Twig's SE Reflections: Recent Episodes
Anthony Twig Wheeler
A podcast series for Somatic Experiencing® Practitioners and other helping professionals studying the psychobiology of traumatic stress and well-being.
Continuing on with a mini-series on The Voo Sound. Here we take a deep 2-hour dive at a still incomplete list of values and opportunities in the Voo Sound from introduction to tracking sensation, to stimulating the viscera in titrated fashion, to effecting energy well transitions, utilizing a “reverse engineered intervention” to evoke the ventral vagal complex’s influence on the Vagal Brake and on and on…for those who are still curious or dubious about investing time and attention in the Voo Sound with your SE clients, here is support and encouragement in making that investment.
Next episode we’ll take a look at invitations and applications of the Voo Sound.
I’ve been looking forward to returning to SE Reflections for a series of episodes in 2023 and had intended to start by reviewing the many reasons for the Voo that we do (for yourself and with your clients).
Then at the close of 2022 I had a most remarkable health crisis due to mold exposure coinciding with recovery from COVID-19 and it was the Voo sound that really turned my hard times around – and I got to watch as it all happened – leading to a reinvigoration of my advocacy for the Voo sound and my segue back into sharing these SE Reflections with you.
These are trying times, and still, there are SO MANY THINGS YOU CAN DO.
Yes There Are.
Yes You Can.
Here's a link to the project mentioned in this episode: SEP's in the Time of Covid-19. There is no fee.
A link to this episode's sponsor: RiverMinutes.com
You probably need a minute by the river.
An episode dedicated to looking at the challenges, and some of the inherent psychobiological influences of the current pandemic.
Here's a link to the project mentioned in this episode: SEP's in the Time of Covid-19. There is no fee.
A link to this episode's sponsor: RiverMinutes.com
Just guessing, You probably need a minute by the river...
As I re-release the Guide to the SE Language and move toward making improvements on this project I've been looking for SE students and practitioners who would like to join me in this study.
To share news about this I've prepared a small series of Promotional Ads to demonstrate and talk about the opportunities for SE Practitioners who join me in this exploration of the SE Language.
I hope you'll find this piece helpful in itself.
And I hope you'll consider joining me in one of my online programs for SE students and practitioners...your financial support helps me further develop the SE Reflections.com website and stay safer in the world.
https://vimeo.com/384210306
I'm pleased to be re-releasing the Guide to the SE Language in an improved Version 2 form this week and am looking forward to the first months of 2020 where I'll be adding more materials for those joining me in this study.
To share news about this I've prepared a small series of Promotional Ads to demonstrate and talk about the opportunities for SE Practitioners who join me in this exploration of the SE Language.
I hope you'll find this piece helpful in itself.
And I hope you'll consider joining me in one of my online programs for SE students and practitioners...your financial support helps me further develop the SE Reflections.com website and stay safer in the world.
https://vimeo.com/383636577
I'm re-releasing and building upon the Guide to the SE Language in the first 3 months of 2020.
This will make it a very robust v.2 with over a decade of thoughtful work and development.
To share news about this I've prepared a small series of Promotional Ads to demonstrate and talk about the opportunities for SE Practitioners who join me in this study of the SE Language.
I hope you'll find this piece helpful in itself.
And I hope you'll consider joining me in one of my online programs for SE students and practitioners...your financial support helps me further develop the SE Reflections.com website and stay safer in the world.
https://vimeo.com/383293539
Play Episode 100 Here
With Enthusiasm and Excitement I've been returning to publishing works on the internet for SE Practitioners everywhere. This is an inaugural episode for participants in my Where to Start support program for SE Practitioners, though I think it'll be relevant to non-participants as well. I hope you find it interesting and supportive. And if you'd like to join in the Where to Start program, you can do so at any time (though please note that there's a price increase from $125 to $175 this December 2nd at midnight).
Sometimes things feels like everything is at risk, everything is a threat, everything can take us out. Not everyone has that sense, not everyone who has it has it all the time, but when we have it, it's good to have accompaniment with someone who can accept how we feel while also helping us hold on for when things change.
Then Again, Hope Springs Eternal - Maybe 2017 won't be so so bad? Let's find out.
Before the "silence goes on too long" let me share a little New Year update from Twig's SE Reflections podcast project. This will probably be most interesting to regular listeners: it's mostly a progress report and a bit of cheerleading. A few final content heavy episodes before reaching 100 are still to come.
Play Episode 99 Here
The holiday season impacts different people in different ways, from the option of taking it all in to wanting to be narcatized through it with a request to be reawoken on the other side.
One of our opportunities with things like SE is helping people make more appropriate and successful levels of participation with the holidays, including helping them manage or even transform their associated stress response.
In the season ahead, it's a good idea to consider the various possibilities in the Holiday Session and what good you might be able to help your clients find in them - even if that is them discovering that they want to tell the holidays to take a hike.
Play Episode 98 Here
I'll be adding Show Notes eventually. For now, I hope some of you will enjoy the audio recording which is available here.
You can also download my original primer for Preparing for Surgery below by entering your email below – which will help me gage interest in this piece and also let you know of updates to the primer.
Guide for Preparing for Surgery
Surgery is naturally stressful. You can minimize this stress by preparing for it. This Free Guide will help you with that. An updated version of this primer is in development. For now, here's the original.Signing up for this primer also adds your email address to Twig's Newsletter for Helping Professionals. Over time this will share news with you about other related projects and updates.You can unsubscribe at anytime.
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Play Episode Recording Here
I'm still looking for the opportunity to complete Episode 98 on Preparing for Surgery. On the way there I wanted to say hello, cheer folks who are headed to Adv. II and completion of the SEP training and share some thoughts on getting more comfortable through failing and looking forward to the next opportunity to do better.
With a cup of tea and a microphone, I'm waving and wishing you well on my way out to the forest where I'll be teaching bushcraft for the next little while.
I'll return to the studio toward later September.
Play Episode 97 Here
We must make mistakes. It's part of the process of learning this craft. Exploratory SEP's can be enthusiastic about their mistakes because mistakes make us think long and hard about "what went wrong" and how we can do things differently.
Ultimately our "library of experience" develops over time, through countless twists and turns. Some of these are clearly real mistakes. Things we simply will not do once we know better. The list of real mistakes is long and each of us has our own unique way of making them.
This episode covers several key mistakes that I believe are extremely common in SE Students and Practitioners everywhere. Cheers for that, we're in good company.
Play Episode 96 Here
I'm in Chicago doing something "different" than what I normally do. (A 5 week comedy improv theater intensive.) It's helping refresh my attention for my SE work. It's also a good opportunity for me to offer up this SE Reflection episode on advocating that we remember to engage "other things", not just Therapist related stuff.
I'd bet we all want to be a well rounded, interesting people; for ourselves, our families and our clients. I'd bet.
"Try something new everyday." -Maude
Play Episode 95 Here
Here is a very long episode that boarders on exhaustive, though hopefully not too exhausting. The subject? Considerations and a pattern of thought for how we attend to people soon after they've been in an accident. At those times SE Practitioners have a special and often unique offer of support and guidance for aiding the completion of the autonomic stress response.
This episode is a review, encouragement and cheerleading for that opportunity. It's going to take you several hours to listen to.
Play Episode 94 Here
This does not cover every last thought I have on Orientation and what is required to ensure smooth meaningful participation when you're asking people to "allow their eyes to go where they want to go." But this 2-hour episode is probably the last thing I'll say about Orientation on this podcast project.
You may need to approach this in rounds and I've left a few things out that would have been helpful to say...but this is what we've got. Please make use of it as you like. I think you'll see that I put some effort into this for you.
Play Episode 93 Here
Smoothing out the rhythm of our sessions is an ultimate goal. From the back and forth between us and our clients to the in and out of our client's attention with the environment and their experience, much of this rhythm is cultivated by whether we encourage lingering or moving on.
From calculating how long we can linger, to making sure we don't over stay, developing the skillfulness to know what kind and how much intervention is necessary at what choice point takes time. And it can help to think about the dynamics involved.
Here's an episode that breaks down some elements inside the perennial question: should we linger here...or move on.
Play Episode 92 Here
CAUTION: This episode includes several strong curse words.
Identifying, naming and explicating a client's experience is rarely as effective in Somatic Experiencing sessions as is joining in a more empathic, visceral and reflective (i.e. mirroring) way. Of course there are times for clarifying what you know about a client's experience and describing its values. Yet, nothing moves a felt sense experience forward like having the right amount of emotional reflection infused in the room.
That's why, on occasion, we need to be willing to curse in our sessions.
Play Episode 91 Here
Our SE work is motivated by the desire for change and animated by bearing witness to changing experience. As we cultivate our appreciation for Pendulation and all things "in flow" we can find it confusing to see what to do with client's who report things "just being stuck".
How to help the stuck thing move again is central to our work and thus bigger than this hour+ long episode but herein lies some empathy and solidarity for the practitioner who feels frustrated and alone in their stuck sessions. Included are suggestions on contracting, language adjustments, invitations to prime the sense of change and background reminders to us all on what's at play and why we can't just "want it to be different."
Play Episode 90 Here
Here's a longer episode reviewing 10 of the Comedy Improv games and their associated SE lessons that form the spine of my super fun SE refinement workshops Practicing Our Lines.
Each game is covered in-depth with layouts of how you can perform the game in a group and what insights SE Practitioners can take from them.
Games Reviewed Include:
Wordball/Nameball60 Second Life StoryPatternsPolyvagal Family PortraitsSpeech of a Life-Time in Numbers from 1-100What-Cha Doing Now?Copy/Paste for Cutting Back the PhraseSlow Motion Ninja RiotTiger-Alien-CowCounting to 20
This episode will probably work best if you break it up game by game.
Play Episode 89 Here
Techniques and technique generally is key to our success as SE Practitioners. Being able to identify what is happening for a client, what that indicates about what is coming next, having some sense of what to ask for next, all of these are necessary to move sessions in the right direction.
And yet, other times there will be a dramatic unfolding that happens simply because the Practitioner has "A Feeling" and follows it. In those moments, technique likely only gets in the way!
Play Episode 88 Here
In SE Sessions, some things are associated, while others are not. Practitioners need to see these relationships for what they are and decide if there's enough differentiation amongst associated pieces to create the context for penduluation. If so, off we go to see what happens next. If not, various differentiating, mitigating and directing questions will be necessary to help bring about that swing.
In this "treading water" episode I borrow the audio version from Chapter 33 of Twig's Guide to the SE Language to share some thoughts on "seeing the Pendulation Terrain" (limits and opportunities of associated experiences) and prime listeners of this podcast for an upcoming episode on priming successful pendulation. https://vimeo.com/164844929
Play Episode 87 Here
Dynamic sessions that move toward productive change rather than maintain the status quo regularly introduce new things.
These include: experiments (also known as excercises), Practitioner behavioral changes (like increasing or decreasing pace of reflections) and trying on of different channels of attention for the client (such as turning toward sensation or image).
In this episode I encourage SE Practitioners to try new things out "once" so that they can read the feedback of how it went and adjust their next interventions accordingly. Simple like that.
Mentions:
I reference a few older SE Reflections episodes this time around, including:
e.38 - It's a Try It Out Kind of Thing (in which I encourage your to, well, try things out)e.01 - The Importance of Spontaneity (a critical metric for successful movement in sessions)e.43 The Formula (how to attend to the storyline without getting caught in the negative parts of it)e.77 - Will this Be an "I Can" or "I Can't" Moment (not mentioned but it could have been.)
Some Added Thoughts:
Sessions are dynamic, not rote experiences.
The new SE client doesn't necessarily have a complete understanding of the SE session process, nor are they likely to be familiar with the kinds of experiences they'll encounter in your presence. There's going to be a lot of new things coming their way.
That's part of the point of doing therapy in general: To find new ways of being rather than just repeating old ones. Thus Practitioners are going to offer a steady stream of "new" ideas, observations, requests and so on.
Some of these will be transparent to the client, some of them will be more behind the scenes.
On the transparent side will be clear request to try something out, such as "I wonder if you'd be willing to try a little experiment with me here?".
These are generally best offered invitationally, as something approaching "an experiment", with attention given to the curiosity of what is found during and after trying this new thing.
It's probably also best if they're done with a "beginning, middle and end" with a check-in/evaluation time afterwards to see how it went (also known as "a round").
Also, it's easier to manage the expectations from these experiments if you diminish or remove the sense of profundity before the fact. This can be super necessary if, in then end, the experiment doesn't go anywhere.
What is discovered then helps inform both the client and practitioner of what can be expected next.
Was it easy? Simple? Difficult? Scary? Successful? Productive? Annoying?
Did "tyring that thing" increase intrest, engagement and participation or did it thwart it?
This feedback – from both Client self-report and Practitioner observation – is critical for determining if the request should be titrated up or down, simplified, repeated at the same level or, as is the case sometimes, abandoned altogether or shelved for later.
Then there's the less transparent side of things. These include behaviors, questions and requests from the Practitioner that are simply layered into the session behind the scenes. We might try to mirror a client's behavior, comment on positive elements of experience or even ask for internal sensation reflections as in our classic line "Can you tell me what you notice now?"
If the introduction of any of those slows or stalls the session rather than move it forward with more spontaneously, we're best off reading that feedback and adjusting how we do things next time to garner more ease and acceptance of the new thing.
For example, when a client has a difficult time answering the "What do you feel now?" question, it may be necessary to:
Clarify the question next time (don't assume they know what you're asking for)Make it smaller (titrate it down)Ask a more oblique question ("If someone else had a response to that kind of thing, what might they be feeling right now?
I know I'd prefer a softer landing. How about you?
Play Episode 86 Here
Some of our clients have been "going, going, going" and are going to continue doing so until they "collapse." When we can see that coming it's often worth introducing the idea of planning or preparing a time when they can permit themselves to "not do more" but instead allow their bodies to try to rest and restore a little.
Obviously not a solution to overarching activation, unsustainable lifestyle choices or classic nervous system disregulation, the "planned collapse" can help soften the challenge of an exhuastion that threatens to make things worse.
Toward the end of this episode I role-play an introduction to offering these ideas to a client: complete with mitigating language, preempting the Red Vortex, menuing, and titrating toward the Yes - any of which might be cut out when they're unnecessary due to a client's relative interest or resiliency. These are all communication issues that I cover indepth in Twig's Guide to the SE Language.
Mentions:Although I flail when trying to remember Marjorie Shostack's name in this episode, her book Nisa is a classic ethnographic exploration and well worth checking out sometime. Here's a cliff note style review.
We're all about following and permission. Yet, when that's going to lead to a client getting hurt, it's time to come in and do something.
Play Episode 85 Here
There are times in sessions when movement becomes increasingly free and involuntary. It's a special thing to watch the body "come out of freeze" like that. And there are cautions: like being attentive that a sharp angle on a joint doesn't cause damage for later. To avoid this practitioners need to monitor the range of motion for even as we support it to "do its thing" we don't want to let it become too extreme.
Play Episode 84 Here
When we're stressed we think less. That's true for everyone but it's an especially vexing fact for our distressed clients – many of whom desperately need to make more helpful and healthful decisions on behalf of their well-being.
Milton Erickson, the famous psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, knew this too. That's why he maintained a list to reference when his body got racked by pain due to his history with polio.
I often tell clients about Milton's list (and my own) and why it may be a good idea for them to create something similar for times when they're "freaking."
Episode Mentions:
Milton Ericsson - WikipediaMilton H. Erickson M.D.: An American Healer - Amazon - non-affiliated linkKathy Kain - Somatic Experiencing® FacultyStephen Gilligan - Trance Camp
When I'm introducing this idea of "Milton's List" to clients I'm first trying to get it across that:
We think less when we're stressed so it's a good idea to have an aid to help us re-direct our attention toward more helpful ends.Other people have needed similar lists and have been willing to use them (such as Milton Erickson and Twig).Repetitive distress is rarely productive and usually deliterious. Working on our behalf to minimize it's consequences is a smart thing to do.Each of us has a pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that we do when we're "freaking out." Our goal is to name some of those steps so that when we see them coming we can turn our attention toward the list.No single aide or activity is going to be the answer every time.
When I'm helping clients create their list I try to:
Find resources or activities they've already discovered on their own that they know are helpful in calming things down. As in Kathy Kain's question: "When these things have happened before, what have you found that helps the most?"Help them think creatively about about other "resources" they have in their lives that they could lean on to help them minimize their repetitive activation.Increase the amount of social contact or "outside of me" attention that can be engaged.Encourage the use of somatic and physiologically informed activities that can be anticipated to help calm things down such as:
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Orientation – Engage the world around you rather than reference "in you" too much.
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Simulated Pendulation – Probably in the 3x3 pattern of "Naming 3 things you can see around you, name 3 things you can feel inside, name 3 other things you can see." Repeat.
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The Hook – Brain Gym move where you tangle your hands, arms and legs across the midline of the body and press the tongue to the roof of the mouth.
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Sometimes breathing excercises, though rarely do I include this.
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Grounding excercises in rounds – Like standing in a doorway with the outside of the feet and hands pressing out to the doorjam.
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Squeezing things in rounds – Like plastic water bottles or towels.
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Ripping up Newspaper in rounds – The sound is so so satisfying.
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And so on...
Setting up easy access to this list can be necessary:
Sometimes just talking about the idea of such a list is enough to give people something to lean on rather than focus all their attention on recurring anguish.Other times it's enough to actually make a list on a single piece of paper.For some, making copies of the list and posting it around the house, in the car and at the office is a better idea.The homescreen of a smartphone can be another handy place to have this list available for quick review.
The more we can "let that be itself" – the better. Helping to find the amount of possible allowance and being satisfied with that, is a key to successful integration.
Play Episode 83 Here
There's a classic moment in SE sessions when a client is successfully moving through the activation cycle only to balk at allowing the discharge or deactivation phase because it "feels too weird" and indeed often times this phase includes truly odd, unsettling or even frightening sensations. It's important to get adept at gauging how much allowance of this "wierd" experience can be tolerated and to work toward trying to limit the attention to the "strangeness" in a way that your client can be successful at allowing this very "new" impression to be felt and integrated in their somatic experience - as much as possible.
This episode looks around at the timing, considerations and some lines of trying to help these unique experiences be felt and "move on through."
Play Episode 82 Here
An unrestrained reverie episode considering the mythical, idealized and probably impossible Perfect Therapeutic Island. Includes a look at when it would be necessary to go there, what would make it ideal, and words of encouragement on what we SEP's can do when holding the tension between the reality of what is possible and what we wish for.
Play Episode 81 Here
Practically speaking, when every knew sensation is a threat there are things that SE Practitioners need to do in order to enable success rather than recapitulate the feeling of pain, failure, or the impossibility for change. Episode 81 looks at some of the step by step nature of bringing pain laden movement sequences into small successes and "back out again." It's all in the name of success in getting to do something new, rather than the same old thing that calls up the pain and thus reinforces it.
Play Episode 80 Here
Sometimes pain is the overriding signal in a client's experience. Try as we might there's simply not much ease or goodness to be found. In this episode I start to look into what we can do about such a scene in order to get some traction to help things change. Funny enough, this episode gets cut short due to local conditions so the next one will tackle the more practical elements while this recording covers some of the basic concerns for the practitioner and client when working with chronic or overwhelming pain.
Play Episode 79 Here
Challenged sleep is a psycho-historical phenomenon of the times in which we live. It's also a very real and personal experience for many of our clients. Being able to think and talk about sleep from multiple different levels is a requirement of our work.
This episode looks at self-care tactics, some broader notions about sleep and reiterates my conviction that enhanced self-regulation accessed through completion of self-protective responses is a golden key to help us close our eyes at night and find out what are dreams are going to be about.
Play Episode 78 Here
One paradox in our SE work is the need to engage the "problem state" or "Red/Trauma Vortex" material and at the same time avoid it becoming too much of itself. Some of us get quite good at helping clients feel calmer and even generally "better" simply by helping them avoid reinforcing their attention toward disquiet and turmoil.
Still and all, eventually we need to address the problem, the challenge, the task at hand. This episode simply names that out and makes an encouragement to not avoid (fear) the text.
Play Episode 77 Here
Our SE sessions are made up of dozens, if not hundreds, of elements of experience encountered in the moment. Part of our task as SE Practitioners is to help clients thread their attention through these elements in a way that maximizes the sense of success while minimizing the sense of failure - ala the "I Can Principle."
Judging what is going to become an "I Can" moment and what will lead to reinforcing "I Can't" requires time, experience and attention. This critical weighing of what is going to work and what isn't will be greatly aided by realizing that you're constantly updating this assessment and that you''re better off working in relationship to ideals of "what should be happening" rather than continually frustrating a person's success by either asking for or being unhelpful in minimizing when things will not be successful.
In short, we need to be able to perceive what our client's "can do" and help them achieve that while doing our best to minimize what they "can't do." Here's a reflection on some elements that go into this assessment.
As SE practitioner we often either accompany or prepare our clients for stressful events. Things like surgeries, court battles, conflicted meetings with family or employers and so on. These inherently stressful events can be hard on anyone and are especially challenged for people who already experience themselves in regular distress. They're also the kind of events that we shouldn't "do alone" if at all possible. And whenever possible, hopefully we'll have an advocate on our side.
Advocates can focus on all kinds of different responsibilities. In this episode I consider the advocate whose role is to help modulate the stress response during a challenging event. This is only a first look at a broader subject that I'll return to more specifically around preparing for surgery and medical procedures.
Preparing for Surgery Primer
In this episode I mention a Preparing for Surgery primer/guide that I created years back. This piece still needs an update but the original document still stands up and by signing up to download it below I'll know how to tell you when the updated version is available.
Play Episode 75 Here
Along the path of learning something as dynamic as Somatic Experiencing is extended time repeating and mimicking other peoples words, voice, rhythm and presentation. This "copy cat time" is probably necessary. There are so many patterns in our work that require our extensive practice before they become our own. Once they do become our own, once we hear our own voice and expression coming in to guide our sessions...we should give a cheer and turn that way. Even if it includes quirks of our own personality that may be unique to us. Ultimately finding our own voice reflects our at-ease-ness in the room, which transmits through our tone and posture to signal a stronger sense of safety "I'm okay to be here. And so are you." Here's some encouragement for going through the process of finding your own SE voice.
Play Episode 74 Here
The consistency of our signal and feedback to our clients is key to helping them get to know us and our work quickly. The more random, confused or inconsistent our requests the harder it is for our clients to find security and success in our offices. This reflection doesn't go into all the nuances behind helping our clients get to know our work but it does look at this issue of consistency and offers a few ideas on where to apply it.
Play Episode 73 Here
From the first contact we're learning things that will matter later in the session. The more we acknowledge that we're actually trying to get to know our client's quickly, the better we'll get at it. This episode includes some storytelling from the field in DR Congo where my ability to get to know my client quickly made all the difference.
Play Episode 72 Here
There are occasions when it's problematic if our client's "fall away" or "go to sleep" during our sessions. However most of the time it's an honor and potentially a very good sign when a client "let's go" in our presence. Letting down in the company of a member of our own species is a mammalian expectation and not always easily achieved by some of our clients (or ourselves). This episode looks at a few considerations involved in what helps, and hinders, people from letting go near us.
Play Episode 71 Here
Silence is a critical and natural part of SE sessions. And yet sometimes it can go on too long.
The client can sit there in silence while you explain things excessively.You as the clinician can sit there in silence while your client talks and talks endlessly.The two of you can sit in awkward silence not knowing what to say next after you ask "what do you notice now?"Worst yet, sometimes in Freeze/DVC phases the silence can become terminal and reinforce the stuck state.
In this episode I look at some of the dynamics of allowing silence to go on too long: including internal critical dialogue of the practitioner, consequences of allowing too much silence and some solutions to avoid it being problematic.
Play Episode 70 Here
To work eyes open or closed? That is the question. Rather than one way being "right" and the other "wrong," there are times when one or the other is more appropriate with a continuum between the extremes. This episode looks at some of the dynamics behind when we're better off to help our client's keep their eyes open and when it only makes sense to let them close.
Play Episode 69 Here
A common challenge for SE Practitioners is accommodating clients who have high expectations for the success (or failure) of this work. Too often immediate demands from either the client or practitioner curtails curiosity, participation and permission to engage with a process that necessarily takes time to develop and unfold. In this episode I look at some of the considerations we can hold while accommodating high expectations in our office.
Note: Unfortunately the recoding of this episode included a background buzz that I'm unable to eliminate. This will probably make listening through earbuds or headphones unpleasant. My apologies for that. I'm still learning. I appreciate your patience. - Twig
Play Episode 68 Here
Learning new things takes time. You need to experiment with all kinds of different combinations, try different things out, take note inside yourself on what works and what doesn't. Such things take time.
Like learning the nuances of a new landscape or city. The local resident has a dozen tricks for getting to the airport on time. The visitor or newbie needs to give extra time for getting stuck in traffic because they simply don't know the secret way. So too with learning a craft like Somatic Experiencing. There are a dozen routes to where you want to go, but you'll need to put some time and attention into learning where you're likely to get stuck and where you found the goods. This episode offers some encouragement to let yourself experiment along the way while you learn this new terrain.
Play Episode 67 Here
Without a doubt, some sessions are smoother than others. Some work "like magic" while others can be a long slow torment for clients and practitioners alike. One thing to do is ask what the smooth sessions have in common and what attributes therein can be cultivated to make all sessions ring with a bit more satisfaction. This episode looks at a number of these "positive deviancy" elements that we'd like to see everywhere.
The Themes in this podcast have matured in this program...
Play Episode 66 Here
Today is January 1st, 2016. In celebration of starting another calendar year I've offered up a little meditation on Looking Back and Looking Forward. To get where we'd like to go is always a process. Things take time. Today you're not troubled by at least some things you found excruciating 5 years ago. Same too with skills and smoothness of execution in our SE sessions. We get better at these things over time. That includes coming through where we were before to where we are now and only then where we'll go next. It's a journey. The New Year is a time I like to see where I'm at along the way. Maybe you too.
Note: Sorry but for some reason iTunes isn't update as normal so you're probably only seeing this if it's fixed or you came to www.liberationispossible.org. I'll get that fixed soon but not this moment.
Summary: A short message out of the Winter Silence I've stumbled into as Solstice Season has come on. I'll look forward to being back with more SE Reflections podcast episodes on January 1st.
Wishing you all a safe and gentle holiday season.
https://vimeo.com/149810598
Play Episode 75 Here
There's a hope amongst many of us that if we can just "get this to Pendulate" than the task will be done - we can then sit back and watch the magic happen. I don't offer an exhaustive list of why that's a fantasy or incomplete appreciation of what we're doing but I can assure you it is. In a informal-podcast-kind-of-way I say as much in this episode.
Mentions:
In the close of this episode I recommended Brad Kammer's webinar introducing Larry Heller's developmental trauma model NARM. I attended this 2 hour program with Brad recently and was appreciative of NARM (and Brad's) ability to distinguish between Shock and Developmental trauma. There are more introduction webinars coming and I find them reasonably priced. Here's a link to the registration page on Brad's site.
I also saw that the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute is doing another round of short programs on the Foundations of Disaster Response. I'm just saying...I think that's a really great thing. The locations and dates are all listed on this page.
Play Episode 64 Here
Continuing with the theme on Pendulation, this story based episode reviews a few reminder details about how to help ensure that things oscillate if they're not going to of their own.
Many of the themes I touched on in Episodes 63-64 were addressed extensively in my Guide to the SE Language.
Play Episode 63 Here
Here is a critical question behind the scenes in every session...Will this Pendulate? From a repetitive tension pattern to a looping storyline there are plenty of times a felt experience won't find change unless some outside smarts are brought to bare. That's part of our job as Somatic Experiencing Practitioners: to be able to discern whether an element of experience is likely to pendulate or not and what to do based on that assessment.
Do we lean on this or that element of experience? Do we trust the pendulum to swing or get in there and direct it? Do we hope for the best or make something else happen? I don't answer these directly but I do look at them all while holding the tension inside the question - will this pendulate?
Many of the themes I touched on in Episode 63 were addressed in my Guide to the SE Language.
Play Episode 62 Here
There are moments in sessions that stand out as more important than others. These events range from increased curiosity to full fledged tracking of involuntary somatic experience. Typically the attention necessary to catch and follow these moments of significance are lost on our clients due to the general noise or thoughts and expectations common to us all. Before we can expect our clients to hang out in the present moment we're going to need to learn how to guard it for ourselves and we'll often need to protect it for others - sometimes even from ourselves and our professional desires. Here's one group of things I'd like to share about a hidden detail in our SE sessions that makes all the difference - how we protect the moment.
Here's another little time-lapse showing part of the process of making these podcasts.
https://vimeo.com/143889052
Play Episode 61 Here
An episode dedicated to a meditation on the similarity between facilitating SE sessions and the act of hunting in the open field, including notions about shared frame of mind, attitude, challenges and joys of engagement. Along with some thoughts about what we're looking for as key information scent in our sessions and the need to sometimes "Hold back our hearts" while the conditions for success are being cultivated.
Play Episode 60 Here
Maybe it doesn't happen to everyone but plenty of us have wondered if we're frauds. It's only natural. This SE stuff is a "different kind of thing" than most of our clients are prepared for. The worry that we don't know what we're doing is easily exacerbated by not having enough traction and felt success in our work. This episode takes a look at some of the pitfalls that can enhance the feeling of being a fraud along with some sincere practical solutions for the time while you're developing your own mastery of this craft us SEP's aspire too.
In this episode I mention that my friend Abi Blakeslee and Dave Berger (both SE Faculty) are teaching a workshop together in LA this November 12-16th. The title is: Relational Development, Rupture and Repair A Somatic Developmental Perspective workshop. Go Team!
Play Episode 59 Here
Here's an easy going look at what comes of every session - closure. A truly non-exhaustive look at the end of sessions.
Play Episode 58 Here
Fall is here and for many of us that means we'll be attending various workshops or trainings focused on our "improvement" (of Self, profession and so on). These are fabulous opportunities to move us along the change process to where we hope to go. We get inspired, feel the difference, expect more from ourselves and others back home. Great! What an opportunity. At the same time, maybe we want to be careful after workshops to not sign any new contracts until we reintegrate with our daily lives. Here a quick, admittedly slightly brambled-up yet forgivingly short episode saying as much.
Play Episode 57 Here
I know I'm not alone! Some of us hate the beginning of sessions. If that includes you here's some commiseration, reality testing, suggestions and what I do to cultivate attunement with the aide of Tit for Tat style reciprocity. There's also a description of one of my favorite adapted improv games: Slow Motion Ninja Riot.
Play Episode 56 Here
We're back after an unexpected - under-coupling induced - publishing pause! Here's a reflection on the value of people watching for gaining experience in "seeing where a person is" on the various different Somatic maps. Along with the back story on the under-coupling event.
Play Episode 55 Here
Finally, a look at the oldest branch of the Autonomic Nervous System as noted in the Polyvagal theory - the Dorsal Vagal Complex, the sub-system in us that is more akin to older, slower, less engaged critters on the family tree. This is a rambling look at a unique part of our biological heritage that has profound clinical implications for Somatic Experiencing practitioners and others tuning into the wisdom hidden in our physiology.
Play Episode 54 Here
I needed to step sideways of the review of the polyvagal theory layout and organization of the ANS and go with a topical concern right now while wildfires are back in my area. It's an interesting opportunity to consider where we place our attention and what we focus on when we encounter repetitive dangerous events. My preference is to lean on what's helping things go in the right direction - at least as much as possible. This is a pretty "off-the-cuff" episode.
Helpful Links to Episode Mentions:
A workshop I think we should all check out: Foundations of Disaster Response for SE Providers by the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute
An early post by me with very basic thoughts on working with people after natural disasters.
This gives good background story on the fires I talk about in this episode: Twig's SE Reflections Podcast #47 - Natural Disasters in one SEP's Backyard.
Play Episode 53 Here
Continuing on with a little series on the Autonomic Nervous System from a Polyvagal perspective - this time focusing on the Ergotropic (mobilization) system, commonly known as the Sympathetic Nervous System. News...I'm letting go of the mini-series format. These podcasts are going back to the chat chatty pattern. I guess that's why this podcast is called "Twig's SE Reflections."
Play Episode 52 Here
2nd in a group of mini-episodes that are supposed to be limited to 5 minutes. Go figure, this one on the basics of the anatomy associated to the Ventral Vagal Complex broke the rules and comes in at 12 minutes. So it goes. Show Notes Page with with additional commentary.
Many of us think of the Polyvagal theory as challenging. Understandably so, it's kinda complex. That's necessary and appropriate for what it is, namely: a parsimonious theory that explains a multidude of phenomena with a simpler, more elegant explanation than what science had found before.
3 cheers for Stephen Porges for having changed history and opened up an entirely new understanding of ourselves and the general goings on in evolution. Unfortunately to pull that off requires some pretty big words and that can confuse us. Here's my prediction. Soon enough it'll be completely commonplace in our lexicon and we'll rattle off phrases like Nucleus Ambiguous or Ventral Vagal Complex as though we always knew them. Soon enough.
In the meantime let's name the major physical attributes about this newest branch of the Autonomic Nervous System (both in our understanding and in terms of phylogenetic or evolutionary origin).
The VVC or Ventral Vagal Complex is a collection of associated neurological and anatomical structures in our body. It so happens that all of the muscular and visceral components that allow us to socially engage; breath, eat and speak at the same time; and keep calm while in close proximity to others we find trustworthy (a new mammalian capacity that didn't exist before 60 million years ago) are connected by nerves that make them all work together. .
While the a study of all of this can go very deep with gradually more complex levels of distinction, a great place to start is by simply naming the anatomy that is included in this system and think about what these structures do for us.
It's also helpful to recognize that these anatomical structures are all tied together in a "complex", joined by specific kinds of nerves that are all very fast in their transmission of information and ultimately connect through the central "hub" of the VVC, the Nucleus Ambiguous -NA (ambiguous by name and by dent that it is difficult for scientist to isolate and clarify the boards of these nerve nuclei, not because the system doesn't know what it's doing).
Innervated by these super fast nerves (fast due to their myelinated sheath that helps their signal run faster along the path) is all the stuff in us that allows us to be social, like:
Muscles of the Face. - For expressing emotion and signaling our experience to others.Muscles of the middle ear. - For tuning the ear to the frequency of the human voice so as to hear one another instead off all the other noise in the environment.Muscles of the eyes and eye lids. - For emotional communication, seeing and orienting.Muscles of mastication. - Basically for eating but think of our eating as a social species as a basically a social act where we often eat and speak together at the same time.Muscles of the neck. - Most commonly referenced for this is the sterno-cliado-mastoid muscle that turns our heads left and right for orienting to new sounds and shadows, but head bobbing is also included in this.
Additionally the VVC has major influence over the supra-diagphramatic organs like:
The heart or more specifically the sino-atrial node that acts as the pacemaker of the heart. - Active VVC influence on the "vagal break" brings the heart into a dynamic rhythm and frequency and relationship with the breath and aids to the feeling of well-being and sense of safety (i.e. A calm heart).The lungs. - VVC influence here helps us maintain oxygenation while doing complex tasks like talking and swallowing (i.e. Easy to breath).The Larynx and Pharynx. - These help with vocalization as we expel air in good coordination with the lungs when they are innervated by the VVC (i.e.
Play Episode 51 Here
The first of an unknown number of mini-episodes from Twig's SE Reflections. This one on a hopefully unnecessary worry of creating an intellectual cultural bias favoring the pro-social or Ventral Vagal stance at the cost of excluding (and stigmatizing?) those who don't have or want it. Show Notes Page with with additional commentary.
[Note: I'm still working out some changes for the next 50 episodes of Twig's SE Reflections after recieving positive and helpful feedback from listeners. Many thanks to those who took the time for that. In the meantime I'm going to share some mini-episodes of 5 minutes or less. Here's the first, with a little written commentary in the show notes.]
Here's something I don't think is an active problem but something we need to be cautious of as SE Practitioners develop an intellectual community with a common language of what we like and what we don't like.
We don't want to become so attached to the idea of being Ventral Vagal oriented that we become exclusatory or inadvertently enforce stigmatization of people who are not currently - or may never want to be - very "pro-social."
Let me explain.
Humans, as with our primate relatives, have a tendency to make social groups that reinforce our clan's preferences. This is part of what makes being part of "the in group" feel so good - our behavior and choices are championed. We feel a part of something bigger than ourselves and are encouraged to think that we're correct in our assumptions.
This is also why it feels so bad to be on the outside, shunned or not included - it suggests that we're doing something wrong and that we are, in some sense, actually wrong.
As you and I grow more and more fond of the langauge associated to the Polyvagal theory (wiki) and begin using it as a short hand for naming beneficial features and calling out challenging ones, we'll want to remember this basic tendency in human nature and try to avoid creating a "this is better than that" duality.
Of course it can be argued that mammals have a tendency toward Ventral Vagal dominance in their nervous system when they feel safe enough. That the resulting "pro-social" nature is spontaneous and a functional attribute of nervous system state is one of the great insights to be found in the - very cool and parsimonious - Polyvagal theory.
However, the exact same principle suggests that tendencies toward Sympathetic or Dorsal Vagal type behaviors such as high activation or desire for isolation are also informed by the autonomic nervous system and often describe the burden of accumulated stress and chronic neuroception of danger or life threat, even if we're unaware that this is part of what's going on. Ultimately this probably explains ourselves more than common cultural or psychological explainations of the associated expressions of personality (i.e. Type A or Extreme Introvert amongst others).
In this way, we can probably assume that many people would express more spontaneous pro-social behavior if they experienced less accumulated stress in their lives. Thus a bias toward signs of Ventral Vagal innervation are an understandable desire of ours as trauma focused helping care professionals.
At the same time, when we cheer the "that's so Ventral" moments, in and out of sessions, we'll want to remember that we live in a puralistic society of people, many of whom have experienced challenges that have led to the accumulation of stress - and personality formation around that stress - which makes social engagement itself a challenge or even truly undesirable. For that matter, on any given day even the most social of us might find seclusion the ideal state.
All that to say, people expressing SNS or DVC tendencies are no less human and no less worthy than those of us who have found the comforts to be gained by reinforcing pro-social experience.
While all of this is more a cultural concern far beyond the scope of being an SEP and I'd...
Sleep well SE Land. "I hope you have good dreams with Adventures and Things More Simple." I'll see you again soon. -Twig
Play Episode 50 Here
In this unique episode I share a my gratitude and a bit of transparency boarding on T.M.I. followed by an announcement that this podcast is going to take a publishing pause while I assess whether it should continue beyond episode 50? There are now 15 hours of SE Reflections available for you in the archives and perhaps this is a good place to change course or stop. You can give your feedback on this page at www.liberationispossible/gratitude-transparency-podcast-050.
Play Episode 49 Here
Referrals are critical to our work. They bring us new clients, expand our reach into different populations and pre-establish rapport with prospective clients. They also create some challenges of their own, like unmanaged expectations for the rare magic SE session. Without being formulaic about how to deal with these challenges I open up some things for us SE practitioners to be thinking about in relationship to referrals and referral sources.
Play Episode 48 Here
When preparing my land for a big fire, a small fire nearly got out of my control. Similar to working with Global High Activation and other patterns that quickly lead to a conflagration, we often need to put in buffers or fire lines before working with flammable stuff. Here's a little metaphor story from my own fire and encouragement to you to create those contracts and buffers with your clients before things get out of control.
Play Episode 47 Here
What can an SEP do when a "Natural Disaster" comes to their backyard? It's happened to a lot of us already, it will surely happen to more in the years to come. Here's some background on what I did when the largest wildfire in Washington State History, the Carlton Complex, started 5 minutes walk from my home in July, 2014 along with what I was able to offer my community as things started to cool down. I hope this will encourage other SEP's to think proactively about such things for the future.
You can find the StressLess Series Here
My first night of relief after the fire passed. Eventually I slept for 20 hours straight. So sweet.
Play Episode 46 Here
When is crying productive? When isn't it? When do we encourage it? When do we avoid it? Those are good questions. None of which will be answered for you in this episode. Instead you'll feel more informed as you continue to search for more and more ways to answer those questions on when crying is helpful, when it's not and how to support it best.
Play Episode 45 Here
One of the most common questions I've received is what to do after completing the official 3-year Somatic Experiencing training. How to deepen, expand or cultivate more skill with this paradigm for working with traumatic stress and integration of experience. Here is a ramble through the brambles of my thoughts on such things where I encourage it all: master classes for cultivating speciality or creating awareness of holes in your abilities, assisting for a thousand reasons most of which I don't name but a few that I do and my strongest suggestion to consider auditing at least 1 course from the training again to consolidate and see just how much you already know.
Play Episode 44 Here
Cogitating, reviewing, pre-playing our sessions after hours, we're bound to do it. Taking work home with you is a known stress point in modern life and yet some professions demand it. The trauma recovery specialization is one of them. We do, and we need to, think intelligently about our sessions to improve our skills. We also need to think specifically about our client's in order to improve their session outcomes. Good. Great. Let's do that, let's just not do such dissection ad-infinitum. Here's one, admittedly rambling, proposal to both permit and simultaneously restrain chronically thinking about our work after work.
We attend to and pace the Red. But we're most interested in helping to balance the two by paying extra attention to the Blue.
Play Episode 43 Here
When listening to a storyline or following a somatic experiencing style investigation it's helpful to have a clear way to recognize what is less and what is more important to reflect. This episode is lifted straight out of the Tips and Suggestions section of Twig's Guide to the SE Language. Here's one way to name: The Formula.
Play Episode 42 Here
Some sessions are going to go places we don't want them to. When that starts to happen we can hope to be skillful in moving things to the better direction. If we can see early on that we're not likely to be successful at redirecting attention later, it can be a good idea to pre-establish a contract so we'll have something to lean on when it comes time to ask for a pause or when we interrupt.
In this episode I mention an earlier blog piece on the same subject of establishing and leaning on the contact which you can read here.
Play Episode 41 Here
The clarity of our feedback is key. From timing, to amount, to directness and indirectness and so much more, the "correct feedback" matters most in a distressed nervous system full of noise and confusion. We can't, and shouldn't, expect ourselves to be perfect. We can hope to continually get closer and clearer at reflecting "the right direction" appropriately. Here's a completely sideways story to help you think about the clarity of your feedback.
Play Episode 40 Here
We're going to make mistakes. It's a fact of the complexity of our work. Fortunately, as part of the learning process mistakes are profoundly helpful. Let's pay attention to them.
“There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes” - Richard Buckminster Fuller
Certainly it's not only so that we'll give our clients the feeling of being in an interrogation. We ask all those questions for multiple reasons, the most important being that they help us direct attention without telling our clients what to do. This is a borrowed episode from a chapter in my Guide to the SE Language.
You can learn more about this Guide to the SE Language below.
Play Episode 38 Here
Let's face it. This stuff is massively complicated. Anyone who is going to get good at it is going to need to experiment and try new things on. You know, risk making mistakes! I think we can do that.
Play Episode 37 Here
Closing this mini-series on Choice Points with a brief discussion on choosing when to go to sleep and other - outside of the session space - opportunities to elect for options that are more helpful to our biology.
Play Episode 36 Here
To allow invite an involuntary experience with allowance or to wait and develop the attention more before doing so? That's the choice point behind the slightly tacky phrase Observational Sufficiency. You know, whether they're "paying enough attention."
Play Episode 35 Here
The ease and completeness with which a person can exit the interior experience (Vortexes) and return to Orientation points to several different directions within this choice point and suggest what to do next. At least that's one way to see it: like coming to a choice point with multiple trails leading off from it and the degree and ease of Orientation helps name which path to go down.
On the deactivation/discharge side of a wave or arousal cycle, it's a good idea to be watching out for the choice point of whether we should "stay inside" or "get the attention out" as in continuous and intermittent tracking.
Play Episode 33 Here
Our sessions often contain multiple rounds of activation cycles, each of which has a beginning, middle and end. Before going on to the next "round" it's a good idea to actively assess whether we should or not. This is a classic choice point.
Play Episode 32 Here
The 1st in a mini-series on "choice points" in our sessions. First with a little review of these points of no return and what they signify followed by a discussion of the choice to allow freeze/immobility or to try to redirect out of it (before it comes on).
I mention John Muir's adventures with the dog Stickeen. Here's a link to the Stickeen story. It's lovely.
Play Episode 31 Here
Sharing a simple personal reflection on just how international the SE learning community has become. Good to remember that we're not alone.
Play Episode 30 Here
An unappologetic peptalk for the SEP's out there who are looking to improve their confidence when needing to direct or redirect their client's attention. The Super Hero Pose might help.
Play Episode 29 Here
Hopefully we're all going to find these. The moments when we see the stress response complete with such an obvious naturalness that we know, through and through, that it's simply waiting to happen. Here's one of my personal examples and the origins of my "What if everybody knew?" question. With humble gratitude for Peter Levine for having seen it all in the first place.
Play Episode 28 Here
The capacity for differentiation between ourselves and our clients is critically important. So too is our ability to appreciate what our clients are going through. Sometimes putting ourselves in their shoes, at least in our imagination, can be helpful for recognizing what they can and can't do. Plus, it helps us remain human.
Play Episode 27 Here
Classically there's transference and counter-transference and all the "stuff" that goes along with that. While avoiding those words I review some thoughts on how to name and keep the differentiation between ourselves and our clients when we are getting entrained, entranced or otherwise overly connected to our client's experience.
Play Episode 26 Here
Our most treasured question in SE is probably the classic: "What do you notice now?" This Open question preserves autonomy and empowerment for our clients as they can answer anything they like, including the dreaded "I don't know." At those times, realizing that there are different ways to ask questions can help practitioners keep things from getting stuck. Here are 3 types of questions that we might use in different situations - Open, Menued and Constrained.
Play Episode 25 Here
Outside the confines of the penetrating gaze is another reliable and uniquely intelligent way of seeing, one where subtle shifts of shadow and form stand out from the noise. The use of peripheral vision in SE sessions is often a learned practice and something worth exploring. It'll help us see the more subtle postural, micro and preparatory movements that we often miss when we stare intently at our clients. Here are some thoughts on developing the tendency for soft seeing.
Play Episode 24 Here
There's so much interesting stuff to learn swirling around SE and the new traumatology. Sometimes we want to grab it all at once. Sometimes we need to pace out our studies. Here's a little cheerleading for my fellow learners along the way.
Play Episode 23 Here
There are times that we need to speak quickly, right off the top of our heads. This is especially true in sessions when people are running headlong into harm with their narrative and we're trying to identify, name or reflect the "blue vortex" elements or resources as they pass by. Practicing with moving our mouths can help us respond more fluidly in these moments. I'll encourage you to give it a try.
Play Episode 22 Here
Once we've established enough stability, either in the broader or simpler sense of things, we might choose to do some "resiliency testing" where we'll push things to their edge a bit. This is valuable for information and also for expanding our capacity by progressively increasing the challenges that we take on and being successful with them.
Play Episode 21 Here
The way we meet and great our clients is obviously important. Maybe less considered is the pace and tone we use to close the door when saying goodbye.
Sometimes getting where we want to go requires backtracking a bit or even relaxing in the distance we've already come before pressing on to new ground. Considering the "local maximum" can be helpful in determining which is which.
Play Episode 19 Here
We often say similar things to different people, creating a kind of "pattern" that gets our message across effectively. This is also helpful in giving us ways to direct people's attention and allow us more free attention for noticing our clients. Together this could be named "patter" and that's the topic of this episode. With a potentially useful example that you can play with as you like.
Play Episode 18 Here
A sponsored episode on ways to get passed the guard that clients often have around noticing positive experience when their focus is directed toward the negative. Thanks Michelle.
Play Episode 17 Here
When listening to a trauamtic storyline an SEP's questions and reflections influence what a client pays attention to. Here is a simple map to help guide your responses to different categories of story elements. From "I Can" to "I Want" to "Not Me", it's helpful if you've thought about what we're most interested in supporting - Success or Failure?
And then lean in accordingly.
Play Episode 16 Here
The first sign of something being different is often the start of a trail worth following (for as long as it provides good "information scent"). Things that stand out are a call to our attention. Here is a little list of things that should stand out to SE Practitioners in SE Sessions, told with a little story of how noticing the differences led to a splendid encounter.
Play Episode 15 Here
We can focus our attention on any number of things...the worst case scenario, what's "off", what we still have left to do. We can also choose one of my favorites: Cheering for things when they're in the right direction. No matter how small, every little step in the right direction deserves a cheer.
Play Episode 14 Here
Around the time that chronic troubles begin backing off people have the opportunity of getting on "The Upward Trend." It's a nervous system thing as much as anything else but it's nice to talk about some of the elements behind it...like consistent sleep and good choices in friends and partnership. It's also a good thing to recognize that people can get to a place where therapy is less and less important and choices arising from a more accurate neuroception often become more and more accessible (leading to a better and better life).
Play Episode 13 Here
Staying in the Session can be difficult when you start thinking "I'm not going to be able to do Somatic Experiencing with this person." Banish the thought! Stay in the Session, that's the only way to be present for when something new happens that you can work with.
Summary: One of the challenges being in "distress" or having the symptoms that go along with trauma and nervous system dis-regulation is that things feel "off" and "weird". That makes things challenging since SE follows a kind of logic that suggests that at some level, those uncomfortable feelings are part of what needs to be "felt" and "experienced." Helping our clients come to a sufficiently participatory place with such feelings is a critical element of the work that we do and of the help that we offer. And it's one reason why our client's need us (for now).
Play Episode 11 Here
Daily life probably has some kind of balance between Positive and Negative experiences where, more or less, the ideal is that we can swing between our impressions of them both. Spend enough time around danger and that swinging gets skewed toward the distressed side of things. Getting a sense of how much positivity our client's can handle, along with increasing our own ability to do the same, are hugely helpful in working with folks who've been "put through it."
Play Episode 10 Here
Teachers of complex crafts like Somatic Experiencing come in all different styles and capacities for explaining their own process. But none of them can ever name everything they're doing, nor should they. Part of learning the craft is learning how to pay attention and to sometimes "steal the technique." This takes your active participation and observation along with your willingness to adjust your own behavior when you see something that works better, because the truth is, some things can't be explained.
Play Episode 9 Here
We'll spend hours a week sitting in similar positions to people who are actively seeking therapy because they're in distress. That means we'll spend hours a week in the postures of distress which are not otherwise our own. We need to remember to tell our bodies that we're not in that associated upset whenever we can. We've got to remember to move.
Play Episode 8 Here
One focus of this project is to answer questions I receive from SE people about our work. This time I'm working off 3 questions:
Why does it take so long to learn SE?Did I do something wrong if I lost a noncommittal client?What does it mean to talk to people in different ways depending on where they are in the stress response?
Simple like that.
Play Episode 7 Here
The architecture and design of our autonomic nervous system means that certain parts are going to work depending on the needs of the situations. We'll run for our lives if we have to and digest our food while chatting all night if we get to. The perception of what the situations demands or allows is made by our organism, at an involuntary level, and it centers around the question: how safe am I right now? "Is it okay for me to engage, or should I be fighting or fleeing or immobilizing like an ice cube?" They call that assessment process "neuroception" and in a word, it's: human.
Here's a link to the recorded conversation that Irene Lyon and I had around Neuroception.
Play Episode 6 Here
As we get better at Somatic Experiencing we're going to see a bunch of ways that we'd like to change what we do in our sessions. Here's one friendly pattern I use to change my own habits when I discover that I'm doing something that is unhelpful to the process. Funny, it's all about titration.
Play Episode 5 Here
SE could be called a lot of things but one of them should be an "amalgamated practice." There are so many creative threads running through the corpus of the SE tradition that we're indebted to other modalities as much as our own. And we can also learn from them in helpful ways to increase our artfulness within our chosen area of focus as SE Practitioners. Here's a review of some of the adjunctive studies that I found particularly helpful (there are far more besides).
Play Episode 4 Here
After nearly 18 months away from these podcasts I'm excited to have my free attention back so I can resume this project. Here's a brief hit on why I've been away with a little insight hidden between the lines about the cost of a neuroception of impending doom - like from the fire that became The Carlton Complex this Summer, 2014.
Play Episode 3 Here
How do you get through sessions with people experiencing "freezy business"? That is, as a practitioner what do you do with your attention to not succumb to the freeze or interrupt it unnecessarily. Here are some tips.
We have two things to consider here:
Some people are dominated by freeze/immobility states which requires an SE practitioner to join with a slower pacing.During the renegotiation process of completing freeze/immobility practitioners can get "taken" into that state and have a difficult time keeping "awake and aware."
What do to then?
For now let's put aside questions like:
When do you allow freeze? [check out the Needs for Successful Renegotiation of Freeze post ]How do you facilitate freeze when it's the right thing to do?How do you avoid it when the timing isn't right yet?
In this podcast I look at various things a practitioner can do to keep their attention from becoming too frustrated, distant or intrusive with when working with freeze/immobility states.
These suggestions include:
Giving some part of your body the option of being agitated while differentiating this from the rest of you that is communicating with your client. (i.e. Please don't let your agitation leak into your session).Letting yourself be "taken by the freeze" in small doses that are then intentionally interrupted by occasional re-orientation. (i.e. Letting yourself get foggy and then looking around again, letting yourself get foggy and then looking around again, and so on).Counting your client's pacing and making a silent counting in your own mind before making your responses so you match their pace. (i.e. You notice that you talk faster than them. Count how long it takes them to respond and then insert that same amount of time into your pauses before you respond).Imagining or "seeing" the conversation or investigation moving between you and your client like a slow motion ping pong ball. (i.e. Trying to make sure you don't "slam" your client but instead return the volley in nice easy strokes). [That should probably be "table tennis."]Lengthening your form of speech or 'stretching your words out like taffy." (i.e. "Yooo'u knooowwwww, li-ke talkinnnggg nnnn looong forrrmmmmm.")Creating a verbal contract that puts you on record as generally talking faster than your clients and making a committment to talk more at their pace. (i.e. "I just noticed that I'm talking faster than you and it occurred to me that it might be helpful to you if I make an explicit effort to talk a little slower so you have time to collect your thoughts.")
For now I leave out here the discussion of what to do if you're on the opposite side of this spectrum and generally talk much slower than your clients. That's a different question and one I'll have to take up some other time.
Play Episode 2 Here
Tracking felt-sense experience isn't a "one size" fits all kind of thing. It has nuances that require discretion, particularly for clients with higher degrees of accumulate stress.
One definition of "tracking" could be the "application of attention over time." Since attention is both integrating and potentiating we need to watch for the balance of trying to maximize how much integration we facilitate while minimizing the likelihood that "things" will get potentiated beyond the range of "I Can" observation. Trying to maximize attention and failing because we try to do too much is no way to succeed. Yet we do want to maximize how much our clients are able to pay attention to things.
One helpful solution to this challenge is to consider the roles of continuous or intermittent observation or "tracking" and the question of when, how and why we choose one over the other at various different times and for different people is what I review in this podcast.
If you find that you're constantly asking your clients to pay attention to what they're experiencing and "just stay with that" only to discover that what comes next is the opposite of what you hoped for, this would be a good episode to review.
In this 23 minute piece I review:
The concepts of continuous and intermittent tracking.The range of "I Can" observation.The helpfulness and danger of potentiating experience through observation.Some patterns and timing of intermittent tracking.A few specific elements on times to use continuous or intermittent attention.Projections on various studies for practitioners on related themes to these two styles of tracking: including languaging, accurately assessing a client's "I Can" level of observation, redirection of attention and more.
Ask me a question I can say yes to!
Play Episode 1 Here
In this first podcast I look at the issue of spontaneity and its critical importance in Somatic Experiencing sessions.
I take on 3 main ideas in this 20 minute episode:
To start with we don't want profundity. We want brevity. Anything to get things started with a "back and forth" between us and our clients.Increased spontaneity is a key element to successful SE sessions and decreased spontaneity is a critical piece of feedback that says "Practitioner change what you're doing!"Asking people questions they can say "Yes" to makes things move forward (and more spontaneous). That's far better than asking questions that will very likely return a "No."