The Hidden Mystery of Trauma
When I started to learn about trauma and I realised that the most important decision a human being is making is “am I safe?”, it became a key focus of my work. Especially when I discovered that all pain, anxiety and depression is rooted in feelings of not being safe....
You’re an organic garden, not a broken machine
When it comes to working with pain, I believe the core of our clinical work is finding creative ways to help people find agency, strength and choice. In my early work, I used to believe there was a stretch or a manipulation for every health challenge. Over time I...
Four Ways to Embody Safety for Yourself and Your Clients
I’m a passionate advocate for embodiment. Human beings function best when they’re connected, present, not dissociated and able to be coherent with what’s happening inside them and what’s happening around them. This is an ongoing negotiation. In my clinical practice,...
How does touch work, and why is it such a powerful tool to support health?
Touch is stranger and more powerful than often assumed. A lot of what we have thought to be true about touch, particularly as body workers, is now being re-thought. And in the time of COVID-19 conversations about how to touch, and the importance of relational touch...
Blissful Movements Podcast
I was recently interviewed for the Blissful Movements Podcast. We explored: How embodiment is a lifelong journey. When we dissociate, where do we go to? The physiology of empathy. How our sense of self is defined by many streams of information as bio-psycho-social...
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...