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

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.

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
• Choice - A client will always get at least 2 choices.  For example, "If you like, you can try a full head circle.   Or you may want to try a half head circle."  Sometimes therapists will give three choices.  If trauma involves lack of control and choice, this yoga practice is the opposite.  You control whether you do the form and what that looks like.  In addition, the client also controls the
• Rhythm - With traditional yoga, everyone in the class moves at the same time.   Not so in TSY.  The client and therapist both do the forms, but in their own way, with their own modifications, and at their own speed.   None of it is forced or coerced.  And the whole point is to promote
• Noticing - what is going on with the body.  Therapists will say "You may notice a feeling in the side of your neck when you move your head this way."  These feelings are never characterized as "good" or "bad" only feelings.   The point is not to "do it right" or to increase mindfulness, which is an inherently cognitive pursuit, but rather to have the body and mind both oriented to what is happening in and what sensations are coming from the body. 

So, this may seem pretty basic, but for people who literally cannot feel anything in their bodies, or who have a distant, hazy sense of what their bodies are telling them, it can be life changing.  Here are the 3 steps of this process.  First,

• Interoception - this is just a fancy word for noticing body sensations.  It is the whole point of trauma-sensitive yoga.  This can lead to the second step, which is
• Choice - Based on how things feel in their body, the client can choose what to do next.  And then notice those feelings and how they might be different.  And finally,
• Taking Effective Action - so this might sound like choice, but it basically means noticing how something feels, making a choice, and then acting on it so that it produces a good outcome. 

Here's an example that Emerson gives that highlights the 3 steps.  He had a client who was seated and bending over.  He said, "this is really uncomfortable."  The therapist gave him some options to choose from and so he chose to stand.  He realized that his back felt better after standing.  Standing was effective action since he chose to do something that made his body feel better.  Again, this seems basic, but if you feel like your body is something that is always acted on and never the agent of action, then trusting your body as a useful, functional thing is a revelation.  The stories that Dr. Emerson tells shows how gaining this sense can change people's lives and lead to healing and wellness.

After reading this book, I want to attend a training in trauma-sensitive yoga, but he provides enough forms and advice to begin practicing this immediately.  Granted, the more familiarity you have with the forms and the optional variations, the more effective the treatment will be.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!