Summary and Takeaways from Trauma Sensitive Yoga in Therapy by David Emerson

In this video, I'll share my takeways and summary of the book Trauma Sensitive Yoga in Therapy by David Emerson, PhD.

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*** A full transcript can be found at www.marblejar.net. ***

Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share my takeways and summary of the book Trauma Sensitive Yoga in Therapy by David Emerson, PhD.

You may have noticed that I'm reading a lot of books on trauma.  I'm a mental health therapist in training and I started out reading a whole pile of books on everything my clients are experiencing -- anxiety, depression, ADHD, self esteem issues, PTSD, you name it.  The problem is that since I'm already doing a bunch of reading in school, I can only read so fast -- so I decide to focus on trauma.  My reasoning is that that is the area that, if I'm not careful and informed, I could really do some harm to my clients.  

In doing all of this reading on trauma, one of my main takeaways is that trauma is a full body experience -- flashbacks and uncontrollable thoughts can make your body feel like it's experiencing those terrifying experiences right now.  I've come to believe that one of the most important ways to begin healing from trauma is by working with your body.  This is known as "bottom up" therapy, which differs from "top down" -- or traditional talk therapy.

David Emerson is a clinical and research psychologist who, along with Bessel Van der Kolk who wrote The Body Keeps the Score, pioneered the use of yoga as a therapeutic practice.  This book, Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in Therapy is an overview of how mental health therapists can use yoga to help their clients recover from trauma.

Since trauma is terror that is felt powerfully in the body, one of the coping strategies survivors have used is to distance themselves from the feelings in their bodies.  After all, if they can't feel it, it's not as scary or doesn't hurt as bad.  This totally makes sense, but even after they are safe, many survivors continue to be disconnected from their bodies.  This is why you hear stories of sexual assault survivors feeling like they are floating above the bed even during sex with a trusted partner OR people not flinching or reacting to loud sounds or noises.  This disconnection can be so severe that people can no longer sense or notice what their body is feeling.  You can put a key in their hand and they won't know it's there unless they look down at it. 

Trauma-sensitive Yoga is solely about reconnecting clients with their bodily sensations, so they can start to feel again.  Why is this important?  I won't go into all of the reasoning, but essentially there are two reasons.  The first is that the sensations from our bodies help us to make good decisions for ourselves.  If your body is sending signals that you are standing in a puddle, you might make the decision to step out of the puddle.  Without that feedback, we are handicapped in determining when to sleep, how much to eat, and whether we are too cold or hot.  The other reason is that our bodies naturally prefer to be in rhythm with others.  When we are talking with someone, we start to move the way they do -- they lean to the left and we mirror that movement, they touch their hair, and we touch ours.  This atunement helps us to connect with others.  Traumatized people are famously out of sync with other people.  Our social engagement systems shut down so that we can concentrate on survival.  Connecting with our bodies again helps us to get back into sync with others, which brings its own form of healing.

Emerson tells us that trauma-sensitive yoga, which he calls TSY, is different from regular yoga in a couple of ways.  First of all, it is
Chair-based - TSY is meant to be practiced in a therapist's office, not a yoga studio.  For this reason, most moves can be done while seated in a chair or from a standing position.  You don't need a lot of space, special clothing, or props.  And generally, the therapist is not a yoga teacher, but a therapist who has been trained to use these moves in the treatment of trauma.  Speaking of moves, TSY uses
Forms - not Poses.  Traditional yoga uses a series of poses.  The creators of TSY don't like this term since it feel performance based, like something you would show someone else.   They like the term Form instead since that is something that is important only to you and doesn't require an audience.  TSY is
Invitation Only - rather than command based.  Whereas in traditional yoga, the instructor may say, "Now do Down Dog and then go into a Plank."  TSY therapists will say, "If you like, you can try to lift one leg."  It should always be an invitation to move, but never a command, since a lack of control is one of the defining traits of traumatic events.  TSY gives that control entirely to the client.  In addition, TSY involves . . .