When Every Day is Traumatic the Little Things Matter

I was holding my youngest daughter at the Koi pond in a local garden today orienting to our environment by watching the large orange, grey and speckled white, and golden fish lumber through the water.  Something made me look across the rectangular pond to see a panicked mother plunge her hand into the pond and Read More…

One of the first questions I asked Steve when he first opened the floor to questions during training was, “How can I use this with couples?” Steve nodded….thought about it for a few moments…and moved on. We had more basic fish to fry. However, the question continued to surface for me. I’d worked with a Read More…

“What is it?” The client asked me this as she felt her head, all on its own, turn gently to the right — as if about to look at something over there. Her question meant, “What past trauma is this experience related to?” So, here’s the fundamental problem. Even in somatic psychotherapy circles we still Read More…

“When you’re falling — Dive!” —Joseph Campbell “You are here to manifest your innate enlightenment.” —Morihei Ueshiba (Founder of Aikido) “What do you do when you bump up against the client’s resistance? You say ‘Excuse me!’” —Milton Trager The zen master slapped the fan into his palm, “How do you experience this sound?” It was 1982 Read More…

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. In the world of positive psychology, resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress, such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. Resilience, in that context, means bouncing Read More…

Over the years, I have had a fascination with the physiological theories underlying activation and deactivation, fight, fight, and freeze states and social engagement (thank you Stephen Porges!). Intellectually, I could tell you how these theories offer a map for sessions, yet something was missing. It felt as if all of the information I’d learned Read More…

OI Tenet #2: The importance of somatic psychology for mapping the phases of the nervous system, providing a clinical approach unique to Organic Intelligence. Somatic psychology claims a clinical and intellectual lineage from many sources, including the legacy of psychodynamics from Reich, Freud, etc. In fact, this young field has grown to the point of documenting its source materials, i.e. Read More…

Summary: This article outlines the major themes taught in the Organic Intelligence clinical protocol. Key terms are discussed: complexity, threshold, 3-Phase model, implicit vs explicit, and self-organization. “Working the physiology using trauma, not working the trauma using physiology”:  This is Part 2, click here for Part 1. Around the world, Organic Intelligence® (OI) has taught Read More…

I remember in graduate school in clinical psychology, there was a change in the way heated discussions took place. Ways of winning arguments became more psychologized. Like the spells cast at Hogwarts, the “You’re PROJECTING!” was one of the more common attacks. The pejorative nature of projection stems from Freudian perspectives of projection as one Read More…