Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1515580
A B M P m e m b e r s ea r n F R E E C E h o u r s by rea d i n g t h i s i s s u e ! 31 PL: I think unhealed, untreated trauma has a profound effect on our health—not just on our mental health, but on our physical health. And trauma that's been healed, that's been transformed, often leaves people in high degrees of empathy and care and sensitivity. It's ironic, because when it's unhealed, it's a completely destructive force. When it's healed, it's a completely constructive force. TL: Is having experienced a traumatic event itself the trauma, or is it the way we recover from trauma (or not)? Is that the injury? PL: It's not in the event. It's in the body. It's in the nervous system. Resilience is critical. Can we help our clients who have been traumatized restore resilience to come back with more compassion to self and others? These are the things that are the positive side of trauma, only trauma that's resolved. Because if it's not, it leads to all kinds of physical and emotional problems. TL: Trauma has the potential to open us up and add meaning. PL: To open us up, or to shut us down. TL: If we can get really practical, what advice would you give to bodyworkers about signs or situations where they want to put on their trauma lens? Is that a fair question? PL: It is. It's not necessarily trivial to answer. But the body is a snapshot of what has happened to us in the past. That was actually one of the things that Ida Rolf taught. But it's a snapshot of responses that got stuck. So, I've gone back to that first example. If we were hit as a child, for example, our shoulders would start to go up and protect themselves. They'd stay there until they get a message that it's OK to let them down. Now, one of the things I think is especially important for Rolfers is that sometimes we maybe push on the muscles, and maybe push on the muscles too hard, because the body needs to know it's safe again. So, it's essential to be gentle, to take time to let the body speak to you. TL: You were describing a trauma response of the shoulders going up. Maybe if I'm just thinking physical level, maybe I'm going to push the shoulders down. PL: Talk to the shoulders with your touch to say, "Here I am. I'm with you. I'm just going to stay here and support you so you can let go." That's the type of message we want to convey in our hands to the other person's body. TL: You were creating waves at the Rolf Institute when I was first teaching there with these ideas. They're not such radical ideas, but they're fundamental, and you were questioning our explanations. I remember at some point—tell me if this is a false attribution—but someone said Peter Levine has some calculations that show that the force we use couldn't possibly change fascia in the way we think we are, and that the changes must be due to something else. And this started a number of us on an inquiry, including Robert Schleip, my mentor there, on this big fascia inquiry. PL: Right. Actually, in the last few years, I think that Ida Rolf was largely correct about the fascia. But again, the question is how to approach the body, including the fascia. When we've been protecting ourselves for a long period of time, it would be nonconductive for the economy of the body to keep the shoulders up, and to use neuromuscular energy to do that. So arguably, what the fascia does is it shortens itself. And so when it's shortening, then it's going to need to be lengthened again. But again, the question is "how" and "when." TL: When you say that you're thinking now she was correct in ways that maybe you weren't thinking before, is that what you're talking about, that there is a role for the physical part of the body in reinforcing these shapes and patterns? PL: Yes, indeed, of the fascia itself. But we have to also be aware of the body's response, the nervous system response, the neuromuscular response. TL: How can we as bodyworkers be most helpful when we have clients who may be dealing with unresolved trauma? PL: First, connect—that means first connect with ourselves and then connect with the other, and spend time together . . . You want to create the possibility of some degree of safety, because trauma is about the opposite of safety. It's about threat, not about safety at all . . . Trauma isn't just what happens to us, but trauma is what happens to us in the absence of the present, empathetic other. TL: OK, so you work with bodyworkers. You also work with a lot of psychotherapists. At what point might bodyworkers be out of their scope of practice around working with trauma? PL: Yeah, that's an important one. I had such a difficult time saying this in the way I want to say it and convey it, but when we start probing and asking clients more and more about their traumas, I think that's when we may go over the boundary as a bodyworker. Because you can't say, "Well, we don't address their traumas," because somebody who's touching the body is addressing the trauma, as it's "I think unhealed, untreated trauma has a profound effect on our health—not just on our mental health, but on our physical health." —Dr. Peter Levine