Often a trauma patient’s body seems to tell them, “There’s something wrong with me. Everything is my fault. I’m so ashamed.”
It’s challenging, helping patients learn how to quiet the messages their bodies are sending them so they can self-regulate and heal.
And for some clients, just hearing the word body can activate a fear response.
So is there a way we can help patients begin to make peace with their bodies when they feel so vulnerable? According to Pat Ogden, PhD, it begins by helping them experience the body as a resource to aid their healing.
Pat illustrates one way we can do this with our clients – check it out, it’s just 3 1/2 minutes.
If you would like to learn more about how to help patients overcome feelings of fear and shame associated with trauma, click here to check out our webinar series on Rethinking Trauma.
What tools or techniques have you found effective in helping clients quiet their fear response?
I would love to learn more of the resources to self soothe and or self regulate these painful shame spirals that trigger the demons of PTSD. I have been enjoyed this seminar immensely. It is helping me to feel validated that I am in good company of people that are also in the struggle of healing their PTSD, and in the company of very wise caring clinicians that have spent decades of their life time to learn and understand this debilitating dis-ease of the brain and psyche.
Thank-you Ruth for this very helpful program. It gives me hope of having my life back again knowing I don’t have to keep suffering in silence or by myself on a meditation cushion. As Dr. Peter Levine pointed out in his studies with the indigenous people, we need help from community, and someone to feel our pain with us. Now when my little grandchildren fall and hurt themselves, I kiss their wound and say ow, ow with them.
I am at present listening to Peter’s Healing Trauma CD, thank you Peter for more info. Having experienced extreme and repeated trauma as a child I am just beginning to understand my PTSD. THANK YOU!!