My education includes a M.Ed in Special Education; training in Body Psychotherapy (Bio Synthesis – David Boadella); Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma (Pat Ogden) and Hologramic ReIncarnation Therapy for working with past life, pre and peri-natal trauma. I am a member of the European Association for Body Psychotherapy. Touch modalities include Reiki, Deep Tissue Massage: Shiatsu and Cranio-Sacral Therapy.

 

Recent models of trauma therapy have stressed the necessity for a Body-Oriented approach which provides an alternative to the model of hospitalization and psychiatric treatment for severely affected sufferers. An increasing number of professionals (See Bibliography) have demonstrated that healing from any number of symptoms occurs when movements, actions and impulses in the body are allowed to complete what has been truncated by the traumatic event. Indeed it is the body that holds the memories and incomplete actions, and that senses and knows how to find its way back to wholeness.

 

Because of my own experience of trauma I knew that working through the body and using mindfulness were excellent tools, but not enough. The person who has experienced trauma is always left with the ultimate question “What is the meaning of this experience? How can I make sense of it”.  To answer these questions I turned to Buddhist philosophy, a philosophy I had been acquainted with since my late teens when I first started practicing Vipassana meditation. Buddhism says that when we see difficult situations as a chance to grow in bravery, wisdom and kindness then our personal distress can connect us with the unhappiness of others. What we consider a vast problem becomes the source of empathy. This can be the value of our personal suffering. We can understand that as humans we are all in the same boat and that the only thing that makes sense is to care for one another.

 

When I worked as a counselor for the Ministry of Defense with bereaved parents I immediately saw that there were two extreme reactions to the most terrible of events – the death of your child. Half the group were in terrible despair and had withdrawn from life while the other half had decided to dedicate their lives to helping others. I could see in front of my eyes the potential for the transformation of the soul .