Body-Oriented Psychotherapy: An Example

I imagine at least some of the readers of this website are searching for a therapist, reading my description and wondering, "What does body-oriented psychotherapy actually look like?" This article is an experiential example of how you might use body-oriented psychotherapy techniques to better understand yourself and a particular pattern. In therapy, we might do this body-focused exploration together.

Worry/Anxiety is a great emotion to work with. It's an emotion many people experience regularly, one clients often seek support for, and anxiety is also one emotion in which most folks can notice a mind/body disconnect.  One pattern of anxiety is a situation comes up during which we feel uncertain or worried, the anxiety follows while we're still in the situation or some time afterward, and generally we try to rationalize why we don't "need" or "have to" be anxious. We try our best to soothe our anxiety with our mind: explaining the situation to ourselves, trying to reassure our anxiety why we don't have to be anxious about something we said or did or didn't say or do. Like when we're at a party with new people and say something 'cringey' or 'awkward.' While at the party or afterwards, we're thinking about this moment trying to tell ourselves how it's not a big deal, people will understand, and besides this isn't something we should be focusing on at 2am.... Sometimes this talking ourselves down works. But often we try to use the rationalization, our mind, to make the anxiety "go away" and instead we create a cycle. Anxiety, rationalization, and continued anxiety. Rinse and repeat.

Anxiety, like all our feelings, has a mental, emotional, and physical aspect. We can try to soothe our mental worry via logic. But when we want our emotions to go away, and succeed, we lose our chance to learn more about them and potentially have different options for when they arise in the future. By noticing how our physical experience interacts with our mental and emotional experience, we can better understand how we get caught in the circles of anxiety, and perhaps even calm or soothe our anxiety more deeply.  

The steps below are a way to try this technique yourself.

• Consider a situation which you recently felt anxiety about or are currently experiencing anxiety about. (If you struggle with anxiety, choose a situation that brought up smaller anxiety, maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10).
• If this was in the past, bring the feeling of that situation up now. It may help to imagine it more specifically. What space you were in, who were the people or animals nearby, and at what moment did the anxiety arise?
• Now, notice your body.  Some things you may ask yourself are: What part of your body do you notice most easily?  Is it the anxiety or some other part or feeling?  Where is the anxious feeling in your body? Is it small, medium, large?  Does it have a shape, color, or temperature? Is there an image associated with it?
• As you explore these questions, notice how your mind or thinking interacts with the feeling. (In therapy, I might make additional comments to help you notice more about what you are labeling).  Some questions you may wonder about are:  Are you surprised that some other feeling was more noticeable than the anxiety? Do you have an opinion about how big or small the anxiety is? Is there a second emotion or reaction you notice to the anxiety, such as disappointment or overwhelm or anger?
• Get to know the feeling.
• Now, as you finish this exercise, notice where in your body or outside yourself you notice calm. Is that calm big, medium, or small? Where is it?  How do you know that the thing you're noticing is calm?

Being human is difficult; certain emotions are innately painful like anxiety, grief, or fear.  Sometimes our patterns can expand these feelings and sometimes we have patterns that soothe these feelings that we may not even be aware of. When we deal with these emotions merely from a logical aspect, we don't learn about other important pieces of our experience. 

When I do this work with clients, they sometimes comment on that their anxiety was bigger or smaller than they thought or that the anxiety was a medium size but the disappointment or sadness that followed was big and actually the tougher emotion to cope with. Others comment on their surprise that the anxiety is a small part of their physical experience, and some other emotion like happiness or calm is actually more noticeable. Doing this process with a therapist or friend is one way to share ourselves and get to know ourselves better.

I hope y'all find this to be a helpful example of some body-oriented psychotherapy.  Message me for more information or if you're interested in trying this in-person. Or check out the books recommended below if you'd like to research this more:

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143127748/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine
https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Tiger-Healing-Peter-Levine/dp/155643233X/ref=sr_1_3?crid=THM867S7QCFD&keywords=waking+the+tiger+peter+levine&qid=1555608309&s=books&sprefix=waking+the+tiger%2Cstripbooks%2C190&sr=1-3

Healing Developmental Trauma by Laurence Heller and Aline Lapierre
https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Developmental-Trauma-Self-Regulation-Relationship/dp/1583944893/ref=sr_1_3?crid=JCJMN69Z3Z30&keywords=healing+developmental+trauma+heller&qid=1555608341&s=books&sprefix=healing+devel%2Cstripbooks%2C175&sr=1-3

Nurturing Resilience: Helping Clients Move Forward from Developmental Trauma-- An Integrative Somatic Approach
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1623172039/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1