05/11/2022
It's been over a year since I started at The Snowdrop Project. Shortly after I was asked to comment on an article on how massage can help clients who have experienced trauma. I have copied this below and posting this for two main reasons:
The Snowdrop Project needs your donations to support essential services. Here's a direct link https//:www.snowdropproject.co.uk/donate
Secondly, to raise awareness of how perfectly placed Shiatsu is in supporting clients with traumatic stress. The reasons for this are outlined in the short piece of writing below.
Please donate all you can. https://www.snowdropproject.co.uk/donate
How Shiatsu Helps Clients Who Have Experienced Trauma
The information within this article underpins the Trauma Informed Body Based Therapies offered at Snowdrop. Annette integrates knowledge from Neurobiology alongside approaches based on Shiatsu theory, which she has practised and taught for over 20 years mostly with those recovering from abuse, to support clients accessing The Snowdrop Project.
Clients have often experienced multiple traumas. The nature of trauma is that it is too much, physically, emotionally and psychologically, for the individual to cope with. They feel overwhelmed and often develop ways of coping that helped them to survive at the time but now deeply affect their wellbeing. They become stuck.
Shiatsu, a Japanese form of massage, is perfectly placed to work with individuals who’ve experienced trauma as it's practised fully clothed, seated, on a couch or futon. The individual can choose what’s right for them. We work with what arises in the present. It’s relational and can be extremely subtle or involve the integration of more dynamic techniques, supporting clients to balance their nervous systems and promote the smooth flow of energy (what we call Ki in Shiatsu). Build resources to help face the multitude of challenges the clients will face.
Body work is essential to trauma therapy. Bessel van der Kolk’s ‘The body keeps the score’, coins this. I do not ever ask anyone to recount specific events or traumatic experiences as this can re-traumatise. The fundamental approach is to provide the space to work with how the body responds to memory/memories in the present. If a client chooses to disclose, I will absolutely listen, but listen by encouraging the client to track what is happening in their bodies, and to do this very slowly. There is a concept of titration, which Alaine Duncan describes as ‘one gumball at a time’, Steph Hodgson in my Tre® training as the slow releasing of fizz from carbonated pop. This means to support a client safely and appropriately it is essential to go slowly so not to overwhelm; which causes activation of the Sympathetic Nervous system and heightened levels of Dissociation ( the essence of trauma). If this happens and it can, we apply the brakes, so to speak, find ways to help settle, calm and ground. This may involve finding a place in the body that feels comfortable, but sometimes there isn’t so I may invite the client to re-call or imagine a place of calm or a texture such as a snuggly blanket or a pet, somewhere/thing they like and invites a positive response. I may notice a longer breath out, a softening in their shoulders. Lovely!
To help a client feel comfortable and in control of their sessions can literally mean encouraging them to let me know what feels ok, or not. This can be tentative initially as many have completely detached from any sensations in order to survive horrific ordeals. So I may ask; Is that ok? What are you noticing when I work here? You don’t know. Ok, can you feel this? What does that feel like? Would you like more pressure, or less? What’s it like to notice? It is often the case that I cannot speak the language of the client, so I have to pay very close and careful attention to their body language and mine. We have something called mirror neurons, which means I may literally mirror the clients sensations and they mine! To be calm and receptive in myself before beginning any session is imperative, so to be completely attuned.
Resmaa Menekam in his book ‘ ‘My Grandmother’s Hands. Racialised Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies’ captures this. He says;
‘A settled body helps other bodies it encounters to settle as well. This is why a calm, settled presence matters so much - whenever we’re around other bodies - in a partnership, family, brother(I’d add sister)hood or community’.
To know and trust what the body is communicating is essential. The body can get stuck in defensive patterns that have served as a great friend in keeping us alive. However, these patterns can perpetuate and lead to so much suffering on every level. We need to discern uncomfortable from unsafe.
The Shiatsu sessions offer an opportunity for co-regulation - to help heal in relationship to another. Paying attention and trusting body sensations alongside suggestions of self care techniques, provides an opportunity for clients to self regulate; help calm when by themselves.
So what happens in practice?
At present clients can access up to 4 sessions, roughly an hour long. This is a short amount of time, given the nature and impact of experiences. Complex trauma and health diagnoses are usual. However, even in this short amount of time clients have reported significant benefits. One client recently said ‘I can’t sleep. If I fall asleep I wake up scared, terrified. I’m so tired. After Shiatsu, I have the best night's sleep’.
One client told me he had indescribable pain. His GP was aware of this, tests completed and clear, so red flags were ruled out and I worked alongside Medical advice/prescribed meds. He acted out the nature of his physical abuse. His activation rose (and mine) so encouraged a slowing down and noticing of how this memory arose in his body. Visited the place in his body he’d identified as comfortable - an anchor so to speak, to help ground. Prepare his body to receive touch.
Another was experiencing whole body pain and was shaking (a normal response to trauma where the body shakes to calm the nervous system) and on a number of prescribed meds. After 4 sessions he described his pain levels being so much better that his painkillers had been reduced. This was not an aim he’d identified at the beginning of the sessions. He’s back on the waiting list to hopefully access more in the future.
Another client nearly collapsed at the beginning of a session. We breathed together. Her system was completely overwhelmed and we offered advice to help her access appropriate medical support. No meds were actually prescribed, but the attention, listening and care helped build trust. On her last session she told me how she wanted to lay, where she wanted me to work and her body began to soften. For a short while she slept; another who is tormented by nightmares.
And recently a beautiful piece of feedback that says it all;
‘That was like a Lullaby’.
I will shortly write more on how Acupuncture can be used to help heal from trauma.
Annette Lucas
Acupuncturist, Shiatsu Practitioner and Tre® Provider
(MBAcC, FwSS(T), P.G.Dip Ac)
https://www.snowdropproject.co.uk/donatehttps://www.snowdropproject.co.uk/donate://www.snowdropproject.co.uk/donate
Please donate to the Snowdrop Project and help survivors get the help they need to avoid homelessness, exploitation & mental health issues.
