Table Of ContentRelational and Body-Centered
Practices for Healing Trauma
Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma provides psycho-
therapists and other helping professionals with a new bodily-based clini-
cal model for the treatment of trauma. This model synthesizes emerging
neurobiological and attachment research with somatic, embodied healing
practices. Tested with hundreds of practitioners in courses for more than a
decade, the principles and practices presented here empower helping pro-
fessionals to effectively treat people with trauma while experiencing a sense
of mutuality and personal growth themselves.
Sharon Stanley, PhD, is an educator and psychotherapist in private
practice on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where she also develops and
facilitates courses on Somatic Transformation, a two-year curriculum for
healing trauma.
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Relational and Body-Centered
Practices for Healing Trauma
Lifting the Burdens of the Past
Sharon Stanley
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2016 Sharon Stanley
The right of Sharon Stanley to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stanley, Sharon, author.
Relational and body-centered practices for healing trauma : lifting
the burdens of the past / by Sharon Stanley.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-138-90595-5 (hardback : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-138-90596-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-315-69236-4 (ebook)
1. Stress Disorders, Traumatic—therapy. 2. Mind-Body Relations,
Metaphysical. 3. Psychotherapy—methods. I. Title.
RC552.T7
616.85′210651—dc23
2015032542
ISBN: 978-1-138-90595-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-90596-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-69236-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Garamond
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Dedicated to the memory of Eileen Stanley
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Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 Trauma and Embodied Relational Therapy 4
2 Structures and Functions of the Brain and
Polyvagal Theory of Autonomic Functioning 17
3 Good News! The Brain Can Change! 43
4 Embodiment: Coming Home to Our Bodies 59
5 With Trauma “the Spirit Leaves the Body” 74
6 Somatic Awareness: The Truth of the Mind Begins
in the Body 89
7 Somatic Empathy: Encounters of “Feeling Felt” 104
8 Somatic Inquiry: Exploring the Intersubjective
World through Language 120
9 Somatic Interventions for Regulating Neural-Emotional
States 137
10 Somatic Interventions with Imagination and Dreams 155
11 Somatic Refl ection 171
12 The Old/New Paradigm for Healing Trauma 187
Appendix: The Practice of Somatics 199
Index 217
Preface
I can trace the roots of Somatic Transformation back to 1978, when my
father called and asked me to come home and help care for my younger
sister Eileen. A nineteen-year-old college student, Eileen was lifeguard-
ing at a beach in Bellevue, Washington, when she was severely assaulted.
Although the visible wounds healed in time, the impact of this trauma
changed our lives. Despite her suffering, Eileen lived with joy and love. A
gifted physical therapist, she became known as a “physical therapy whis-
perer,” teaching colleagues to attend to the person rather than the trauma.
Eileen not only showed me how to deeply and patiently connect with oth-
ers, gently calling out the life force hidden in immobilized states, but she
became the primary medical contributor and fi rst coordinator of Somatic
Transformation.
A number of other experiences have shaped the principles and prac-
tices of Somatic Transformation, including my work with the prevention
of youth suicide in Tacoma and the discovery of phenomenology and its
somatic, embodied approach at the University of Victoria. Following the
completion of research that focused on the development of empathy in
educators working with traumatized youth, I was invited to teach prin-
ciples of neuroscience and somatic practices for healing trauma to Indig-
enous communities in Canada. As we worked together, the signifi cance of
their ancient ways of knowing and healing trauma began to take root with
me over a number of years, and I recognized the power of nonverbal com-
munication, participation in ceremony, the lived experience of traditional
community, and a spirituality that valued interconnectivity with all. The
teachings they offered to me led me to explore other ancient practices
for healing trauma. A traditional Afro-Brazilian community invited me to
learn and participate in their ceremonies, embodied practices of expres-
sion, love, and sensuality that were sustained through four hundred years
of slavery. Participation in a Seattle study group for ten years with Allan
Schore has grounded my interest in the phenomenology of traditional and
Indigenous cultures with the emerging neuroscience of human attachment
and regulation of intense emotions. Much of the emerging neurobiologi-
cal information about trauma has been well known for centuries in the
Preface ix
“teachings” of Indigenous Nations and in the stories, myths, and ceremo-
nies of traditional and ancient cultures throughout the world.
A s I have attempted to integrate my own lived experience and enrich
my clinical and educational practice in healing trauma, I have tried to dis-
cern the essence of healthy human development, the life-changing inter-
ruptions to optimal development and culturally appropriate ways to heal
those wounds. The curriculum of Somatic Transformation, a small-group
educational process, presents emerging principles of neuroscience and fos-
ters the development of relational somatic practices for healing trauma
that are based on the wisdom known to human beings for centuries. I have
taught Somatic Transformation to hundreds of mental health practitioners
over the last ten years and synthesized the essential themes, concepts, and
practices into this book.
T hree primary interdependent themes are interwoven throughout this
book:
Subjectivity. We must pay attention to, have respect for, and under-
stand the profound signifi cance of the bodily-based subjective knowledge
of individuals. The effect of their lived experience is written in the func-
tions of muscles, glands, bones, and the nervous system, and the structures
of the developing brain. The human body holds the record of all that has
been lived, including all encounters with others—stories of love and con-
nection combine with moments of pain, anguish, and loss that the mind
often “forgets” in order to survive. If we wish to know and heal the trauma
of others, we need to know their ongoing subjective experience of their
bodies.
Embodied Intersubjectivity. Embodied intersubjectivity, interpersonal
sharing of specifi c subjective experience in the moment, requires practitio-
ners to develop new ways of knowing by attending to fi xed and changing
perceptions; seeing, hearing, and feeling the ways the body communi-
cates its truth. To assist another in processing trauma and resuming the
interrupted growth and development from trauma, a sense of safety and
interconnection is essential. Relationships that value authentic embodied
intersubjective communications are at the core of healthy parenting, cou-
ples, families, friendship, and professional support.
Community. The support of the larger community and culture is essen-
tial to nurture and support the most wounded among us in the context
of healing relationships. The actual interpersonal contributions of pro-
fessional organizations, churches, schools, governments, and geographi-
cal communities can be distinguished from each other when we see their
actions through the eyes and feelings of suffering human beings. Respect
for the embodied subjective experience of individuals despite the disturb-
ing effects of their trauma is at the heart of healing communities.
E ach of these themes appears in this book in four distinct bodies of
knowledge, each with its own language and forms of communication. The
fi rst is the changing language of the dominant culture, neuroscience, and
