SENSORIMOTOR PSYCHOTHERAPY

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a talk therapy that is body-based and created for the treatment of trauma and early hurtful relationships. Sensorimotor psychotherapy uses various therapeutic methods to help free ourselves from being stuck in the painful experience of trauma and integrate the past into our present life.

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Mindfulness

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One method is using ‘mindfulness’: a way to calm ourselves by developing a special kind of present moment listening to ourselves – beginning with the breath and our physical body. Traumatic experiences from the past continue to live on, often trapped deep within our body's muscles and nervous system. We may not consciously know these traces of trauma are there, but they impact our lives. You may notice this by having various reactions that are rooted in the fight/flight/freeze response. For instance, do you find that you almost always freeze up when faced with a conflict? Or, do you find that you have a temper in which you get agitated very quickly, only later to regret or wish that you reacted in a manner that was more grounded in the situation? Sensorimotor psychotherapy focuses on helping you self-regulate to help both the mind and the body regain a sense of calm while also reinstating appropriate defensive responses (knowing how to protect oneself appropriately).

With Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, the body is used as the entry point to access awareness of the self, allowing frozen feelings and buried memories to come to the surface – at a pace that will not feel overwhelming for you. The therapy is focused on helping you stay in the present moment so that we can observe how you organize experience: your physical sensations, movements, impulses, thoughts, emotions and memories. This mindful state of awareness allows us to release ourselves from the old, destructive patterns that prevent us from living life to the fullest.

Sensorimotor psychotherapy also helps you understand how certain habitual postures, movements and core limiting beliefs are often rooted in the past. Through different experiments, role playing and exploring deep rooted memories-greater flexibility in thought, coping and even patterned physical responses can be achieved.