus and concentration, impulse control problems, math or reading deficits were referred to occupational therapists who would put them back through creeping (hands & knees) and these skills would improve.  There are still occupational therapists who provide this service but parents who I have spoken with who have kids in this kind of treatment report their children are only prescribed crawling (hands and knees).  Creeping (belly creeping) is left out leaving an important phase for developing impulse control other than addressed.  If you know of Occupational Therapists who are prescribing both please let me know so I can update this article and put them on my referral list.

    There are other influences as we grow up which lead us to abandon our authenticity.  Do our families recognize, support and encourage our gifts and skills and encourage us to trust our innate wisdom?  Or do our parents also have difficulty with knowing what is right for them so may be other than aware of how to support their children.  Schools, society, media, culture,  all can play a role in programming us to listen to outside sources over our innate intelligence.  Emotional abandonment, neglect and abuse prompts us to develop coping mechanisms that may serve us during these circumstances but cease working as we age, and cause symptoms prompting us to return to our authenticity.

    My goal is providing experiential activities for clients and other professionals to discover who they really are, what is right for them, and what experiences and beliefs require renegotiating or desensitizing so we can return to and live from who we really are.

The Principle of Entrainment in Somatic Resourcing
    Somatic Resourcing requires more than just applying techniques with your clients.  Your clients entrain off of your abilities.  If you are other than well grounded, centered, boundaried or contained, your clients will be unable to develop these resources. 

What is entrainment?
    “The Entrainment Transformation Principle:  A physics phenomenon of resonance, first observed in the 17th century, has an effect on all of us. Entrainment is defined as the tendency for two oscillating bodies to lock into phase so that they vibrate in harmony. It is also defined as a synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles. The principle of entrainment is universal, appearing in chemistry, pharmacology, biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, astronomy, architecture and more. The classic example shows individual pulsing heart muscle cells. When they are brought close together, they begin pulsing in synchrony. Another example of the entrainment effect is women who live in the same household often find that their menstrual cycles will coincide.”  (Source:  Sound Feelings)

    “Entrainment phenomena – the synchronization of two or more autonomous rhythmic processes – have been identified in many natural systems. When one physically oscillating system entrains  another, it means that the timing of repetitive motions by one system influence motions by another oscillator such that they fall into a simple temporal relationship with each other. These phenomena seems to be universal and can be understood within a common framework of nonlinear system dynamics that has been developed mainly in physics, mathematics, engineering, and natural sciences.”  (Source:  Entrainment Network)

    Network Spinal Analysis uses entrainment.  More than one person is treated at a time so each share their resources with others who may have a challenge in a specific area. 

The Importance of Being Mindful as a Clincian
    Entrainment takes the whole idea of transference and counter transference to a more subtle level.  Somatic Resourcing 1 gives you the opportunity to discover what your own resources are.  First you will learn how to work mindfully yourself.  Mindfulness has been the foundation of my work since 1991.  Are you aware when you are grounded and when you are not?  What physical, emotional and cognitive (quality of thoughts not content) experiences do you have when you are grounded, centered, boundaried, contained and when you are not?  Mindfulness will increase your Self awareness and your skills for tracking yourself during a session.  This allows you to use the same skills for yourself so both you and your client can be successful.

    We then move into your ability to track, pace and time your work with your clients.  We will practice tracking activities and how to stay out of your client’s way so their innate abilities can come forward.  I will then go over how to instruct your clients to be mindful so they are increasing their Self awareness and ability to make conscious choices throughout their day.  They will learn over time who they are, what is right for them.  When are they acting from unconscious programming vs their authentic Selves.  As they become more Self aware they can make more conscious and appropriate life affirming choices.  Both you and they become clear about who they really are vs. how they have adapted or taken on beliefs or choices based on programming.  As they become more aware of what is right for them they begin to make new choices and lay a foundation for themselves making trauma work such as EMDR and Lifespan Integration more successful.

More details about what you will learn in Somatic Resourcing
    From here you will learn specific resourcing activities.  You will both 1) learn what your resources are, and build and/or strengthen them; and 2) learn how to do these activities with your clients.  I will ask you to follow the same practice protocols I will give you for your clients so you will be resourced.  If you are unable or willing to fully develop these resources for yourself you will be other than successful sharing them with your clients. 

    You will be able to use these activities diagnostically.  By taking your clients through these activities you will learn what resources they have and what has to be rebuilt, what kind of foundation they have in terms of ego strength and self soothing skills, and what core issues require addressing and in what order.  Somatic Resourcing activities also flush out specific targets for trauma resolution.  They are developmentally based so when a client is resourced they have a foundation to address more difficult issues.  Many of my clients have made huge progress just with this phase of treatment.  They are more easily able to address traumatic experiences with less overwhelm.  They have more of a sense of mastery and choice in their lives. 

    You will practice sit bone and sitting grounding, standing grounding, centering, containment and one or two beginning boundary activities.  You will experience these activities for yourself and continue to practice them on your own.  You will practice teaching somatic activities to others so you can begin learning how to share them with your clients.  I place emphasis on what you say and how you say directions since words can elicit many responses.  You will learn how to do so neutrally and learn what happens when you are running the directions through your own bias.  You will learn how to adapt so clients can be successful, and what issues are showing themselves when clients have difficulty with directions.

How Somatic Resourcing can prepare/assess for EMDR & Lifespan Integration
SR activities will give you a wealth of information.  You will be able to assess if a client can give you accurate information about what they are experiencing, if they are trying to please you, if your relationship with each other can tolerate doing trauma work yet, if they can dual focus (present time and past events, adult self and child self), if they are grounded, if they are aware when they are losing their grounding and tell you.  If they are missing these skills they will be able to build them.  Many clients have new awareness and memories of where less than functional behaviors began which you can add to your target list or your Targeting Sequencing Plan (EMDR).  

    Further courses will get into more activities and developing more competency in administering resourcing activities.  Somatic Resourcing 1 will provide you with tools to become more resourced yourself, lean how to work mindfully, how to share these activities with your clients and how to use them to assess and pace appropriate treatment.


Upcoming Somatic Resourcing 1 Workshops in February 2010
4 Mondays, February 1, 8, 15 & 22
                    or
4 Fridays, February 5, 12, 19, 26
  
  
Contact Me
To set up a workshop in your area I can be reached at: 425-747-5774 or email me.

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