I recently worked with 2 clients who contacted me to work with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Both were sane, intelligent, highly functional people. Both had highly sensitive bodies. One was male, and one female. The female client had been exposed to very toxic smog, years before, then a gas leak in her house, two years ago.
Dear Readers, Ego state work has been around since before Freud, and in latter years, has been the main stay of many practices. Interventions can range from "How old did you feel when you were yelling at your wife?" to "Let's identify those dissociative states that take over your body." I've been working with this
My copy of the new book arrived today. Here is what Diana Fosha says about it:"This is a thorough, accessible, and very practical book, filled with resources and sound ideas, filtered through the intelligence and experience of a savvy, compassionate, down-to-earth, and very experienced clinician. It is like a travel guide to the land of
Two years ago. My husband and I drove up the California coast after the Lifespan Learning conference. We did it again after this year’s conference, with a remarkable difference, my skinny-nervous husband was rarely in hypermobilized vagal states on this trip. I blogged about the last trip, here: http://traumatherapy.typepad.com/trauma_attachment_therapy/2007/03/mobilization.html In 2007, every time we came
I escaped the conference yesterday, and am typing in the dark this morning beside my snoring husband. I can’t see my notes, so let me tell you my impression of the conference: Trauma impacts the right hemisphere of the brain. Helpful trauma therapy targets the right brain. Left brain cognitions and interpretations don’t have much
Daniel Siegel: A System's View of Disintegration & Integration (He's still cute, he's still brilliant, he speaks in easy-to-remember aphorisms and he's still heartful. What's not to like?) "Integration is the linking of differentiated parts. The concept is useful for assessment, tx planning and therapy. . .Presence is absent in trauma survivors. Presence begins with
Stephen Porges, Demystifying the Mechanisms of Trauma: Maladaptive Consequences of Adapative Bio-Behavioral Reactions to Life Threat Stephen Porges knows how to connect. I could listen to him talk all day. I explain his Poly-vagal theory to every trauma client and every consultee. Today, after he answered a difficult question, in a most kind way, my
Day 1: Bessel van der Kolk is lovely. He's humble, he's funny, and he is the premiere researcher on the neurobiology and/or efficacy of trauma treatments in the world. And cute and brilliant, of course. Here are nearly random gems from 3 hours of notes: With trauma, there are no stories, only sensory experience: images,
The name of the workshop was "The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment". The main point was: therapists do too much trauma therapy too early and should do much more preparation before they do the "memory processing" and should often do no trauma processing at all. She talked alot about helping people
I applied to the EMDR International Conference to lead a 3-hour workshop on Treating Depression with EMDR. I wrote four chapters about it in the new book, EMDR Solutions II, for Depression, Eating Disorders, Performance, & More. Instead of a workshop, I was invited to do a poster. I know how to write. I know
myshrink.com is a fantastic website/blog full of information about therapy, bodymind connection, anxiety, and depression. It has some of the most cogent explainations I've seen. It's a great resource for clients as well as therapists. It's written and overseen by Suzanne LaCombe, a therapist in Vancouver, BC. She writes clearly, has a sense of humor,
The book group discussed The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy by Louis Cozolino (W.W. Norton & Co. 2002). We liked it. Cozolino's book is easy to understand and moves along nicely. It is packed with information about the brain. Its case examples were great, though too few. Cozolino writes about brain structures--the triune brain (lizard, mammalian, human),
My husband, Doug Plummer, who is a wonderful professional photographer, interviewed me for a podcast about the neuroscience of "being in the zone" of taking good pictures. Given our interests, it's an ongoing discussion. Here's the podcast. It's about 15 minutes long, boiled down from about an hour. If you'd like to visit Doug's blogs