Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book
“When clients are hyperaroused or overwhelmed emotionally, voluntarily narrowing their field of consciousness allows them to assimilate a limited amount of incoming information, thereby optimizing the chance for successful integration. For example, as one client began to report her traumatic experience, her arousal escalated: Her heart started to race, she felt afraid
and restless, and had trouble thinking. She was asked to stop talking and thinking about the trauma, to inhibit the images, thoughts, and emotions that were coming up, and orient instead to her physical sensation until her arousal returned to the window of tolerance. With the help of her therapist, she focused on her body and described how her legs felt, the phyisical feeling of anxiety in her chest, and the beating of her heart. These physical experiences gradually subsided, and only then was she encouraged to return to the narrative.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
and restless, and had trouble thinking. She was asked to stop talking and thinking about the trauma, to inhibit the images, thoughts, and emotions that were coming up, and orient instead to her physical sensation until her arousal returned to the window of tolerance. With the help of her therapist, she focused on her body and described how her legs felt, the phyisical feeling of anxiety in her chest, and the beating of her heart. These physical experiences gradually subsided, and only then was she encouraged to return to the narrative.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
“Although most psychotherapeutic approaches "agree that therapeutic work in the 'here and how' has the greatest power in bringing about change" (Stern, 2004, p. 3), talk therapy has limited direct impact on maladaptive procedural action tendencies as they occur in the present moment. Although telling "the story" provides crucial information about the client's past and current life experience, treatment must address the here-and-now experience of the traumatic past, rather than its content or narrative, in order to challenge and transform procedural learning. Because the physical and mental tendencies of procedural learning manifest in present-moment time, in-the-moment trauma-related emotional reactions, thoughts, images, body sensations, and movements that emerge spontaneously in the therapy hour become the focal points of exploration and change.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
“This reorienting is not an attempt to avoid or discount clients' pain and ongoing suffering. Rather, it is a means to help them observe, firsthand, how their chronic orienting tendencies toward reminders of the past recreate the trauma-related experience of danger and powerlessness, whereas choosing to orient to a good feeling can result in an experience of safety and mastery. As clients become able to do so the new objects of orientation often become more defined and & Goodman 1951). Rather than attention being drawn repeatedly to physical pain or traumatic activation, the good feeling becomes more prominent in the client's awareness. This exercise of reorienting toward a positive stimulus can surprise and reassure clients that they are not imprisoned indefinitely in an inner world of chronic traumatic reexperiencing, and that they have more possibilities and control than they had imagined. These orienting exercises need to be practiced again and again for mastery.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
“In bottom-up approaches [to processing trauma], the body's sensation and movement are the entry points and changes in sensorimotor experience are used to support self-regulation, memory processing, and success in daily life. Meaning and understanding emerge from new experiences rather than the other way around.
Through bottom-up interventions, a shift in the somatic sense of self in turn affects the linguistic sense of self.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
Through bottom-up interventions, a shift in the somatic sense of self in turn affects the linguistic sense of self.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
“The redirection of orientation and attention can be as simple as asking clients to become aware of a "good" or "safe" feeling in the body instead of focusing on their physical pain or elevated heart rate. Or the therapist can ask clients to experiment with focusing attention away from the traumatic activation in their body and toward thoughts or images related to their positive experiences and competencies, such as success in their job. This shift is often difficult for clients who have habituated to feeling pulled back repetitively into the most negative somatic reminders of their traumatic experiences. However, if the therapist guides them to practice deeply immersing themselves in a positive somatic experience (i.e., noting the changes in posture, breath, and muscular tone that emerge as they remember their competence), clients will gain the ability to reorient toward their competencies.
They experience their ability to choose to what they pay attention and discover that it really is possible to resist the somatic claims of the past.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
They experience their ability to choose to what they pay attention and discover that it really is possible to resist the somatic claims of the past.”
― Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
Our Shared Shelf
— 222930 members
— last activity Nov 07, 2026 08:51PM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
Mash’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mash’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Mash hasn't connected with their friends on Goodreads, yet.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Mash
Lists liked by Mash