Body-Oriented Therapy: Understanding Trauma Through Somatic Practices

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Added on 2024/07/04

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This essay provides an overview of body-oriented therapy as a promising treatment intervention for traumatic disorders. It highlights the therapeutic approach's core principle of considering the mind and body as an indivisible unit, emphasizing the interconnectedness of spirit, body, and mind in influencing mental health. The essay discusses how traumatic experiences impact the nervous system and how tissue memories stored in the fascial system can lead to psychological issues. It explains the use of strategies like inner-body focusing tactics, body awareness exercises, and massage to re-establish the connection between tissues and the nervous system, releasing stored traumatic data. The essay concludes by noting that combining touch and verbal therapies can boost clients’ insights, improve body connection, enhance emotional control, and reduce dissociations.

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Body-Oriented Therapy
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Body-oriented therapy is a promising treatment intervention for traumatic disorders.
Mental health professionals describe body-oriented therapy as a developing somatic
psychotherapy field that supports trauma management. Markedly, this therapeutic approach
considers the mind and body a single indivisible unit (Kuhfuß et al., 2021). The therapeutic
principle portrays the spirit, body, and mind as interconnected elements that influence human
mental health. The therapeutic intervention also considers that movement patterns, posture, and
muscle tension influence how individuals handle situations and feelings. The situation means
that human relationship with the society, themselves, and nature is rooted in their bodies and
minds.
Body-oriented psychotherapy considers that past traumatic experiences negatively impact
the human nervous system. The therapeutic approach considers that the innervated fascial system
holds tissue memories that create psychological issues once they reach critical levels. For
instance, the extra-cellular matrix, connective tissues, and body collagen store traumatic
memories over time (Schlage, 2021). Specifically, tissue memory accumulation in the nervous
system creates fascial restrictions and activates the brain’s cognitive, somatosensory, and pain-
signaling pathways (Kuhfuß et al., 2021). Hence, sustained pressure application to the fascial
system reduces the sensory and neural input to the nervous system.
Basically, external pressure applied to the fascial system re-establishes the connection
between tissues and the nervous system, which helps in releasing the stored traumatic data.
Mental health professionals accomplish this therapeutic intervention goal using strategies like
inner-body focusing tactics, body awareness exercises, and massage (Classen et al., 2020).
Similarly, combining touch and verbal therapies boost clients’ insights and knowledge of their
capabilities, emotions, and bodily sensation. The therapeutic procedures enable professionals to

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increase body connection, improve physical welfare, improve emotional control, and reduce
dissociations in their patients.

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References
Classen, C. C., Hughes, L., Clark, C., Hill Mohammed, B., Woods, P., & Beckett, B. (2020). A
pilot RCT of a body-oriented group therapy for complex trauma survivors: An adaptation
of sensorimotor psychotherapy. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(1), 52-68.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2020.1760173
Kuhfuß, M., Maldei, T., Hetmanek, A., & Baumann, N. (2021). Somatic experiencing –
effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: A scoping literature
review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12(1).
https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023
Schlage, B. (2021). Touch and Affect Regulation: Postural Integration, Trauma Skills, and Tools
for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 20(1).

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Body-Oriented Therapy: Understanding Trauma Through Somatic Practices

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