Podcast and Post-Launch Reflections, Part 1

”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…

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…

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…

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…

I remember my teenage years as unbelievably fun, adventurous, traumatic, disorienting, scary, exciting, disappointing; basically an emotional roller-coaster which in retrospect appears to highlight the polarity and pendulation concepts I’ve come to understand through Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) and Organic Intelligence® (OI). Adolescents: Emerging Nervous Systems As a clinician at an adolescent inpatient/outpatient treatment program in Read More…

My work with children using an Organic Intelligence® approach began in a pediatric hospital setting. While the child’s journey toward healing didn’t end with our time together, the hope I held, and continue to hold, is that their system received what it needed in those first moments to allow for processing and integration with greater Read More…

As I complete the final edit for this blog post in late April of 2016, there are stories about the recent earthquakes in Ecuador and Japan. This last week also brought the announcement of Kathryn Schulz winning the Pulitzer Prize for her New Yorker article “The Really Big One,” about the 10-30% likelihood of a Read More…

Complex Family Systems: in reality each of our psychobiological systems is complex in and of itself. Therefore, each relational system we create is bound to be complex and multifaceted. The complex family systems that I will address in this blog post, are families with one or more of the following issues present: •   Poverty • 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…