Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy in Perth

Sensorimotor psychotherapy is a safe and gentle form of Somatic Psychotherapy treatment which we use at our therapy practice in Perth. It can help promote healing by making you more aware of your body and bodily sensations.  It derives from a strong body of neuroscience and neurobiology knowledge developed by some esteemed trauma researchers. Pat Ogden, Daniel Siegel, and Bessel Van Der Kolk assisted in the research of this material by looking at trauma and the body effects.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy differs from traditional Psychotherapy in its focus on the body as a central component of healing, rather than solely relying on talk therapy and cognitive processes. It recognises that you undergo an epigenetic expression growth through your childhood that literally shapes your body, mind and personality. Some useful techniques that function at the nervous system level of your body, can reveal trauma tendencies.

What is Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a leading edge approach to Body Psychotherapy that has attracted support and attention from the neuroscience and trauma psychotherapy community. This form of therapy is a breakthrough approach that can heal long standing traumatic stress conditions in ways other modalities struggle to achieve in the mental health industry.

At Energetics Institute Perth best Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, we examine how your body embeds emotional blocks and trauma and how they may manifest as physical sensations such as freezing or numbing. The psychotherapist isolates and tracks them to see what happens next. They can often chain into other linked sensations, feelings and impulses of the body, and/or images, sensory memories, thoughts and beliefs of your mind.

The therapist sensorimotor approach can safely change these processes and bring them to a conclusion. The sensorimotor approach creates a synaptic rewiring of your old patterns, towards a trauma free result. You lose your trauma triggers and become resourced and safe in the world.

Who can Benefit from Sensorimotor Treatment

The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy or somatic interventions approach to psychotherapy is helpful to many patients. You will benefit from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy if you have suffered traumas in your childhood or adulthood developmental. We can treat many persistent conditions with this approach. Examples include attachment issues, traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, anger issues, tense musculature, bruxism, migraines, phobias, and sleep issues.

If you find that you lose control when you are anxious or angry, you cannot self-regulate these emotions and related bodily impulses. You will find benefit as our treatment approach is designed to create self-regulation of your emotional and sensory arousal within your nervous system’s Window Of Tolerance (WOT).

What is Involved in a Typical Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Session

Your Sensorimotor Psychotherapist will start by obtaining your client history and the reason why you are coming to mind body therapy. Information such as details of current and past illnesses, injuries or issues, and also the current state of your body will be included. The therapist will also take note of your resting breathing state, your posture and voice inflections.

Your body may reveal it holds a defence to compensate against some life changing events. Your therapist will notice any body or somatic indicators of trauma, abuse or accidents.

The sensorimotor or mind body approach that is undertaken by the therapist will then work collaboratively to take you through several stages of healing. Firstly, the therapist will bring you into a present grounded state using breathwork or grounding. Then, your therapist will look to resource you so you stay present during the trauma resolution work. This will help you remain and feel safe during the process. This form of recovery work uses your body and mind to stabilize you and build your self-regulation capabilities.

The next stage is about unfreezing or rewiring your defences to potential threats. This will prevent you from going into states of collapse, freeze or flight. The therapist will get you to interrupt this learnt, unconscious response and help you set a boundary, perhaps with a NO. This helps to restore your flexible adaptive capability to respond to threat with choice rather than hardwired reactions.

As your mental health improves and you feel more empowered, your therapist will take you on a journey of self realisation. You will be shown how the conclusions and beliefs you originally made need to be made conscious. They possibly need to be reworked as they trigger and drive dysfunctional reactions in your body. Once you retire old limiting beliefs, you will foster and embed powerful new attitudes in your body and mind.