We work with a variety of techniques and exercises ranging from vocalizations, breath, eye work, slow movements, imagery, proprioceptive and kinesthetic awareness, boundary work, drawing, touch, self touch, and sensory tracking to name a few. 

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For me, as a bodyworker of 20 years, my greatest resource is touch work. Although SE touch work is non-manipulative, meaning I’m not trying to change tissues in a certain way with physical and mechanical techniques like massage. When I employ touch in SE it is to support the body moving towards containment, settling, a sense of safety, and relaxation of guarded muscles and tissues by it’s own means, like some training wheels for an unsteady toddler, lending my support and coherence through touch. When the body and the system free up old holding patterns, the possibility of completing incomplete protective survival responses can emerge naturally, really releasing the root of stress and trauma at the source. 

In SE touch work, I am working primarily with joints, diaphragms and viscera by offering supportive cradling of these areas. I don’t go in and literally touch your internal organs or pelvic floor! But I can cradle and support them from the outside. 

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Joints act as containers of emotion and regulators of movement in the SE model. Constriction in joints may inhibit the movement and completion of emotion, bound energy and protective movement impulses. Therefore relaxing held constriction in joints can facilitate a natural release, a “clearing the pipes” and also allow for protective and defensive movements that wanted to happen in the moment of a traumatic event. When I hold a joint, I am providing more proprioceptive feedback that can help that area feel contained, held, and “placed”, inviting coherence. 

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Diaphragms in the SE model are the “bells and bowls” consisting of the dome of the skull (calvaria), the membrane above the base of the skull (tentorial membrane), cranial base, the shoulder girdle, the respiratory diaphragm, the pelvic floor, and arches of the feet. The diaphragms act as pressure regulators, spacers and mutually resonant systems that separate and unify at the same time. They work primarily as instruments of self-regulation for managing high activation states. Think of stress states where it is hard to take a relaxed breath into the belly, and the head, shoulders and/or pelvis feel deeply constricted. These are the diaphragms hard at work containing all the energy of activation so it doesn’t overwhelm you. We work to slowly let these not often accessed areas open the “pressure relief valve” so bound energy can flow and dissipate, moving towards a coherent system. 

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Vicera are mainly organs in the abdomen containing the vagus nerve tract which connects the brain to the internal organs. The vagus nerve can bee seen as the “telephone line” that communicates back and forth between brain and viscera. Since 80% of the vagus nerve fibers are afferent, sending messages from the vicera to the brain, “speaking to” the nervous system and brain through sensation. That’s how we can calm the brain and settle the stomach by cradling the abdomen on the outside touch.