A somatic therapist’s view on healing

My services are typically sought out by people suffering from the effects of brain and muscle injuries or from persistent musculoskeletal pain of unidentified cause, who have already tried every means they knew of to tame their maladies, but to no avail.  They learn about me from their friends or relatives whom I was able to help recover from similar conditions.  Even so, I was often told that those friends and relatives had trouble describing just how their recovery came about.  I therefore felt the need to spell out the key features of my approach to rehabilitation, lest it be viewed as some kind of magic. 

Treating Symptoms vs. Restoring Function 

Traditionally pain treatment has focused on managing the pain itself, and, in the case of an injury that also affected certain motor skills, on “retraining” these skills.  It is not difficult to see why this approach is prevalent.  When an illness or the effects of an injury start to interfere with our ability to carry out everyday tasks and even to enjoy life, the first thing we want to do is to get rid of these terrible “interferences” — that is, the symptoms.  And this is what the pain treatment is typically aimed at.  If we suffer from neck pain or frozen shoulder, we are advised to do exercises intended to “mobilize” the soft tissues around our neck and shoulder girdle; if we are troubled by headache, we take analgesics to keep it down; and if neither soft-tissue mobilization nor analgesics work, we may be prescribed injections of Botox into spastic muscles, which reduces their ability to contract by interfering with nerve-to-muscle signaling and may also reduce pain.  Such interventions may make the symptoms manifested in these areas less perceptible without necessarily addressing the processes that produced them. 

These courses of action may bring a much-needed respite from pain.  As a rule, however, they do not lead to genuine recuperation or restoration of compromised functional abilities.  Still less effective are they when our maladies do not manifest themselves in specific parts of the body — as is the case with “cloudy” thinking or with the sudden loss of both physical and mental energy.  When faced with such non-localized symptoms, we are at a loss as to what specialist we need to consult, with the consequent feeling of helpless worry that can lead to a state of depression — and then we must wage a battle against this new and formidable foe! 

But suppose that, instead of seeing symptoms merely as obstacles to well-being, we look upon them as integral characteristics of an organism whose current state is significantly different from its purportedly “healthy” state of days past?  

The Body’s Strategies for Survival 

The human brain possesses the remarkable capacity to reorganize itself throughout life by forming new neural connections (and, in some cases, even creating new neurons) in response to various sensory experiences.  However, its unparalleled malleability is Janus-like: It’s a big asset which can also cause big trouble in our life!  Often, what we experience as part of a “pathological” state reflects a strategy our organism has developed to survive in a situation it perceives as threatening.  You may completely fail to notice when this strategy gets put into action: your brain deploys it automatically, without consulting your consciousness — nay, without even notifying it! 

Reading the Body 

My hands-on work with clients starts with decoding the habitual strategies their organisms employ to respond to stressors, using their bodily expressions — especially the symptoms that interfere with their quality of life — as the Rosetta stone. 

A person’s posture, gait, body shape, and patterns of muscle tension yield a rich and truthful picture of how he or she interacts with the world.  My hands “read” the distribution of effort throughout a person’s body — they feel which groups of muscles are overused, which are unengaged, and which are unable to relax.  This information enables me to identify the tasks (functions) to which the person’s organism, through its nervous system, preferentially allocates its available resources.  It is important to keep in mind that resource allocation within the organism is ultimately mediated by the brain which can itself be damaged.  Accordingly, if the neural pathways between the brain and certain parts of the body are disrupted, the brain can become, in a sense, “blind” to these parts, which may contribute to some of the physical impairments observed after head trauma. 

We delude ourselves if we think that, as members of the species whose scientific name means “wise man,” we are capable of exercising conscious control over how our body allocates its resources across biological functions.  The functions that are directly responsible for our self-preservation occur without the participation of our consciousness (unless you are a yogi or yogini proficient in meditation techniques that can influence the autonomic nervous system).  The term “self-preservation” is understood broadly here, involving both our immediate survival needs and the maintenance of our identity (sense of self) vis-à-vis various pressures from the outside world.  For most of us, the inner priority-setting process, by which the psycho-physical energy coursing through our body is directed to specific purposes, occurs outside the scope of our awareness, let alone our control.  When it comes to our self-preservation, our physical comfort may be one of the last things to be considered by our organism! 

When the Nervous System Does Not Receive the “All-Clear” 

When our safety is at stake, our muscular system can work well beyond its normal capacity, notwithstanding tiredness and pain.  Significantly, the verdict on which situations are safe and which are not is typically not based on conscious deliberation: survival is a task of such importance and urgency that many responses are initiated before conscious deliberation has time to occur.  The nervous system continuously evaluates sensory information and can trigger rapid physical and emotional responses — particularly those related to potential danger.  Such responses are invaluable in situations that pose an imminent threat to our security, such as a sudden encounter with a large wild animal in the woods. 

Although we rarely come face to face with free-roaming tigers anymore, there is certainly no shortage of things that can ignite our visceral sense of insecurity in today’s world.  Common examples include physical traumas and unresolved conflicts.   

However, these and other external events may not, by themselves, be sufficient to keep one’s body in a chronic state of dis-ease that can bring about a range of functional disorders.  This is more likely to happen when external “ignitors” come into contact with one’s inner “combustible material” — which may include previous experiences, deeply held and often unconscious beliefs, habitual protective responses, or the lingering effects of the injury itself. 

For instance, in an auto accident, a person’s arm and upper body muscles may reflexively brace with enormous force in an attempt to protect the body from impact.  Similar to many other processes essential to survival, this muscular defense is thrown into action before the person becomes aware of what is going on.  And if the accident reinforces an already existing sense of vulnerability — or if the nervous system continues to receive signals that something is not right — the organism may remain in emergency mode long after the immediate danger has passed. 

I have met people whose arm and upper body muscles remained contracted — as though they kept clutching the steering wheel — for years after the accident!  It is very plausible that these muscles never received an “all-clear” signal from the brain structures concerned with survival-related functions.  Moreover, I have noticed that, as long as an “all-clear” signal has not been transmitted across one’s brain, its structures responsible for selecting which stimuli are deserving of our attention (known as the “salience network”) tend to focus on detecting further and further signs of danger in the surrounding world.  There seems no need to explain why people who have experienced accidents causing chronic, painful contraction of certain muscles are little aided by the therapies that are aimed at “relaxing” these muscles. 

When the Brain Loses Connection with the Body 

If a car crash results in a concussion (which can occur without a direct blow to the head), some of the neural connections in the brain through which it interacts with the muscles may be damaged.  A brain that is unable to communicate effectively with certain body parts may rely on them less effectively and compensate by placing greater demands on other parts of the body, sometimes making the latter work beyond their normal capacity and contributing to discomfort and pain.  In such circumstances, the ailing body part is hero and victim at once, forced to carry out a vital task at enormous expense to itself!  A similar situation arises when the brain gets damaged as a result of a non-traumatic event such as a stroke. 

Communication between different parts of the organism can be disrupted for a variety of reasons, in a variety of ways; but the body’s responses are never meaningless!  In most cases, they represent the workings of an all-round “security system,” constructed by the brain.  Once we begin to look at the human organism as an ingenious ensemble where all troubling symptoms make sense as manifestations of a certain life strategy, an opportunity opens for us to work with it, rather than against it! 

The Body as a Psychosomatic Whole 

I want to make it clear that the term “organism” as used here refers not only to our “purely physical” aspects.  Rather, it denotes a psychosomatic whole, our complete individuality, with particular emphasis on our habitual beliefs and attitudes that heavily influence our daily actions toward the world (including ourselves).  Our individual ways of dealing with the world are truthfully reflected in our bodies!  Every emotion has its own “corporal signature” — it evokes characteristic bodily responses, many of which are recognizable across different people.  (This makes emotions “graspable.”) 

The physical sensations of a vice-president in a large corporation, who has just heard that its stock price took a hellish plunge, may closely resemble those of a Neanderthal confronted by a bear at the entrance to his dwelling, and their spontaneous muscular responses may likewise be very similar.  In contrast to the caveman, however, the status of a big-time corporate VP in modern human society obligates its holder to “manage impulsive reactions.”  In order to succeed in this, the vice-president’s organism has to use additional inner resources — typically in the form of muscular effort — that must be at least equivalent to the amount of effort it has already invested in its immediate response to the ominous news.  Over time, this suppressive effort can contribute to what might be called “muscular armour,” whose maintenance requires considerable energy and can contribute to a persistent state of weariness.  However, the vice-president needs to pay this price in order to feel secure about his status in the eyes of society. 

Touch That Communicates Rather Than Corrects 

How, then, do I see my role as a somatic therapist in the rehabilitation of people whose nervous system has assumed a “security mode” as its baseline state, and holds on to this mode in spite of the pain, discomfort, and functional limitations it entails? 

Rather than attempting to overpower the client’s “security system,” I seek to access it from within, as it were.  This does not require any forceful interventions; through gentle touch — intended to communicate, not correct — the therapist’s hands can become “tactile witnesses” of the client’s sensations.  A “witnessing touch” enables one to take a fresh look at the places of tension and holding in one’s body that have long become habitual.  This often leads to surprising revelations.  For example, a person can discover that she is incapable of lying down with her arms relaxed at her sides, and that her shoulders spontaneously jerk with every movement of her arms, even a very slight one. 

Since tactile witnessing does not endeavour to fix anything in the client’s organism — whether it be to stretch chronically tight muscles, release tension knots, or “exercise” dormant areas, it does not trigger an alarm in his or her security system. 

Besides revealing to the client her habitual neuromuscular patterns, the therapist’s non-corrective touch provides support to the most overloaded parts of her body — in a literal sense, by joining in their work and thereby taking some of the burden off them, even if only for a short time.  This part of a somatic therapist’s work is an art, not merely a technique: every body presents a unique constellation of habitual tensions, rendering standardized procedures ineffective. 

Creating the Conditions for Change 

The support provided through this “going-with” touch engenders trust — the kind that is not so much a mental state as a bodily sensation, which resides at the deepest core of our being, where physical, emotional, and cognitive manifestations are inseparable.  It feels like being filled with acceptance and security, and wondrously liberated from the need to prove our goodness to anyone.  And with this feeling, a special space opens up within us, where change can occur. 

Significantly, the message of support transmitted through non-corrective touch can be experienced directly, without first having to pass through our habitual patterns of thought and behaviour — patterns that may themselves contribute to persistent muscular tension. 

The special kind of inner space one discovers through the therapist’s tactile support typically feels like a delightful breath of fresh air coming into one’s body.  Empowered by it, one’s organism becomes more open to lifting the level of protection previously established by its security system.  On the physical level, this opening is perceived as subsiding of habitual tensions, regaining the ability to move with ease, and rediscovering a sense of wholeness of oneself — as if the streams of vital nourishment have come to life in one’s body and soul.  As these new self-perceptions are gaining ground, pain tends to lose its grip over one’s life. 

Healing Is an Inside Job 

However, one must keep in mind that the change outlined above is stimulated externally, by the therapist.  Accordingly, one’s organism is bound to revert again and again to the more habitual survival mode with the accompanying physical and mental suffering, unless one breaks out of old patterns.  The dissolution of habitual perceptions of oneself and the world is the main factor that defines the state of one’s nervous system, and the most important process that needs to occur for healing, because it initiates change at all levels (physical, emotional, mental) from within. 

Our body is our compass in this process, and my work necessarily involves helping people learn how to read their personal compasses properly.  However, the actual use of these skills for the purpose of finding more effective ways of moving through life is something that each of us must do for him- or herself.  It’s an inside job!  It starts with a firm resolution to examine with the utmost honesty our habitual ways of being in the world.  The awareness of how our habits of thinking, feeling, and acting contribute to our pain and physical limitations, which arises in the course of this examination, marks our transformation from passive sufferers to builders of our well-being.  In my view, this transformation can be rightfully called spiritual, and signifies genuine healing. 

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I want to express my immense gratitude to my dear partner in life, Anton Struchkov, for inspiring me to write this paper, and for his thorough editing and translation.