IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Virginia Satir: The Basics
Why am I writing an article on Virginia Satir over three decades after her death? Because I believe that whenever therapists are interested in healing others and using whatever “modern” techniques in their practice it is useful to acknowledge the fact that Satir’s teachings offered a gold mine of principles that might be of interest to themselves and their clients.
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TAKE A TOOL AND RUN
Take a Tool and Run with Dr. Heather Corwin
TTR 7: The tool this week has to do with rediscovering playfulness in ourselves and utilizing distraction when we may be emotionally triggered. This exploration can be great for our clients and ourselves. This in the moment engagement with a ball, a four square or soft kick ball, reminds us that we have to be present or we may get bonked with a ball. Coordination will grow quickly if it’s been a while, so be gentle with yourself. I encourage clients to work with this when they’re not charged so that they can use it when they do become emotional. Many researchers recognize the value of distraction to regulate emotions (Gross, 1998; Kalisch, Wiech, Herrmann, & Dolan, 2006), and playing with a ball can be an ideal break from charged emotions. More can be found on www.BodybyHeather.com.Dr. Heather Corwin’s Take a Tool and Run is a monthly vlog that offers quick and effective tools to share somatic centering practices.
PODCAST WITH MICHAEL OSTROLENK
LISTEN TO OUR WRITERS PODCAST
Michael Ostrolenk is a licensed psychotherapist who completed his MA in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology at John F. Kennedy University and did post-graduate studies in somatic psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies . He is certified in Spiral Dynamics and Wade Mindsets. Michael is Head Instructor for SEALFIT’s Unbeatable Mind Academy as well as a personal development coach. Michael is also the host of #ORadio , a podcast which explores individual and social transformation.Speaks with Serge Prengel, LMHC and author of Inspirational Fables: Bedtime Stories for Your Inner Child. Prengel details his experience guiding clients away from operating with a reactive mind, which is a primitive way of responding to stimuli. His view is that the mind can respond in a more positive and constructive way, and the body is involved in the process of response. Prengel discusses examples of relationship dynamics, in which one person plays the role of a pursuer and the other person plays the role of the distancer, which intrinsically involves fear and reactivity. Not only is the mind responding in these situations, but the body is as well. Prengel also details how he supports clients to see these reactive patterns and the steps towards change, which must involve an environment of safety.
ENRICHMENT
Life Notes: The Yoga of Midlife
The trick in midlife is to keep moving, to breathe through it, allowing the muscles to soften, the mind to begin to rest, and the heart to begin to open. Keep practicing. As I dedicated more and more time to my own practice, sadness began to move through my body and into consciousness with each hip opening. Fear fluttered in my belly as I kicked my legs up the wall in my first handstand since I was 12. And joy! So many moments of joy as my body had another “aha moment” of recognition. Asanas, the funny shapes we make in yoga, were a secret portal. Yoga had invited me to feel all my feelings, and here they were. I didn’t have to talk for hours; I didn’t have to “share.” I owned my experience, embodied my feelings, maybe for the first time in my life.
Salutogensis and Well-Being
Today the Body is cast by neuroscience, to put it phenomenonologically, in Life's project, in all its visibility and evidence, so as to be revealed to prevailing disembodiment, in a liquified society at risk of rarefaction, by the acceleration of external cognitive time, with the consequent theft of people's internal, affective, relational time. It is a society which, absolutely, must meta-communicate with its own dominant Trait Mind (as defined below) about the role of mankind and our place in existence.
Moving Towards Freedom: Effecting Optimal Health Through Reichian Inspired Exercises
Wilhelm Reich is an important influence in what I am about to share so all aspects of our being are part of the process. The gentle movements that I’m writing about help me feel present in my body and ready for the day before I even step out of bed. They loosen segmental blocks that have occurred and continue to occur during my life and keep me lubricated and open from the inside out.
The Embodiment of Primary Respiration: Order, Organization and Transparency
I want to share my perception of PR within the context of what I call the Long Tide Model of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. I teach several biodynamic sensory awareness principles regarding PR. These principles transform into stages of sensory exploration. The first basic principle of sensing PR: It is the highway upon which embodiment of the whole moves.
THE THREAT RESPONSE CYCLE AS A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON MINDFULNESS
When I talk about mindfulness, I’m talking about everyday mindfulness as opposed to something esoteric: Mindful as the opposite of mindless. Doing something mindlessly means your mind is not engaged in it: there is a mechanical, or a passive quality to it. It’s not that “mindless” is synonymous with “passive” and “mindful” with “active”. It’s more like giving a sense of some broad circles of meaning, with one that encompasses notions like “active”, or “engaged” (the “mindful” concept), and another that encompasses notions such as “passive” or “disengaged”.
Embodied Awareness – Balance
Built into our biology are mechanisms of mind which continuously assess value (+ or -) to our experience. The biological necessity of such mechanisms is obvious: we are designed to survive. To assign value (+ or -) allows us to make decisions in childhood, (the most vulnerable time period) that support our physical or psychological survival. For example, Mom is angry.
RELATIONAL MINDFULNESS
Somatic Perspectives: Conversations on Psychotherapy
- Gregg Henriques: A framework to integrate objective view & personal view July 22, 2019In this conversation, Dr. Gregg Henriques explains the Tree of Knowledge System and describes how it provides a way to think about the universe from an objective scientific view and a personal lifeworld view. It achieves this by dividing the universe into four different planes of existence, Matter, Life, Mind and Culture, and the discussion […]Relational Implicit
- Deb Dana about the Polyvagal Theory in psychotherapy July 1, 2019This conversation is about using the Polyvagal Theory in clinical practice. Deb Dana talks about how a focus on experientially understanding the role of the autonomic nervous system helps to creatively involve clients in their healing process. Audio only: Deb Dana, LCSW, specializes in treating complex traumatic stress and lectures internationally on the ways Polyvagal […]Relational Implicit
Relational Mindfulness with Serge Prengel
Active Pause® Part 1- Featured Article
I am inviting you to look at the pause within the context of the process through which we interact with our environment. I am going to use a metaphor to make this more concrete. Let's imagine that the flow of information that comes at us, as we interact with our environment, is represented by the metaphor of a mighty river.
Please see my series in the Featured Article Area of the website.
SPT BOOKSHELF
Book Reviews
BOOK REVIEW – The Little Book of Being
Winston’s new guide offers helpful advice for both novice meditators and experienced meditators looking to improve their practice. The concept of "natural awareness" can seem vague at times, and Winston repeatedly defines it throughout the book. However, her “glimpse” exercises and anecdotes help the guide feel more engaging and the concept of natural awareness to feel more accessible.
Trauma and the Unbound Body
Written by Judith Blackstone, PhD
Reviewed by Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
“Wholeness is not a vague ideal, but a lived experience. It is a potential, inherent in...
Power of Attachment – Review
Heller provides a clear discussion to help readers understand attachment theory in general and the different attachment styles, noted as secure, anxious, ambivalent, and disorganized. At the end of each chapter there are questions to help readers assess which style they may align more with. I appreciated the direction to answer the questions, twice. First, when you are imagining a relaxed situation and second when you are tense, feeling defensive, upset. The results are indeed different. I also thought it wise to let readers know that our attachment style is not fixed in one category or the other. Our attachment style is individualized, and fluid, flexible. In some relationships we may have a sense of a secure attachment while in another we might feel more avoidant or ambivert.
Reflections
The Power of Attachment – Author Reflections
When I began speaking with Sounds True about a written book following my audiobook, Healing Your Attachment Wounds: How to Create Deep and Intimate Relationships, I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I have always considered myself more proficient with the spoken than the written word. Nevertheless, we started the journey to The Power of Attachment, which I actually started over 12 years ago, but somehow, it never felt finished to me. I found that progress often stalled with new research and trying to contain everything about attachment theory between the covers of a single book.
CARLETON’S CHOICE: BOOKS WORTH A READ
Jacquie’s Pick of the Month
Dr. Jacqueline Carleton has guided interns in the art of literature review and academic critique for decades, and SPT Magazine has thankfully shared their reviews with our readers since our inception 8 years ago. It’s a pleasure to write with up-and-coming psychologists and researchers, to share in their discoveries and their opinions regarding books that are ‘hot-off-the-press’, the ones we prefer to publish. Older books, however, those published two years ago or more, have not been shared with the thought that they’ve been reviewed by many others that it was redundant news. Until now.
Shift into Freedom – The Science and Practice of Open-hearted Awareness.
Shift into Freedom by Loch Kelly is a great primer on mindfulness. Surprisingly, he doesn’t rely on the cache of overused words like meditation, mindfulness, or awakening to legitimize his approach. While the western world often uses words like awareness and attention interchangeably, he defines attention as using the mind to focus, while awareness is a heart-centered way to experience life.