Douglas Smith.
I am a psychotherapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in private practice in Portland, Maine. My work integrates talk therapy, somatic therapy (SE) and meditation in work with individual clients. My current emphasis is in helping clients learn to access the innate healing ability of the human body. The end goal is to heal trauma, stress and other challenges and to enjoy an open, embodied flow of experience. I also teach workshops in Somatics and sensory awareness to both clinicians and others interested in body-mind integration.
Appointments:
- please call (207) 773-7993 ext. 19
- office hours: Monday-Thursday
- 205 Ocean Avenue, Portland, ME 04103 USA
- some insurances accepted
- email smith@mindmeetsbody.com
Links to relevant sites
www.traumahealing.com (Website of the Foundation for Human Enrichment) home of Somatic Experiencing)
www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/home.html (Brain Atlas) Knowledge of the nervous system accelerates learning of self-regulation. This is very anatomical. I am also searching for sites that integrate anatomy, physiology and theory.
www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/Ledouxlab.html (Website of Joseph LeDoux) Neurological research on memory systems, as well as insight into the functioning of implicit (unconscious) memory, particularly traumatic memory.
www.pbsp.com (Home page of Albert Pesso's Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor) Introduction to this powerful method of creating new healing memories.)
Site
update 1/25/08
Text
©
Douglas J Smith 2008
Name Mindmeetsbody
Domain registration
3/18/2005
_______home________)
Body
psychotherapy
Symptoms in the body occur in patterns that tend to become fixed, and may define a person's way of responding to everyday, and especially, stressful events. Among the growing number of modalities designated as body psychotherapy, the Somatic Experiencing model is proving to be a powerful therapy for the resolution of stress and trauma because it addresses the mental and physiological dimensions of an issue at the same time. Developed in the 1970s by Peter Levine, it is a naturalistic approach, based on the observation that prey animals in the wild can often shake off trauma and go on with life following serious threat. This led to Levine’s observation that trauma is in the nervous system – not in the event. *
Symptoms of stress or trauma can include:- subconscious nervous system arousal
- difficulty controlling or avoidance of emotions (depression & anxiety)
- attention and learning difficulties
- memory problems
- involuntary memories of a traumatic event
- relationship (attachment) difficulties
Traditional psychotherapy seeks to make conscious that which has previously been unconscious -- therefore reclaiming power from influences and motivations operating below the surface. Personal growth takes place with the resulting expanded self-knowledge. The gift is freedom from the constraints of old patterns of thought and behavior.
It is now understood that the body, as well as the mind, retains fight, flight, and other defensive patterns that were earlier activated by overwhelming events but were never fully resolved. Even when the mind denies them, the body remembers, and may express unresolved issues contributing to symptoms of stress or trauma.
The protocols of Somatic Experiencing allow you to sense nervous system arousal and to feel the relationship between it and its corresponding mental or emotional states. The physiological symptoms of trauma stored in the body are first felt as sensations and then gradually felt as more complex, whole body reactions to various stimulating events. As you learn to separate these reactions from events or memories of events, by holding awareness of the nervous system in your mind, you begin to regain control of the body. These automatic reaction states will start to dissolve. Treatment sessions are structured similarly to psychotherapy sessions and normally run one hour. The major difference between an SE session and traditional talk therapy is the structured, alternating focus on mind and then body, as described above.
Consistent with medical science
Recent brain research, as well as decades of study of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrate that the human stress response is organized in the “lower” limbic and brain stem structures. Centers in these areas of the brain control the autonomic (automatic) nervous system, which is the system in the body responsible for the fight/flight/freeze response. This system is a major target of mind body therapy.
* The complete basic description of Somatic Experiencing can be found in Peter Levine’s book Waking The Tiger.