We can use mindfulness of body sensations as a way of alleviating symptoms of trauma.
Finding ourselves stuck in fight- flight - freeze or even further along the continuum, collapse – is something many people experience. Many people don’t even realise these are symptoms of past trauma. They may not even be aware they are feeling anxious or frightened, with perhaps a compulsive urge to flee or fight. Some people sense that in themselves but for others it may take time for a person to realise ‘yes, I’m stuck in fight at the moment’ or ‘yes, I spend a lot of my time in freeze’. It is not until they’ve done some work making contact with themselves through the body, that they realise what is happening inside.
Developing awareness that to some extent puts you outside the experience, as well as inside it, is a first step in trauma recovery. Noticing you are in fight, can be helpful if it allows the body to let go and return to a baseline of felt safety.
Noticing in itself, may not be enough, however. Often, we might be aware we’re stuck in freeze, for instance, but feel there is nothing we can do about it. We don’t always know why it’s happening, except perhaps a vague acceptance that life wasn’t very safe when we were growing up. We don’t have enough connectivity to change this defence response into a more neutral awareness of ourselves in our bodies. We can’t let go of the vigilance.
The technique of using body sensations
The American psychotherapist and writer, Pat Ogden (2015), has developed a successful method of harnessing the body’s resources to treat more intractable symptoms of trauma. The aimis to enable the mind/body to forge new neural pathways and bring us back into homeostasis. The method involves tracking body sensations in a sequenced way when we notice ourselves in high (and low) states of arousal due to trauma. To give an example, an imagined client who feels they are in freeze, the work might go something like this:
Therapist: You say you’re feeling stuck in yourself. Can you tell me where that sense of stuckness might be?
Client: It’s mostly in the lower part of my body. Around my pelvis and also in my thighs.
Therapist: Are you aware of any body sensations in your pelvis?
Client No, just tightness. A kind of numbness.
Therapist And in your legs?
Client I can’t really feel my legs.
Therapist You can’ really feel your legs.
Client No.
Therapist Are there other areas of the body where you can feel more – which are perhaps a bit more lively?
Client I can feel a bit more movement in my chest.
Therapist Tell me about the sensations in your chest. Can you show me?
Client Here, in the centre. There’s a kind of juddering going on.
Therapist Can you tell me more? As you hold your hand on this area, does the juddering get more powerful, stay the same or move to a different area. Just notice…
Client It’s getting more powerful.
WAITING
Therapist What’s happening now?
Client The juddering is easing a little. I can feel some trembling in the rest of my body.
Therapist Can you tell me where exactly?
Client In my chest and arms. I can also feel a lot of tingling in my toes. I’m feeling a lot fear.
Therapist I’m glad you can tell me you’re feeling fear. Notice that feeling but if you can, try to maintain your focus just on the body sensations.
Client I’m noticing if I keep focusing on the trembling I don’t feel the fear as much.
Therapist Did you notice what happened to your breathing just then?
You took a really deep breath.
Client I can feel that breath move downwards through my pelvic floor and into my legs and feet.
This is just an imagined snapshot of a much longer process, but gives a flavour of what the work involves. The focus on the body sensations is helpful as it seems to take the attention away from the part of the brain that registers distress and fear. It thereby allows a person to create new neural pathways which embody a sense of returning to a state of safety.
This kind of work, when incorporated into psychotherapy practice, can be transformational in terms of shifting deep patterns of post-traumatic stress: a state of being we can talk about but may feel ‘this is just how I am. This is fixed in me’. The aim of the therapy is to respond with: ‘ but actually maybe things can change’.
Reference
Ogden, P. Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.