Why is ‘shaking it off’ so good for us?
The psychologist, Dr David Bercelli has long worked in the Middle East and North Africa in war-torn communities. He was in a bomb bunker in Lebanon when he began to conceive the practice of TRE (Trauma and Tension Releasing Exercises). As the bombing continued, he...
How Bodyworkers Can Be More Brave and Ambitious With Touch
Touch is stranger and more powerful than often assumed. In trauma, pain and anxiety, touch can be a safe, novel stimulus to access new possibilities in our physiology. As bodyworkers we can learn to be more skillful as we touch our clients. A focus on slow, relational...
Relational Touch
Did you know there are two types of touch? It is useful to understand the difference between quick touch and slow touch. Quick touch goes along big, thick A fibre nerves. These nerves are like motorways. Slow touch is different, it goes along slow, thin C fibre...
We Touch Whole People, Not Parts of People
When it comes to working with people’s pain and trauma, it turns out that feeling safe and exploring someone’s stories; their hopes, dreams and fears is key to healing. I trained as a chiropractor where we often only treat part of the body. One of the central ideas...
How to soothe your inner guard dog – four approaches to working with trauma
When people think of trauma, they often think of psychological problems. The radical shift we’ve made through studying trauma is understanding that trauma is primarily about physiology. When we experience trauma, we get stuck in protective reflexes - gestures of...
Why safe touch feels amazing and bad touch feels awful
Lockdown has been a massive experiment in non-touching. The stories of people isolated in hospital with only a screen to communicate to loved ones or the images of people on either side of plastic barriers, are heartbreaking. The past 12 months have reinforced the...
Why is embodiment key to healing trauma?
If it is hard to feel, it is hard to heal. Our feeling states are often hidden, rarely simple, and sometimes scary. Embodiment tools can help us develop our capacity to feel, which is incredibly useful in resolving pain, anxiety and trauma. We’re all hardwired to...
Touch Is Really Strange – New April 2021
About Touch Is Really Strange When did you start working on the book? The idea for a book on touch has been in my head since 2019, but definitely a lockdown project. The Really Strange series has been huge fun and continues to get heartwarming feedback. There have...
Exploring Body Centred Countertransference
Overview Connection to the body is the foundation of connection to self, connection to others, and connection to the natural world. Transference is when feelings, attitudes, associations originally experienced with important people from the past are transferred onto...
The Brain Can Make Mistakes When it Comes to Pain
When I teach that “pain involves the brain,” people often feel that I’m saying that it’s their fault. That’s really not what I am saying. I like to talk about the mind, the brain, and the body. The mind is our consciousness, our awareness, our sense of self. The brain...