Phobia and Anxiety- Somatic Experiencing

Somatic Experiencing is a neuroscience based method for resolving previously impossible symptoms. Anxiety, digestive trouble, restless leg syndrome, chronically tight muscles, chronic pain, insomnia, vulvodynia, phobias, overwhelm, panic attacks, and PTSD are effectively addressed. SE is similar to talk therapy, but focusing instead on how the body/mind processes stress and relaxation cycles. Using skillful means and practice, we normalize the stress response and symptom triggers, replaced by feelings of success and mastery.

What used to induce stress leads to feelings of confidence, well being, and relaxation. This is possible because a body oriented therapy addresses brain centers related to sensation and emotion that govern stress and emotion response systems. In addition to talk therapy approaches, we use unprecedented means from the latest research and methods. We normalize symptoms by cooperating with inborn organic body systems.

The outcome? Symptoms resolve. You feel your best. You are empowered with tools for self regulation, well being and change. Click to see what people are saying.

FAQs

HOW WILL I BENEFIT?

People report normalizing sleep, relaxed muscles, digestion / elimination, sex, resolved phobias, relaxation, energy, serenity. When old trauma resolves and triggers have lost traction, the feeling of well being is restored.

How does this happen? Trauma disrupts the autonomic nervous system. The ANS is a foundational system regulating fundamental body functions with a nervous system component. When the ANS is dysregulated it affects everything else eventually. Normalizing ANS function is profoundly corrective, which explains why people feel their life has changed when traumatized, and when trauma is resolved.

WHAT IS SOMATIC EXPERIENCING?

The last 20 years of neuroscience have doubled our knowledge of the nature of mind

Benefits

Restore comfort and ease

Resolve Trauma

Lasting Change

Symptom Relief

Reduce Pain

and brain, neuroplasticity and experience. These amazing discoveries have significant import for how we learn, grow and change. The best of body based therapies are being shown as especially effective for resolving previously intractable difficulties. Somatic Experiencing offers deep insight into the nature of traumatic memory, how it is formed, and how to use hardwired self correcting systems to resolve it. Even decades old deep seated memory is now evidenced to change. My training in Bodynamics, attachment theory, trauma theory offer insight and leverage to change difficult issues untouched by talk therapy alone.

WHY SOMATIC EXPERIENCING?

Developed over the last 30 years by an expert in traumatology, Dr Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger, has contributed significantly to our understanding how

Waking the Tiger

we heal. Long before Freud humans and animals alike used hardwired self regulatory systems to resolve traumatic distress. Left in a PTSD state, we would become “lunch”. Dr Levine observed animals in the process of self regulating after a traumatic episode, and recognized the same self regulating physiological sequences in humans. When these sequences do not complete, symptoms form. Recognizing the seminal importance of this discovery, he began to employ these sequences therapeutically. The results are compelling, demonstrating the ordinary miracle of healing.

HOW IS BODYMIND SCIENCES’ APPROACH DIFFERENT?
Body oriented therapy uses sensation to contact the deep memory centers where work needs to happen. Once the memory is evoked, new neural networks are built leading to feelings of mastery, well being, and resolution; resolving the experience of overwhelm and helplessness.

WHAT WILL WE DO?

Building awareness of sensation makes reworking trauma possible, recovering the ability

Athletes practice successful execution in exactly the same way. Practice makes perfect. When old patterns of emotional reaction or shutting down come up, we practicing new skills in the context of the triggered state with a successful outcome. We leverage the nature of memory formation to create new memories of using skillful means sith success and mastery.

When the feeling is present again, you instinctually know just what to do.

to feel and modulate feelings. By developing a lexicon of body sensations, connection with the instinctual body is regained. Once the stress response is modulated with skillful means, it becomes possible to complete incomplete physiological sequences, that is, old frozen memories resolve with feelings of mastery. By bringing in images of resources, images of successful resolution, and experiencing mastery in respect to the evocative trigger, new neural networks form. Reinforcing these, the old traumatic associations diminish, replaced by the experience of success / mastery.

WHO BENEFITS?

People often do not recognize they have suffered trauma, or the relationship between their symptom and the originating experience. Those with a clear sense they are not as they were know they have been traumatized. We can readily work with this. What of the tight neck, low back, fear of flying, restless leg syndrome, chronically tight hips? These are classic PTSD symptoms that may emerge years after the originating episode. So, here in the margin is an incomplete list of treatable symptoms:

We focus on the positive

New clinical methods reinforce a focus on positive outcomes and the feeling of mastery and well being. This is critical in resolving trauma given it is characterized by feelings of overwhelm and helple

ssness. Rather than reinforcing an avoidance pattern, we are building new neural networks related to facing the trauma leading to a positive outcome every time. The new brain builds a new experience in respect to the old memory. What was once paralyzing becomes innocuous. One is left with the feeling of new resilience, having been through it with mastery.

MASTERY

Like the challenge of stretching and waiting for the opening, we go to the growth edge and wait for the expansion. Being with the process without struggle makes the process one of relaxing into opening. I will help you cultivate a curiosity about the experience.

Click to inquire or make an appointment

Testimonials

“Jai has a excellent breadth of clinical knowledge which informs his trauma work and his teaching. I have been particularly impressed with his extensive background in neurobiology and his ability to make complex concepts accessible to students when he teaches. His background in mind/body therapies also enhances his expertise and creativity in working with situations of shock trauma such as car accidents. He has a lot to contribute to our field as a teacher and therapist.” January 1, 2009 Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative
-- Marcia Black, Licensed Psychologist, Private Practice, 1982 – Present (30 years), Staff Psychologist Kaiser Permanente hired Jai as a Teacher/Trainer in 2003, and hired Jai more than once

BodyMind Sciences employs science based therapies, mindfulness practice, embodiment training, and emotion theory for effective symptom resolution.

Availability

Mill Valley practice presently has openings

Office Location

Marin and San Francisco

415/828-8725

info@BMsciences.com

WHY NOT

JUST TALK THERAPY?

Talk therapy works with brain centers unrelated to strong emotional memory, unrelated to traumatic memory. Emotions are handled by deep primitive neural structures relatively disconnected from the verbal brain centers.

Partial list of treatable symptoms

-restless leg syndrome
-phobia
-chronic muscular tightness
-non drug related
-constipation
-insomnia
-generalized anxiety
-depression
-chronic fatigue
-fibromyalgia
-feeling “not real”
-inability to feel
-disassociation
-overwhelm / helplessness
-whiplash syndrome

SERVICES

-Somatic Experiencing,

-Rolfing Structural Integration

-Body Oriented therapy

Unfold your instinctual responses

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FOCUS :: phobias

BodyMind therapies offers guarantee for innovative phobia treatment:

For a limited time, we’re offering a guarantee on 10 hour treatment of simple phobias. Qualified applicants apply at info@bmsciences.com.

Phobias are understood within the Somatic Experiencing model as unresolved association with a past trauma. The specifics of the eliciting trauma are interesting but not necessary to resolve a phobia. Based on success treating generalized anxiety disorder, flight and driving phobia, we are confident we can resolve phobias irrespective of stimulus or memory of precipitating event. Driving, flying, small spaces, social phobias stem fundamentally from a disproportionate stress response. Re-regulating stress responses is fun in the context of resourceful mastery.

Use nature’s gifts to restore balance and flow