Verbal trauma skills and CST

Craniosacral Therapy is usually deeply relaxing and calming, but there is always a chance that trauma comes up during a session. Because of this, we have to know strategies to slow everything down for the client and bring him/her into the present moment. This is important so that the client doesn’t get overwhelmed or even re-traumatized.

The first thing we do is that we always try to find a resource for our client before we even start the session. A resource is something that makes us feel good. This can be an outside resource (i.e. flowers, exercise, hobbies) or an inside resource (i.e. what feels good inside your body, a warmth or a strength). It is often difficult for a client to find a resource. They cannot connect to their bodies.


When we find an outside resource, we then want to ideally connect that with an inside resource. For example, the client has said that flowers are a resource. We could then ask: How does it make you feel in your body when you look at flowers?” My answer to this would be: “It gives me a feeling of joy” The next question to this could be: “And can you feel this joy anywhere in your body?” My answer would be that I can feel it in my heart. A feeling of joy in my heart area.

Once we have this resource, we can then reconnect the client to this at any stage during the session when difficult emotions, thoughts or a pain come up by asking, for example: “Can you still feel that joy in your heart?” It is important to check in with a client or, that the client lets the practitioner know when a difficulty comes up. When someone gets pulled into a trauma vortex, we want to provide an opposite healing vortex into the opposite direction that brings them to a good feeling and into the present moment. Into the here and now where everything is safe and o.k.


(Trauma and healing vortex from Peter Levine “Waking the Tiger”)

I can remember my first experience of this as a “client” during one of the seminars of my CST-training. I could feel this strong sense of an overwhelming feeling coming up stronger and stronger. At first, I didn’t realize that this overwhelming feeling was abandonment. It is interesting, in hindsight, to see that this abandonment extended around my entire field as all the tutors were busy in that particular moment when I wanted to approach them. Only one of the tutors was available or felt approachable to me. This was Michael Kern. I went to him and told him that I am feeling overwhelmed and I don’t know why. He asked me whether I wanted him there close by in the next session work. I said yes, please. During the next session work I was working with one other student and while she was practising on me, Michael was there next to us. I am not exactly sure anymore what happened, but I think I suddenly started to cry violently. I could feel this deep pain coming up out of nowhere and I had no idea that that was inside me. Michael stepped in and asked me what I was feeling and where. I said that I felt this strong abandonment in my heart. Only then I really realized that this overwhelming feeling was abandonment. It felt so deep to me that I think that it might have been a generational thing. Michael connected me with my resource, which at that particular moment was feeling my body on the table and the connection to the earth and being grounded. This connection felt quite powerful. I was astounded at the time how much this apperently small connection could help me pull out of this deep and unbearable pain. I will always be grateful to Michael that he helped me during this session with this deep trauma and to myself for asking for help at that moment, something that I am normally not good at.


In shuttling we also make use of our resource. We connect the client with a resource and also with a difficult feeling and then we guide the client back and forth until ideally something changes in the difficult feeling.

Another good way to slow things down and bring the client into the present moment is to make the client aware of his/her breath. We could ask: “How is your breath at this moment? Is it a shallow breathing or a deep breathing? Try to follow your inhalations and exhalations without trying to change it.” or “Can you take a deep breath in and out?”

Then there is also a technique called WOSI, which stands for weight, outline, skin and inside. Possible questions we could ask the client here are: “How does the weight feel on the table?, Is it evenly spread on the table or is there one side or body part that feel heavier on the table? If you imagine lying on sand, would there be a deeper inprint somewhere? If you had to make an outline of your body, how would that outline look like? Are there missing bits? Can you get a sensation of your skin? How do the clothes feel on your skin? Can you feel the air on the skin where there is no clothing? How does the inside of your body feel? Can you get a sense of your organs? Is there a tension or pain anywhere? Or does it feel like there are some organs missing?”

The WOSI can also bring the client back into their body, slow things down and bring him/her into the present moment.

This blog was inspired by a question around verbal skills that one of my students asked me and while I was writing it, I thought it might be nice to write a blog and share this with more people. It’s also a reminder for myself and maybe for other CST-therapists.

Heike Clarke

www.findstillness.co.uk

June 2020