My approach
Somatic Psychotherapy for women
A feminine somatic therapeutic approach
My approach allows you to create a healthy relationship with the different parts of yourself by embracing your whole being on the body, mind, emotions and consciousness level.
When you befriend your body, you can access its wisdom and extraordinary capacity for intimacy, creativity, healing and sexual/sensual pleasure.
I will help you heal sexual and relationship issues which come from a disconnection between the body & sexual energy.
I work with an integrative approach, as I combine several modalities to help you reach the full experience : breath, instinctive movements, sounds, touch, dialogue & presence..
My approach is also integrative because it combines the clinical method of trauma resolution, called « Somatic Experiencing™ », the exploration of our inner parts and limiting beliefs, and the energetic healing of the uterus.
What can you expect from a session with me?
We will spend our sessions together talking ,sitting quietly and focusing on your bodily sensations. I will get to know more about you, as much as you are willing and able to share. One of the great benefits of somatic work is that it is a direct experience; it works on healing trauma without having to know its background. There is no obligation to share what you do not wish to share.
The modalities used in the sessions depend on your situation, your collaboration and your informed consent.
The modalities are: breath, instinctive movements, sounds, touch, dialogue, mindfulness, exploration of limiting parts and beliefs and energetic womb healing.
We work with bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts and spiritual awareness to reunite the repressed or forgotten parts of you. This creates a stable and secure inner structure where natural transformations can take place. It also allows the nervous system to change patterns of dysfunction and gently recalibrate.
Here are the main resources used during the sessions :
– BODY PRESENCE
The body (‘soma’ in Greek) is a direct passage to the present moment. It has an innate intelligence that you will (re)discover. It has the ability, thanks to the nervous system, to transform psycho-biological wounds into vital energy and it will help you feel more embodied, revitalized, refocused and reunified. The body also gives access to non-verbal memories that the mind does not have access to, and to experiences from the beginning of our life but also to the unspeakable realm of the soul.
– DIALOGUE
We’ll always take time at the start of the session for you to share your intention for our time together. Then we’ll keep an open dialogue during the session by using speech in service of the body. As we will put emphasis on your bodily sensations and processes, we’ll compare what you express to what is happening for you emotionally and physically. I will support you with my questions and reformulations.
I will also sometimes invite you to engage in a dialogue with what emerges directly from your feelings. In these moments, speech is used to create bodily and emotional resonance.
– INSTINCTUAL MOVEMENTS
I will invite you to become aware of and explore certain postures, gestures, involuntary or inhibited movements, and I will invite you to move consciously and to connect to bodily or sensory explorations.
Then, I will encourage you to notice their resonance throughout your whole being.
– TOUCH
Neutral touch (usually yours or occasionally mine) is used to provide physical support and comfort when needed. It’s about using the contact of your hands in a therapeutic, gentle and completely non-directive way to recalibrate the nervous system. I will invite you to touch your body in order to get in touch with yourself, and to feel or to support what is happening inside you.
In the event that we are face-to-face, contact through my touch will always require your consent.
– BREATH and SOUNDS
Breathing and sounds will also be used to improve anchoring in your body and to help the circulation of emotional and sensory charges. I will guide you through conscious breathing & sound explorations.
Then, I will invite you to pay attention to their resonance throughout your whole being.
Somatic Experiencing™
Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is a gentle, natural and highly effective approach to prevent and resolve psychobiological trauma and stress-related conditions. Developed by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., Doctor in Medical Biophysics and Psychology, author of the best-selling book “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma” and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement awards from Psychotherapy Networker and from the US Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy.
The Somatic Experiencing™ approach is based on the study of how animals in the wild recover from stress and life-threatening situations. (see Peter Levine videos below)
The method that Peter A. Levine created is a holistic approach facilitating access to the body’s memory, something largely forgotten in 20th century therapies.
It speaks to the innate ability to heal that we all possess. He says that post-traumatic stress is a result of a natural mechanism gone wrong.
During a stressful experience, where our nervous system has been overwhelmed, an internal tension remains trapped and disorganizes the nervous system. Our body is then traumatized and cannot return to a normal state. Symptoms can appear even years later.
The symptoms are therefore not created by the event itself but by the level of disorganization of the nervous system.
Somatic Experiencing® is a tool that has its roots in neurobiology and therefore allows the nervous system to integrate stress or trauma and, thereby, deactivate the emotional charge stored in the body, allowing the person to return to a normal life..
What is trauma?
Trauma is not a fatality, but a biological protective reaction in response to a situation that has not resulted in discharge, and a highly charged survival energy has remained blocked in the nervous system.
Trauma occurs when the self-regulation capacity of the nervous system has been exceeded. The nervous system can then no longer respond to stimuli and stress adequately, even in the future. It needs help to reset and return to normal.
What type of event can cause trauma ?
– illness, high fever, accidental poisoning,
– loss of a parent or loved one,
– physical or psychological abuse, including abandonment and emotional neglect,
– sexual abuse,
– accident,
– aggression,
– medical interventions, or certain medical treatments,
– surgery,
– anesthesia,
– prolonged immobilization, casts in young children,
– fetal and/or birth trauma,
– natural disasters such as fires, floods, earthquakes,
– witnessing violence or one of these events, or even another smaller event that nevertheless caused a significant impact on the person who experienced it.
Traumatic symptoms
– difficulty continuing to live and act as before,
– difficulty being fully present and in the flow of life – being stuck,
– sometimes intense emotional dysregulation (irritability, mood swings, attacks of anxiety, panic, rage, terror, depression),
– behavioral disorders in women: submission/compliance to external demands, fusion with those around them, people-pleasing to maintain the connection, emotional dependence
– chronic hormonal disorders, endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, infertility,
– insomnia, nightmares,
– phobias,
– chronic pain,
– chronic fatigue,
– frozen gaze or body,
– addictions
In the SE approach, bodywork does not require you to know or tell the story of the event. The work is done directly at the nervous system level.
Security and subtlety are a priority in order to allow:
1- the nervous system to remain in a state of regulation to build a greater capacity for adaptation;
2- to feel within you the impulse of an action/inner movement which had not been able to express itself. This allows the nervous system to come out of the frozen state and find a suitable motor response, and to gradually discharge and resolve traumatic symptoms.
Motor responses are the natural biological responses of the nervous system to stress, which could not be achieved during a traumatic event.
>see the 5 stress responses in women’s bodies below.
The sessions will gradually allow your nervous system to let blocked responses “out” and regain balance, stability, appropriate reactivity and robust resilience.
The 5 stress responses in women’s bodies
There are 3 types of physiological responses of the nervous system to stress and potential danger + 2 more types specifically applying to women (from the polyvagal theory).
The flight (1) and fight (2) responses are the first biological reactions to be activated when a potential danger is detected. These responses come from the sympathetic nervous system, governed by our reptilian brain, which manages our survival, but also the states of security, consciousness, etc.
When the threat is too intense or long lasting, the nervous system activates the freeze response (immobility) or the dissociation (3) response. It is governed by the parasympathetic nervous system. In order to break out of the freeze, we have to go through the uncomfortable fight or flight responses, so it is important to proceed slowly and gradually.
As women, our hormones predispose us to certain responses to the danger of rejection & abandonment. These are :
– fusion and conformity (4) with external demands, when we fade away in the face of others/society and when we think it is not legitimate to express our truth (imposter syndrome),
– – people-pleasing and submission (5) when we seek to please, to play the role of the one who takes care to gain the approval of others. Difficulty saying No and setting limits.
Bibliographic references :
– In an unspoken voice – How the Body releases Trauma and Restores goodness, Peter Levine
– The body keeps the score, Bessel van der Kolk
– Waking the tiger – healing trauma, Peter Levine
– It didn’t start with you!, Mark Wolynn
– Trauma-Proofing Your Kids: a parents’ guide, Peter Levine