[libribook.com] Traumatic Scar Tissue Management 1st Edition

Given the impact of trauma on the brain and NS, somatic-based approaches to
treatment seem to warrant heightened consideration. Somatic interventions can
assist with improving interoceptive awareness and be assistive tools or
components for improving self-regulation (van der Kolk 2014, Warner et al.
2014).
According to van der Kolk (2014):
Trauma victims can’t fully recover until they become familiar with and
befriend the sensations in their bodies. In order to change, one needs to be
aware of their sensations and the way their bodies interact with the world
around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the
tyranny of past trauma and this begins with people being able to describe
what they feel in their body, not emotions (e.g. fear, anger, anxiety) but
physical sensations like pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling etc.
If the body keeps the score, if memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera,
in heart-breaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders,
and skeletal/muscular problems and if mind/brain/visceral communication
is the royal road to emotion-regulation, this demands a radical shift in
therapeutic assumptions and approaches.