An Orientation to Orientation

Early in my teaching and clinical work I realized that directing clients to their somatic experience is more easily disorganizing than helpful. This has become a key understanding in the development of the mindfulness-based Organic Intelligence® Clinical Protocol. I have also spoken on this topic of the hazards of interoception at professional conferences, to meditation Read More…

I am in Louisville, visiting my mom en route to Switzerland. This Saturday morning I’m in my favorite coffee shop and I’m thinking about Aunt Bessie. Aunt Bessie lived just a few hundred yards downhill from Brandenburg Methodist Church, where she had been a lifelong member. On April 3, 1974, a historic “super outbreak” of Read More…

”It’s ethically questionable at this point to use trauma as a focus for work or traumatic sensations or focus on traumatic emotions. There is a better way. There is a more humane way and integrating way. That’s what I am trying to get across to therapy…”  I was talking with Nicole Lemaster here. Her delightful Read More…

Organic Intelligence® calls for a new and very distinct approach in therapy. Find out how, in a conversation with Serge Prengel. This conversation highlights the key aspects that distinguish OI from therapy and other somatic trauma resolution methods, and why the Organic Intelligence approach is a true paradigm shift in its field. Organic Intelligence & Trauma is a transcription of 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…

In 1999, months after the birth of my first child Jacob, I boarded a plane to New York to support the first Somatic Experiencing® training in New York City. Little did I realize it was an embarkation onto “the circuit” — professional teachers and trainers who, like itinerant preachers of not so long ago, travel 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…

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…