In this enlightening episode, we sit down with Red Beard team member Aleksandra Bazinska, a seasoned therapist from Tucson, Arizona, specializing in Somatic Experiencing, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and developmental trauma therapy. Aleksandra shares her compelling journey from growing up in Poland amidst a community deeply affected by PTSD, to discovering her passion for healing through various somatic practices. She emphasizes the effectiveness of therapies that focus on bodily sensations and movements, drawing from her extensive background in physical therapy, yoga, qigong, and numerous other modalities. Her approach is grounded in the belief that therapy can be both impactful and enjoyable, moving away from the pain-centric narrative often associated with trauma recovery.
Throughout the conversation, Aleksandra and Alex delve into the nuances of developmental trauma, differentiating it from shock traumas and highlighting its profound long-term effects on individuals' lives. They explore innovative therapeutic methods that cater to the body's memory and the nervous system's capacity for healing. The discussion illuminates the transformative power of somatic therapies like SensoriMotor Psychotherapy and the DARe (Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience) method, underscoring the importance of safety, connection, and the re-education of the nervous system towards positive experiences.
For those intrigued by the therapeutic journey and the somatic approaches to healing trauma, this episode is a treasure trove of insights and methodologies that promise a path to recovery filled with compassion, understanding, and newfound strength. Don't miss out on this deep dive into the heart of somatic therapy and the potential for personal transformation.
Key Highlights:
Links and Resources:
In this enlightening episode, we sit down with Red Beard team member Aleksandra Bazinska, a seasoned therapist from Tucson, Arizona, specializing in Somatic Experiencing, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and developmental trauma therapy. Aleksandra shares her compelling journey from growing up in Poland amidst a community deeply affected by PTSD, to discovering her passion for healing through various somatic practices. She emphasizes the effectiveness of therapies that focus on bodily sensations and movements, drawing from her extensive background in physical therapy, yoga, qigong, and numerous other modalities. Her approach is grounded in the belief that therapy can be both impactful and enjoyable, moving away from the pain-centric narrative often associated with trauma recovery.
Throughout the conversation, Aleksandra and Alex delve into the nuances of developmental trauma, differentiating it from shock traumas and highlighting its profound long-term effects on individuals' lives. They explore innovative therapeutic methods that cater to the body's memory and the nervous system's capacity for healing. The discussion illuminates the transformative power of somatic therapies like SensoriMotor Psychotherapy and the DARe (Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience) method, underscoring the importance of safety, connection, and the re-education of the nervous system towards positive experiences.
For those intrigued by the therapeutic journey and the somatic approaches to healing trauma, this episode is a treasure trove of insights and methodologies that promise a path to recovery filled with compassion, understanding, and newfound strength. Don't miss out on this deep dive into the heart of somatic therapy and the potential for personal transformation.
Key Highlights:
Links and Resources:
Those methods that we use work and they are enjoyable. It's not the painful trauma therapy that, you know, most people think in therapy you cry and you go back to pain and so and terror? Yeah. Yeah. yeah, we spend so much time resourcing and focusing on what is uplifting. and strengthening ourselves and enjoyable. But I think that most clients really have a good time in our sessions. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm, happy to be sitting down today with Aleksandra Bazinska and she is in Tucson, Arizona, and I'm in Boulder, Colorado as normal. And, if you've been around the Red Beard Somatic Therapy community a bit, you probably know Aleksandra she has been on the team for at least about three years now. One of our online practitioners doing somatic experiencing. Internal family systems and their attachment work and, and we've had a chance for various conversations, along the way, but not a recorded conversation, not, not a podcast. And so we thought it would be fun to sit down today and talk especially about the theme of developmental trauma and developmental trauma is sort of one aspect, in the trauma therapy world, we sometimes divide between shock traumas like incidences, car accidents, assaults, things like that as compared to developmental trauma would be things, during the developmental years, infancy, childhood, even pre and perinatal in the womb, would all fit into the category of developmental trauma. And, Aleksandra has just a wealth of experience and expertise, has been studying different ways of working with developmental trauma over the years, talk talk approaches, touch approaches, nervous system approaches. And, and so, we thought just as a, that that would be a fun conversation just to sort of take a look at what are all the different ways that somatic approaches can support a developmental trauma? So, very cool thing. I, I'm not going to try to capture all of Aleksandra's extensive background because extensive is the right word. She originally trained as a Psychotherapist in Poland, her home country. And along the way has done lots and lots of, of the, the, the kinds of somatic therapies that you might have heard of sensory motor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, dear attachment work with Diane Poole, Heller, touch based approaches with Kathy Kane and Elaine Duncan. and probably about 30 more than that. So, so I don't know if we'll cover every little piece of your training, Aleksandra, but, suffice it to say we have a, somebody with a long. a long career, doing this kind of work. And so Aleksandra, thanks for, for sitting down and welcome to the show. My pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's just begin a little bit with your own background. Like what just, I'm always want to know, what brought somebody into doing, somatic work, psychotherapeutic work, what, what, yeah, what's sort of your origin story on, on those things. I grew up in Poland in the 60s, and my country was recovering from World War II, and my family especially was really touched by that. My parents were small, small children when the war began, and my great uncle was in Auschwitz, the concentration camp, from the beginning until the end. So I remember, every evening my grandparents with great aunt and uncle would play cards. It was a ritual every single night and they would watch TV and inevitably at some point there would be something scary, traumatic or triggering happening. And my aunt would freeze, get really activated and shout that somebody asking somebody to turn on the TV because she couldn't take it. So I remember the sense of freezing my body and the sense of terror in the room. Everything would be electrified and people would stop breathing because the trauma was so present in the room. And, my parents were traumatized, neighbors, everybody had PTSD basically around me. And that was influencing human relationships. I didn't grow up with secure attachment, with understanding parents who were able to be always empathetic or, attuned to me. Everybody was preoccupied with their own nervous system, tension, their problems. So, I remember a big break in that, an experience that touched me deeply, was when a British healer started coming to Poland, and he was offering touch healing. He would see 10, 000 or 15, 000 people a day. The top session would last five seconds or so Yeah. peope would report cancer remissions or the depression and anxiety stopping or all kinds of problems. So I was so moved by that. I'm so impressed. It's, it's, I think it's really had a huge impact on my life. I think that I'm consciously, I decided to become a healer of sorts. I wanted to help people. I wanted to make difference in people's lives. So I ended up in physical therapy school for two years where I learned massage and exercise and then I moved on to graduate five years long graduate school of clinical psychology, which I wasn't initially convinced because, you know, that was in the 80s. Psychotherapy wasn't as evolved and trauma informed as it was now. But with time, I fell in love with it. And I started reaching out beyond the basic graduate program and studied Gestalt and Jungian psychotherapy and different forms of bodywork and meditation. I became a yoga teacher and qigong teacher and breathwork instructor and did all kinds of movement practices from India. movement meditation. So yeah, and my own depression and sense of hopelessness. I remember growing up, I'd never wanted to be an adult because adults were not very impressive. No, all of that started changing. And, and because I was doing many, modalities that were embodied that, that made me move and breathe and get in touch with what I was sensing within my life was changing. So, yeah. That was beginning of, of long journey of studying many different things. And I think that because I had, I came from such a traumatized environment, I studied, I was looking for the most effective methods, things that would be, helping people to move from misery to happy, satisfying lives. Right. Wow. It reminds me a little bit of, you know, Gabor Mate speaks a lot about his, implicit memories, you know, born into Budapest in, in World War II, active warzone and, and, you know, he's made sort of, you know, some of the same similar, description about, you know, sort of the childhood home and the, and the, and the freeze, you know, frozen and fear sort of energy pervading the family system. And then, you know, in his writings, the book of his that I most recently read, there's new one, the myth of normal, which I, I love. but he really kind of talks at length about, you know, for him, it was only, it was like, I don't know, mid late adulthood, some where he, where he really started to understand that, you know, how that had affected him, you know, being an infant in that environment. So anyway, I'm just here a little bit of a parallel to what I've, what I've heard from him. Yeah. And when we were growing up, the word trauma basically didn't exist. You know, when I was in graduate school, we had just very little information about that. I learned about trauma later. And then somatic therapies, that, that's the newest development in psychotherapy. Right. Yeah. When, when did you make the, when did you come from Poland to the United States and what was the, what was the reason for that, that shift? I came in 1995, and I was invited by Arnold Mandel, a psychotherapist from Portland, Oregon, who traveled to many European countries and taught his methods, and that was also a huge, he had a huge impact on me. So, I took a two week intensive with teachers of Arnold Middell's process, process oriented psychology. And that was so different than what I learned in graduate school. The way those therapists were listening. The capacity of being present. I could feel, I didn't have the words to describe, but I could feel that they were with me. They could sense my body. They could sense my energy, felt my breath. I never in my life before felt so met, seen, validated. I never felt so special, empowered. When in contact with people who practice that method. So, I got an invitation to a five week long international intensive in Portland, Oregon in 1995. And then I said, And stayed. Wow. Ever since that's, that's, it's, it seems like there was a big, a big shift in psychotherapy at some point. And, and, you know, and, and, you know, there's different people who may be, and I don't know what you would call this shift, but you know, there's the stereotype of the, of the earlier, more, you know, like, I guess kind of epitomized by the psychoanalytic perspective, or, you know, you think sort of Freudian days, the idea of being sort of a neutral, neutral slate. And then later, you know, I forget who coined the term, was it Erickson about holding an unconditional positive regard? Maybe Rogers. Oh, yeah, that's right. I think it's, yeah, exactly. But then something, something was shifting where the idea that you, the, the, the role of the therapist wasn't just to be this, you know, objective, clean slate, but to be an empathic presence, and then, you know, later on, you know, this concept of attunement or this concept of, or co regulation at the embodied nervous system level, you know, has become, more of an awareness, but it, it seems like just the, you know, the way you described the feeling of Mendel, it sounds like maybe he was part of that, that shift that was occurring. Well, is that, is that how you saw it as well? Yes. From thinking that I need to be in a role of therapist and, and just present myself in a certain way to just being myself and being really present to the client and sensing in my body what I was experiencing relationally, how my body was, how my breath, how my emotions, sensations were responding to what was happening in the client. Completely different approach and not being the superior therapist, but just collaborating Right. What are they? I think they call it client, you know, human centered therapy or client centered therapy. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. I think it feels a lot better for the, maybe even for both people. I think it feels a lot I can imagine, so better for me as a client, Yeah. Well, yeah, I think even as the, as the coach or therapist, it feels better to not to have to be the expert, but to be a collaborator and trusting the wisdom of the client, wisdom of their body, being partners in the process, Yeah, yeah, wonderful. So then, so, you know, I know you did sensory motor psychotherapy. That's a, that's Pat Ogden's work, a little, you know, you also did somatic experiencing, and you did, you know, touch work with Kathy Kane and Elaine Duncan, the neuroaffective touch. I mean, We, I don't think we have to cover everything, but like what, what were some of the main, what guided you to somatic approaches? Was it kind of like you were remembering that, you know, that British touch guy or, you know, you kind of always knew you wanted to kind of see how the body was involved or what, what, what steered you in that direction? Having a background in physical therapy as well. And, you know, first when I came to the United States, my degrees didn't translate, so I, and I wasn't actually planning on staying, I just came to, for training. So being able to do massage was so handy, my, I was still learning the language, and from a massage therapist you don't need to, extensive, right? I didn't have to be very articulate to, to connect to my clients. And, so that's how it started. And then I discovered craniocircumtherapy, qi nian zang, the Chinese body, mind, spirit, abdominal massage that also focuses on Taoist meditation, working with different mental, emotional states. And then I discovered somatic experiencing through people, and I just knew that I had to study it. It was, it was a combination of many different things that already were important to me. Oh, cool. Yeah. Well, let's touch a little bit on this, this, this kind of, this theme of developmental trauma, and how, you know, it's being talked about more now than, than even 10 years ago. And certainly more than more than 20 years ago. And there's sort of new language around it. Like, you know, I forget when PTSD was formally recognized, but, but, you know, at least several decades ago, the formal diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, recognized within the DSM 5 or the, or the psychiatric manual. hmm. Yeah, within, within, within the United States, but even still today, you know, now there's the concept of CPTSD or complex post traumatic stress disorder, which usually is referring to, the, multifactorial, Influences during develop not again, not singular incidences, but the effects of neglect or abuse or, or environmental, distress, in, in childhood years primarily. That's typically what, what the CPTSD diagnosis, but it's not a formal diagnosis. My understanding is the, okay. the, I forget the term. It's not the American. There's a, there's a international, psychiatric thing that, that has the formal diagnosis, but it's not yet, it's, it isn't in the DSM five yet. But even so, there's so many, there've been many pioneers in the work, you know, for people like Pete Walker, people like, Larry Heller, Diane Poole Heller, Kathy Cain, you know, and many others who, Gabor Mate big and sort of speaking to developmental trauma. So, so it's definitely in the public consciousness. I mean, probably 50 percent of my own clients, are, working with some, some degree of developmental, that that might be a focus, either the direct focus or a tangential focus to the work that we're doing. So it's very much, I believe what brings a lot of people to psychotherapy or brings them to somatic therapy or somatic coaching. and I know that's true for you too. What, what if we, why don't we share a little bit, why don't you share a little bit about, you know, what's different about developmental trauma? what, I guess, what does that term even refer to? What's included within the concept of developmental trauma? Well, definitely childhood injuries, whether they happen post birth or pre birth, Right, lasts a long time, last a lifetime unless we address it typically. And, you know, how some people seem to have lived pretty much together life and then something small happens, well small, car accident, disaster, nature disaster, and all of a sudden their lives fall apart or they get divorced or somebody dies in the family. So sometimes that's how developmental trauma comes to, The surface. to the surface and you cannot not see it anymore because the coping strategies that before were, good enough all of a sudden are not sufficient. So developmental trauma can show up through relational difficulties. People who always end up with somebody who is not quite compatible or lots of breakups or stay in a relationship that is stable, but they are not satisfied and they would rather be alone or people who are permanently prefer to be alone because relationships don't work. Health issues, chronic health issues often can be an indicator of developmental trauma, especially digestive issues, insomnia, immune system, chronic fatigue, allergies, Fibromyalgia. chronic pain, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's the, and then, yeah. So, you know, your name, yeah, it could be injuries to me. A pretty common story is, medical traumas. It was a fairly common, at a young age. And then certainly birth birth challenges are a big one as well, or, or distress in utero. and I think, you know, probably, you know, a while ago, people might've been skeptical that that sort of those. Influences that they can carry on into the adult nervous system, but I think now it's, it's pretty well understood that. Yeah, the, the, the early imprints to a, a developing nervous system, are, it's a big deal. It's a, you know, what happens during those early in year infant years and, and, and even beyond, leaves a long lasting impression. Definitely. And Gabriel Maté's story is a great testimonial to that. And then there's the book, The Body Keeps the Score, right? The body remembers everything. We have cellular memory, tissue memory. Even if we cognitively try to forget the body remembers. right. Very much so. So maybe, so could you speak a little bit about these days, you know, now you're, I don't know, 30, 40 years. I'm not sure how, quite how deep you are into your, your career, but what are some of the, what are some of the ways that you work? I mean, I mentioned, you know, at least through Red Beard, you're doing somatic experiencing parts work, dare, you probably bring in sensory motor. It's hard to not bring all of one's training when we work what, when, when somebody is new with you and they, they know that they want to, they, they're, they have some awareness that there's been some developmental, component. Maybe that's maybe they're in a functional freeze response. Maybe they, who knows what, how, what are some of the ways that you start to work with that? How do you, how do you work with people these days? Well, the first step is always establishing safety in your relationship, establishing connection and learning where the client is and what they're needing. So, every person is very different and I work with each person differently. With some people I need, I work more relationally, giving them reassurance, validation, making sure that they feel safe, they can experiment with me in ways that might not be safe in my daily life, and that I will not disappear. I'll stay with them. I will be the safe space landing space they can always return to some people. I start more with regulating of the nervous system more from the somatic experiencing and go where I just keep helping them land in a place where they can be present to right here right now versus being stuck in the past or escaping to the future and finding resources within their body relating to the environment in ways that can support them feeling safe and, and, and regulated, settled, present. and then I, I'm, you know, since I don't really use fully sensory motor psychotherapy because I work as a coach through Red Beard. I do psychotherapy with clients in Europe where, there's different licensing, but I use definitely elements where we involve movements. We complete developmental actions like reaching out, pulling, pushing, yielding, and so forth. I've, I love doing also virtual touch, which through Red Beard it hasn't been very popular, but I spent years studying with Kathy Kane and learned how incredibly powerful it can be to hold somebody's kidneys adrenals, whether it is in person or virtually. So hard to explain how it works, but there's something about sensing that safe touch on, on the organ that signals danger, kidneys and adrenals. Right. That allows the nervous system to settle and, and then all the stressful thoughts just disappear. There's the sense of connection, relational connection, that touch can provide, which is much harder and might, might take longer through language or other ways of communicating. Right. Yeah. So true. Yeah. No, what, what I really resonate with is, you know, kind of like, well, what's the starting point? And, and, and I'm a little bit similar in that very commonly I would, I like to begin with. I, I often will kind of do some nervous system work first, you know, kind of somatic experiencing partly like that's sort of my way of kind of getting to know the, the, the nervous system in front of me, so to speak, it's sort of like, well, what, what are the, what are the things that tend to make a person, you know, rev up a little bit, maybe get a little more anxious or, or do they have a tendency to, do they have, you know, are they have a tendency towards going into a bit of a freeze or an immobilization response, it's sort of like, and also what are, what are the reliable things for helping, you know, find anchoring or settling or, or a resource, you know, whether that's, you know, some people you, you know, we work with just simple breaths and if we pay the right kind of attention to the breathing, you know, it's settling and it's grounding and it's, and then that that's easy for them and other people, you start kind of exploring the breath and you have to, and, and, and, it actually can be, you know, a little bit activating. So my style is a little bit like I kind of want to learn the what's the nervous system in front of me? And, and get a, get a little bit of a felt sense of, all right, what helps create as much stability. It's also an opportunity just to kind of feel like I'm getting to know the person a little bit, even at the relational level. And so that, for me, that's kind of off in the beginning. And, and then things might go a different directions, you know, If we're, if we want to work explicitly with, with some of the childhood experiences, then to me, parts work is such an amazing a framework for doing that because in parts work, it allows us to access the memories. and, but also include in our conversation, you know, what we, in IFS is called the capital S self or in, in norm work, it's called the adult consciousness. But, but by carrying the sort of the both end of the adult consciousness or witness consciousness, and the part, and then what I love so much about a parts work is that it's the mostly it's the person attending to that younger part, and finding out, you know, what, what's, what, what was needed that was missing, what reassurance is needed now, you know, it opens this creative space of what would be healing it. You know, it's not about erasing the history, but it's about, can we introduce safety, or, or some new possibilities anyway? So, like, provide the missing experiences. Exactly. Provide those missing experiences, get to sort of take that in and that, you know, we were in that dare training together with Diane Puhler a couple of weekends ago, and you and I were both saying, oh, yeah, you know, it fits so well with IFS and, and in terms of kind of bringing in the, the attachment. you know, missing pieces and things like that. so, you know, the other part, if I may jump in, yeah, yeah, I really love about internal family systems and working with parts is often we have parts of ourselves that we don't understand why they sabotage our actions. why we procrastinate, why we act against our best interests. So, IFS is a beautiful way of asking, befriending those parts and learning about what's the positive intention of that part? Why is that part doing that? And once we Come from the place of valid understanding that all parts wants the best for us, but sometimes they are stuck thinking that we are 3 years old or 5 years old or 10 years old, and they still think that we live with our parents and our behaviors needs to be adaptive to that environment. Once we update the parts, once we validate that we understand they want our best. Something shifts and the parts become more open to collaboration and maybe, supporting us in ways that are adaptive at our current age. right, right, absolutely. Yeah, no, I love that. And, you know, and to me, there's something that I find myself talking about with clients more often, often these days, you know, when we're going to do parts work, or we're going to do, you know, dare style, you know, what was missing, what was needed and, and some people just they intuitively like they get it. Oh, yeah, what I needed was, you know, I needed somebody to stand up for me or, you know, if somebody had just noticed what was going on and said, this isn't right. Or, you know, some people, you know, many people organically start to furnish the, the ideas that, that would feel very different in the system. Now, some people have to do a little bit of, you explaining on why this is not just a, it's these methods. They're not just about sort of wishful thinking and, and, and, you know, hey, pretending everything was fine. That's, that's not it whatsoever. and I talk more and more these days about, you know, some of the neuroscience around it and this concept of memory, reconsolidation and how we have just very good, neuroscientific evidence that when, when we engage the implicit memory, that's sort of the body or the, or the memories themselves in the context of safety. And when we can do that, and when we kind of recruit the right brain and the imaginative experience, in the, in the sort of therapeutic setting or, or even in somebody's personal, say, meditative space, that when we kind of open up a memory, there's, there is a chemical shift the, the neural circuitry associated with those memories becomes neuroplastic for a period of, i, I believe there's like a six hour window where there's an enhanced, neuroplasticity to the the place where those, where those memories are encoded. And then during that new, that, that window, having reopened something or working with a part in a really delicate way, or, or a memory in a very specific way. And if we can bring in these new ideas, what safety would have felt like, what we wish had happened, getting a do over of certain things. These kinds of repair work, they actually really, satisfy needs within that circuitry that were, that weren't met. And then the physiology can change. And then when the, you know, after that six hour neuroplastic window and things kind of settled, you know, reintegrate that a change has happened even at the structural level of the brain. And so I find sometimes, you know, for people who think. Oh, okay. Well, how's this going to help me in some tangible way? I refer more and more to that kind of a research. I, I'm sciencey enough that I kind of always need to have a little bit of a, you know, an understanding, even when intuitively something obviously is, you know, clearly working really well. What do you find? Do you ever sort of face that, that, people have that type of skepticism or you, you're explaining in that way or. Absolutely. Yes. And I love science myself. It helps meet my inner skeptic to see the proof and then it validates, oh yes, my experience confirms what the science, Okay. teaches. So yes, it was sometimes, have you ever noticed that for some people, the concept of parts is difficult or some people don't believe that small shifts, like small regulations of the nervous system actually would matter. And how repetitive, little by little, regulating here and there over time just shifts everything. The organizational experience, the level of, the level that their nervous system was used to operating, let's say, in high sympathetic fight or flight, or being more dissociative depressive, depressive hyperarousal. For those little shifts, their nervous system becomes comfortable with more being within what we call window of The window of tolerance. Yeah. Well, you know, there's that phrase and, you know, we say, you know, we hear it in somatic experiencing and related work, this concept that's, you know, for, for nervous system work, slower is faster. Yes, less is more.z Yeah, less is more. And I mean, it sounds, you know, it sounds like, I guess I used to think, well, that's just, you know, that's a nice thought. And, and, you know, we don't want to overwhelm people. So that's a nice way to work, but, but now I've, so that's true. It is a nice it's much nicer way to work to not overwhelm somebody. Hey, you know, that's a win, but, but the idea that, that, that. Literally, that's more effective. Literally, the, the, if, if we're not going, if we're not creating a stimulus, that's too far outside of the window of tolerance, then literally it's digested and integrated and recalibrates the nervous system in a more powerful way. So in fact, it is those, but to me, there's a, there's a second ingredient. It's not just the subtle changes. That is, of course, the subtle changes are important, if, in my view, in my view, if there's a lot of, awareness of, of what's taking place. So to me, when I think about somatic experiencing, you know, like I'll, I'll start with a new client and I'll say, Hey, let's just take a few breaths together, kind of settle in. Let's take, you know, two, three breaths any way you want to nice and relaxed, no rush, do it in your own way. And I'll say, yeah, just, okay, let's do maybe three or four of those kinds of breaths. And then I say, and then immediately I say, and as you're doing that, does your body kind of like that or is it neutral or is it a little, is it a little activating or challenging in some way? And so then they answer that question there and it could be any of those three. And then I, then, then we might say again, okay, well let's, you know, let's do another cycle, you know, another breath or two and then, and, and now what are you noticing? So you just did those breaths, what's the after effect in your, what, what can you sense and feel? And what's amazing to me is that sometimes in those early SE sessions and we've only done five or six breaths, not some fancy breath pattern that, that, you know, that is proprietary or something, but the difference is paying attention to, and did your body like that now, what's happening, what's happening next. It's bringing in that, that active awareness piece, suddenly it just magnifies everything and, and then little things, little changes in the nervous system when they are observable and understandable somehow, then it creates just a much more powerfully regulating influence. I, I wonder if that's if you, if you feel similarly or what your experience is. So I love the example of taking breaths together that you mentioned. Another exercise that I often often introduced at the beginning is orienting orientation, just noticing objects in the environment right. which brings the client into mindful state of being in the present moment, instead of in the past, in the future, where either depression, life threatening anxiety, in the present moment, when we are seeing the nervous system, interoception, always active subconscious scanning of the nervous system for safety or, safety or danger cues, it just settles the nervous system. And then the next step could be, well, notice if there's anything in particular that catches your attention, your eyes want to go to, and stay with it. And that's typically even more settling. And then I ask, well, notice what happens in your body as you're looking at that color or that shape. And they usually feel warmth or spaciousness, deeper breath. Less thoughts. There's more spaciousness Yep. the moment. Yeah. So the, the interventions are sort of simple. They're not. In a way, but it's, it's the, it's the, it's the awareness that, really can amplify. Yeah, and with time, clients become sensitized to good feelings. Often people who are traumatized, especially with developmental trauma, pay more attention to what's wrong, what doesn't work, what's not safe or tense, versus what feels good. So in our work, we really train them to notice what feels neutral, Oh, what's good, orienting to pleasure versus orienting to danger, and the changes. How the nervous system totally. Well, right. I mean, so there's that, yeah, you've been in pain for a while, you've been stressed out. It's pretty easy to have that so called negativity bias where you're paying more attention to the, the things that are uncomfortable or scary or dangerous. And, and so you're absolutely right. you know, just kind of working against that bias a little bit. It's like, okay, sure. So there's tension. What else? What? And, but what doesn't feel as tense? what feels is less tense, yeah. right? Exactly. And, and increasing that awareness of what, what, what can somebody be aware of beyond the stress in addition to the pain and amazingly, you know, what that can do to us or capacity or, or in a way, retuning what, what, you know, how somebody experiences themselves. And some people initially don't trust that. They grew up in a violent environment or with a lot of unsafety and they don't feel comfortable with anything that feels good, so we might need time. gently train the nervous system to learn that it's actually safe. Nothing bad happens when I feel some pleasure or some Yeah. Allow myself to feel a little bit of pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, one of your teachers and mentors, for a long time, Kathy Kane, is very well known in the somatic experiencing world, for for taking many of the principles of somatic experiencing and, and, and extending their use, largely through touch. And she, you know, she wrote a beautiful book, with, is for with Steven Terrell, right, the nurturing resilience, which to me is really a excellent, practical framework and guide. for the, the kind of work that, that needs to happen with a CPTSD kind of nervous system recovery. And I think in that book, they introduce a lot of really valuable language. I think that was, they were the first ones where I became familiar with the concept of the faux window of tolerance. which, which was really useful for me to, to sort of understand, but even just the title nurturing resilience, I think is important because it's this idea that the kinds of, you know, how do we make the types of changes at the nervous system level that increase capacity, build resilience. It's not just like something that just do like one massage and suddenly you're resilient. That's that, that isn't how it works. It's something that's accumulated or nurtured. And a lot of it is this awareness piece and it's the, it's the subtlety. done over in a sustained way over a period of time that can just rebuild the neural circuitry reorient towards safety, have safety happen at the, at the, at the neuroception level that, you know, have those state changes on the inside, but maybe you could talk a little bit about that, that idea of, maybe, maybe Kathy Kane's work and perspective around, around nurturing resilience. Yes, that's a big topic and I'm glad you mentioned the faux window of tolerance. So we typically, in order to cope with being in the stack on or off, meaning stuck in the high activation, hyper arousal or hyper arousal. We develop strategy, coping strategies that make us feel that we're okay, that's, you know, we don't have major problems and I'm fine. And then accident happens and all of a sudden we are flooded with emotions, anxiety. We don't know not fine. Why am I not fine? Yeah, So, the slowness. You know, that's the wisdom of nature. The tree doesn't grow overnight. It needs to be watered, needs sun, and, and different elements, nutrients to, to blossom and grow. Cathy Kane talks about how in our traumatic responses, we either overlink different elements, holding, holding the extra charge in the body. So, trauma happens when too much, too too much too fast. Yeah, overwhelming happens. And our nervous system has two basic ways of dealing with that. One is, through dissociating, breaking down the experience so we don't even know that we have charged, we, we don't feel it, only when those pieces of, that we, that we were hiding the activation when they come together, right, all of a sudden the memory, the emotion, a trigger that type of a situation. Yep. Yep. And the other, the other way of dealing with this overwhelm is through, spreading that activation into many different situations. So, let's say one dog was barking at us when we were little and then we generalize that. Particular incident into all of the dogs. We, we are starting to have panic attacks when we, when we see dogs, we call it over coupling or uncoupling, over linking, the elements of, traumatic experience or, or under linking, under Right. Right. Exactly. Yep. Yep. with Kathy Kane, we learn how to very gently and gradually approach either those situations or body parts that hold this extra charge and then discharge, release it so we can integrate on the level without this high activation or we are just holding the elements of experience that are disconnected, bringing them together. So we all of a sudden remember, Oh, You know, my father was abusive when I was little and I was only focusing on his smile or the gifts he was giving me, but actually he did things that hurt me. So, I think that's a big part of Kathy King's work to, restore capacity of the nervous system to not overreact or underreact. Or under react. Exactly. No, I think that's a really good explanation around that over. Over, you know, excess charge or you've, or you've, or you've disconnected, but, and I think a lot of people would be surprised to, to hear, you know, I think a lot of people are, you know, they think of therapy and they think of talk therapy and psychotherapy largely as a, you know, and still the mainstream models, in the West, certainly, would be cognitive, cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy and, and, you know, talk based approaches, cognitive top down approaches. And so I think a lot of people would be surprised and they might, they might think, okay, well, sure, getting a massage that can feel nice. Maybe that even relaxes the nervous system. Maybe that could be healing in that way. But that's not exactly what we're talking about when we talk about, touch work, touch, somatic touch work, which is much more, much more specific. And maybe you could describe just a little bit around how, how touch, whether it's virtual touch or, but, you know, I guess for our purposes, thinking about, you know, in person touch, you know, primarily why, how does that work? How is it that touch can provide useful support or, or can help with this work of, discharging or reintegrating? How does the touch component help with that? So when we are born, sensations really, untouched sensations are the first language. We don't have ability to talk. We just feel the world. So, a lot of our early processing happens in that level. Touch can, communicate safety, or unsafety, and also a lot of information about ourselves. So, we often first feel an emotion in the body before we can name what we are actually feeling. We feel tears and then we realize, Oh, I'm sad. Or we have this tightness in the stomach and then we have the awareness of anger. So touch can really help us get closer to our experience and more easily integrate whatever we are experiencing. Help me out here. I think I'm a little No, no, I think that's really, I think that's really, really good. I think that's a really, I think what you're saying something very true, which is that, like, let's use an example of dissociation. So let's, let's say that, you know, let's say that there's a memory or a time period. Maybe, maybe it's around. Let's use an example where somebody, not so much abuse, but where the developmental trauma is that, you know, that they were under, undernourished. They didn't either receive enough touch or, or even just attention from one of their caregivers. Maybe they were busy or that person was. In a PTSD state, so they didn't have a lot of relationship to offer, for example. So, and let's say that if we were just kind of exploring through talk or even through tracking sensation, that a person might get to a point where, it's hard to stay with maybe the tendency to disassociate or to disconnect from sensation. And so, like, to me, that's 1 situation where I would maybe work with touch when I'm when I'm doing in person work is sometimes. Touch provides a way to stay present to the level of sensation. A person might be able to sort of stay with the, the thoughts, feelings, implicit memories. One might, my touch might provide safety. That safety might help them stay present. My touch might also, bring attention to an area of their body where it's easy for them to disconnect their awareness as part of their disconnecting or dissociating pattern. So like maybe that, that to me is like one tangible example of like how touch might work. Some people attach phobic because of their history. They will be actually dissociating when you touch them. So, we really need to establish initially how they respond to touch. Yeah. And when I, and when I'm working online with folks and of course, you know, I can't offer touch in a direct sense. I do quite a bit when I do SC and, and other work, I do quite a bit of self touch, you know, tracking sensation, with touch. I guess I'm, you know, I think most somatic people work with that as an element. You work with what, you know, called virtual touch. And I had a lovely session with you. I remember once where you, where you did that virtual, kidney support hold, and it was really cool. And, and. I mean, maybe we could think something metaphysical is happening, you know, maybe, another interpretation is that the, is the power of imagination. So I'm, I'm laying there, you're on my zoom call and, and you're sort of inviting this, okay. And now I'm going to support, you know, under your, under your kidneys with my hands. And, and so to me, there's a very real sense, and I don't necessarily have to jump to the to the metaphysical interpretation. I can sort of think, wow, that's a very, that's a strong intention and a strong awareness on both of our parts. And I know what it feels like to receive touch. And so in my view, maybe that, that, that active imagination piece, could, could be part of the effectiveness, but in a way it doesn't matter. As long as you let your skepticism sort of sit on the side, as long as there's an experience that's taking place, you know, for me, it was one of, like, ah, there's something to kind of relax into. There's something to settle into similar to what would very similar to what it would feel like if I was there in Tucson with you and you, you put your supportive, sensitive hands, in that area, so do you do a lot of, when you're working virtually, do you do, do you work with sort of, the person providing touch and you doing virtual touch? Is that common for you? I've done many sessions like that, definitely. And I do a lot of Cathy Kane's Arlene Duncan work, working with organs, or tissues, layers of tissues in the body through touch. And I believe that it works through the power of intention. You know, have you ever experienced thinking about someone and then they called you because they all of a sudden thought about you too? Certainly I have one friend with whom we don't even work on Zoom. We just make a session and offer virtual treatment and then the other person reports what they were feeling. And they really feel what I was doing. Or the other way around. Yeah. Very cool. We live in a quantum universe. yeah, no, no, I'm not. No, I, I can go in the metaphysical direction myself personally, but just, to me, there's, it's, you know, we could, we could understand it from different levels, I think would be a a fair way to say it. sure. And visualization is very powerful. One talk just a little bit about the dare approach. Diane Poole Heller, because, you and I were just attended that seminar because she was teaching, which is cool because she doesn't do a lot of the direct teaching anymore. and she's well known for taking, attachment theory. And and bringing, you know, sort of many people have heard of attachment styles, avoidant, anxious, ambivalent, disorganized, secure, secure attachment and creating a framework, very, very, very, experiential and she's a former, she worked with Peter Levine for many, many years, still does. And she was a faculty for the somatic experiencing program for several decades. And so, you know, my view, and I think her view too, is that, their work, is, it's, it's very, it's very somatic experiencing, except what's brought into the conversation, especially is, not only the nervous system, but also the attachment system and how, and that we can learn to sense and feel what is our attachment system doing. And there's this sort of ideal state called secure attachment, where we feel a sense of safety. You know, that would probably correspond to the ventral vagal circuitry from polyvagal theory when we feel safe. And we feel connected to self and we feel in safe reciprocal connection with, with another person. So that's, we, we wish all babies, got to experience that, got to really encode it because then they would develop later in life, having that as their home base, it's kind of the, ideal home base in a way. And then sure, I mean, conflicts come up. That's an obvious part of life, but it's certainly kind of nice when our default is a place of connection and safety. But what's, you're from Diane Poole Heller's work, you know, and just attachment theory in general, I think it's something like 40%, maybe. I don't know. I mean, these statistics are hard to, hard to really know this. You know, maybe 40 percent are in that lucky category where they naturally developed this quote unquote secure attachment, you know, style, but most people have one degree or multiple ways in which what's what she calls, attachment adaptations where, either situationally or as a default, you know, maybe the person that they're not used to receiving, if they weren't used to receiving, you know, high quality, caring attention, then they would naturally be distrustful of that. And so then not seek it out they might become more independent or look for safety totally from within instead of in relationship with the outside world or another example, like the, anxious, anxious attachment adaptation where, you where, you, you've had the, you've had some, good examples of co regulation, but not consistent. So there's this way that you're, it was never quite enough. So you're, you're sort of seeking it out. And, and I personally just think she does, you know, in her book, the power of attachment is a really accessible way to kind of get her language around it, but both you and I, you know, we chatted afterwards about, just how, how lovely that training has been and how well it fits in with our, the ways we're already working. But, you know, we're, I think three weeks out, what, what, what stayed with you from that, that training? Right. One thing that's probably stood out the most is how actually easy and accessible it can be to repair attachment adaptations and return to our innate secure attachment. And yeah, I studied attachment through sensory motor psychotherapy and it's way more elaborate and detailed method. D. A. R. E. is so beautifully simple and easy for clients to, to get into. The, the practice is just, I don't know, my body was, was soaking them up and, and I could feel how quickly I was shifting from being a little nervous, practicing with strangers in triads, to feeling resourced, settled, more trusting, more safe in the world. And, and more relationally curious. So it, I, I already use several of the techniques from, from the training and my clients love it. And then they can use them themselves. That's, that's the beauty of it. Many of the practices from there can be easily also used by clients at Yeah, exactly. And I love, you know, to me, there's a pair in the same way that when we think about the nervous system, you know, this concept of nurturing resilience or nurture, cultivating more capacity at the at the nervous system level. It's like the same. It's a very similar concept for the. Secure attachment. It's, it's, it's again, it's in dare when we're including a dare lens, we're sort of finding out that, you know, everybody, even though there's lots of ways, most of us have lots of, you know, attachment disruptions that show up as social anxiety and, you know, all the things we do when we're not feeling, when we're not feeling totally safe. Which is common, but, but most of us also have access to, yeah, you know, we know what it feels like when a friendship feels safe or a connection with our, you know, what, what, what it feels like with our, you know, our golden retriever dog or something. And so there's this way that we can use our, the references that we do have. Well, we do know what safe relationship feels like most, you know, almost everybody has some reference points to that type of connection and safety. And so one of the strategies of dare is, okay, now how can, can we grow that? So to me, it's nurturing, nurturing that, that secure attachment. So, and you know, sure. Are we going to get, you know, into our attachment adaptations? Of course we are. But again, if we can spend more time, oriented towards. secure to me, it's very similar to what we're trying to cultivate in the nervous system. Cultivating this relational safety and returning back to it, nurturing it. Because it grows. Versus regurgitating all the conflicts that we had or what went wrong. Just choosing to pick what was the moment that felt good in that relationship Right? Right. Well, and it even comes into the name. You know, I always say the acronym DARE because the name is so long dynamic attachment repatterning experience. I hardly ever say the entire thing out loud, but the name kind of explains a little bit of what it is. So it's dynamic attachment, repatterning, experience. So the repatterning experience to me, those are the important words where we're looking at times where we oftentimes in dare where we are looking at examples, either from the present tense or from history where where things were not that great. Maybe, you know, you didn't have enough support or somebody was overwhelming or, you know, you intrusive into your boundaries or something was not, kind of as it should be. And then we're trying to create in a session, the experience using that right brained active imagination that we mentioned earlier to really clarify, well, what would, what would have made it just perfect? Like what would have made it feel just right? And then kind of soak in that experience that you can imagine it, maybe even feel in our relationship, some of the ingredients of secure relationship. And it's like by kind of imbibing that or taking it in. our system can, can, can steer in that direction. So that's kind of, that's kind of how I'm holding it these days in terms of, you a way, it's a re education of the nervous system. Stop over focusing on danger and what went wrong and focusing on what felt good nourishing your mind. And you know, Rick Hansen has this saying that, we are pre programmed, our nervous system is pre programmed to be like a Teflon to positive experiences and Velcro to negative. That's a survival right, strategy because it's more important to not recognize danger. quickly and protect ourselves. We will not die by missing something positive happening. right. Interesting. So fascinating. Well, good. What is anything from a, just a closing note perspective, anything you think we haven't, haven't included or what, what I'll let you have the last word. What's What else, what else needs to be said? Do you think Maybe briefly, those methods that we use work and they are enjoyable. It's not the painful trauma therapy that, you know, most people think in therapy you cry and you go back to pain and so and terror? Yeah. Yeah. yeah, we spend so much time resourcing and focusing on what is uplifting. and strengthening ourselves and enjoyable. But I think that most clients really have a good time in our sessions. I think that, yeah, that's important to say. Good. Good point. Awesome. Well, Aleksandra yeah. Thank you so much for taking time and, and for the, all the great work you're doing, with your clients. They're, they're lucky to have you. Thank you so much, Alex. I had a great time with you today. Thank you.