Like many therapists, I have been influenced by the work of Bessel Van De Kolk and his book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’.  I work with the assumption that trauma sits in the body and is experienced somatically in our nervous system and elsewhere.  I work with traumatic presentations in a way that allows the body to speak first, before or alongside narrative memory. 

This usually involves a process of ‘noticing’ how emotions and bodily sensations present themselves to us and the story that they tell. A process sometimes referred to as ‘somatic noticing’ based on the work of Babette Rothschild and Peter Levine. 

I sometimes use physical movement and incorporate gentle yoga-type movement into a client’s sessions as a way of engaging the body, releasing stress responses and helping us to identify where the trauma is sitting. This is always integrated alongside our conversation, often sitting on the floor, but sometimes in the chair. 

I am currently undertaking further training in embodied psychotherapy as this way of working becomes more and more important to my practice.