waking the tiger, getting rid of PTSD

[blue eyed snake]

some time ago i found the book ' waking the tiger'  in the secondhand-shop. The ways of DAO are great, to bring this book on my path at the moment i'm able to understand and use the content.

 

The book explains how posttraumatic stress can lead to all the symptoms it does and how to get rid of it. 

 

The reading of it was so emotional to me that i've read it in small sections. But now I do understand what is happening to me.

 

Part of the exercises i do is spontaneous movement, the effects can be astounding and after reading this book i do understand much better what is happening. ( and also why the effects are so different compared to  my fellowstudents)

 

i thought i'd post it, maybe other bums with these kind of problems can make use of it

[thelerner]

how do you get into spontaneous movement?  Any particular technique. 

 

 

I've enjoyed Gabriel Roth's material, The Wave.   Which gets there through music and dance. 

[Geof Nanto]

Thanks. I've ordered the book. I went through a hugely traumatic experience a few decades ago have since worked my way through what I assume is called PTSD in Western medicine. I think of it as loss of soul. I'll be interested to read what Peter Levine has to say.

 

(BTW I've ordered it from Book Depository in the UK. I've bought many books from them - they come highly recommended for price and free worldwide delivery. I'm a big reader and I always opt for printed books over eBooks where possible. .... http://www.bookdepository.com)  

 

 

Edited July 9, 2015 by Yueya

[blue eyed snake]

how do you get into spontaneous movement?  Any particular technique. 

 

 

I've enjoyed Gabriel Roth's material, The Wave.   Which gets there through music and dance. 

 

 

cannot help you much with technique. For me it happened spontaneous   while dancing in my living-room. Teacher teaches us a kind of standing posture to ' wake it up' , i know that thoughts like: this is idiotic, what am i doing here, i cannot do this etcetera will prevent the body from doing it or even stopping it again.

 

it's something like giving the body free rein and send the mind to sleep. eh, try to be 5 years old again, the body needs no mind to move, to do its thing. A body should be able do take care of itself, ideas of the mind do not make it better...

 

Secret grotto posted a video once of people doing shaking first and afterwards spontaneous movement, that gives an idea of the reactions people can produce. But maybe the shaking is a way of waking up the process too. 

( Secret grotto where are you, join this thread please)

 

(I know of a guy that couldn't get into it for more than a year, becoming frustrated about it ( and probably thinking things like: i mad, i can't do this) and then all of a sudden it happened for him.)

 

reactions of  people vary wildly, i sometimes start running and have bouts of shaking ( which is not induced by me, just happening). after reading this book I understand much better what my body is doing and why it is so tiring, can take days to recover, but is worth it.

[thelerner]

That's not so far from Gabriel Roths method that starts out slowly, getting into one of the 5 Rhythyms, like percussion, staccatto, even stillness.. and once you have a feel for it, letting it take off, so you find your own dance. 

[blue eyed snake]

Thanks. I've ordered the book. I went through a hugely traumatic experience a few decades ago have since worked my way through what I assume is called PTSD in Western medicine. I think of it as loss of soul. I'll be interested to read what Peter Levine has to say.

 

Loss of soul is a fitting description, every shaman would call it that i think, it feels like it. For me the initial trauma was also several decades ago.

 

This author explains what's happening purely from the body perspective, after observations of how animals deal with stress ( and do normally not get traumatized).

A refreshing perspective, this should be taught in every psychology study.

 

when you've read it i would like to hear what you think of it

 

(BTW I've ordered it from Book Depository in the UK. I've bought many books from them - they come highly recommended for price and free worldwide delivery. I'm a big reader and I always opt for printed books over eBooks where possible. .... http://www.bookdepository.com)  

 

thanks for the link!

[blue eyed snake]

That's not so far from Gabriel Roths method that starts out slowly, getting into one of the 5 Rhythyms, like percussion, staccatto, even stillness.. and once you have a feel for it, letting it take off, so you find your own dance. 

 

yes, that's a nice way of putting it, when you know the way it becomes steadily more easy to go into it out of stillness. But starting with music like you say, seems to me that is also the way that people do it who live much closer to nature

[liminal_luke]

One way of getting the spontaneous movement is through David Bercelli´s "Trauma Release Exercises."  If you do a search, there are past threads detailing people´s experience with them.  Recommended.

[Mudfoot]

You could also look up Hakomi, Pat Ogdens books, or find a qigong/yoga teacher taught in treating trauma. I have years of professional experience with body-oriented methods in this field, and find it very usable.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Mudfoot

[Mudfoot]

Technical error

Edited July 11, 2015 by Mudfoot

[blue eyed snake]

You could also look up Hakomi, Pat Ogdens books, or find a qigong/yoga teacher taught in treating trauma. I have years of professional experience with body-oriented methods in this field, and find it very usable.

 

 

Thanks for the recommended books, i might get then and read, or else somebody else can have profit of it

 

I'm happy with my teacher, it seems that very slowly things are unraveling now. 

[gendao]

So, how do these similar types of trauma therapy differ & how do you actually apply them in practice?

Levine's "Somatic Experiencing" sounds like "talk/feel therapy" to get the patient to safely imagine or act out his aborted attempts to fight/flight after the fact (of freezing)?  How do you get them in the headspace to even do this, though?  Trance or guided meditation doesn't seem required, but can just an ordinary conversation elicit the powerful sequence of responses that comprise healing?

That's not so far from Gabriel Roths method that starts out slowly, getting into one of the 5 Rhythyms, like percussion, staccatto, even stillness.. and once you have a feel for it, letting it take off, so you find your own dance.

One way of getting the spontaneous movement is through David Bercelli´s "Trauma Release Exercises." If you do a search, there are past threads detailing people´s experience with them. Recommended.

Last April, I brought up Berceli's Trauma Releasing Excercises in this topic here:
Body armor

There were several of you bums who said you would pick it up and try it: Steve, Edward M, Enishi, Bokonon, mYTHmAKER, Tactile...

 

Now, after a couple of months I - and many others - are probably very curious about your experiences with this method.

You could also look up Hakomi, Pat Ogdens books, or find a qigong/yoga teacher taught in treating trauma. I have years of professional experience with body-oriented methods in this field, and find it very usable.

Hakomi Therapy is a system of body-centered psychotherapy which is based on the principles of mindfulness, nonviolence, and the unity of mind and body. It was developed by Ron Kurtz and others at the Hakomi Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Hakomi Therapy is based on a few key assumptions:
- As we develop from infancy to childhood to adulthood, we organize our experiences by apply meaning to them, to the world, and to our selves;
- These organizational decisions come to operate as unconscious "core beliefs" about the world and our place in it which govern how we think, feel, develop, act, respond, and create;
- These core beliefs limit our ability to function spontaneously and to live effectively through systematic, characterological habits which we originally created to avoid feeling a lack of safety, affection, attention, or approval; and
- The purpose of therapy is to become fully human, alive, spontaneous, open-hearted and caring, with the ability to be equally effective acting in interpendence with the world or autonomously.

Sensorimotor processing is similar to Peter Levine's (1997) "Somatic Experiencing" in the tracking of physical sensation, but it differs in intent. For Levine, tracking physical sensation is an end in itself; his approach does not specifically include therapeutic maps to address cognitive or emotional processing. Similar to "Somatic Experiencing," Sensorimotor Psychotherapy encourages sensorimotor processing when necessary to regulate sensorimotor reactions, often the case in shock and non-relational trauma, but sensorimotor processing is most often used as a prelude to holistic processing on all three levels (cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor).

So...how would you actually conduct a session on yourself or another using the best synthesis of all these methods?  I mean, there's already a lot of cross-pollination in them all as Pat Ogden was influenced by both Ron Kurtz (Hakomi) and Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing).

[Mudfoot]

I would say that the growing field of knowledge on the effect of practising mindfulness is having a huge impact on the field of psychotherapy today. Now, if you look at these above mentioned methods, and similar methods, combining both research and clinical experience, this becomes my interpretation. Practicing mindfulness exercises important parts of your brain needed to integrate and (re-)evaluate physical, emotional and mental input. That will help you to integrate experiences that might have made you dissociated, numb or overreactive. Staying present and doing some movements is also helpful in the process when you "dilute" too intensive memories, as well as separating the somatic reaction from the emotional reaction. Now, the different methods have different ideas about how much focus there should be on the talking part and how much focus should stay on the body. David Emerson, writing about trauma-sensitive yoga, prefers 100% focus on what happens below the skull. This non-verbal approach (I believe) was developed for people with complex trauma, often resistant to other kind of treatments. The others mix focus on body, emotions and thoughts.

All approaches seems to work, although there is some (weak) evidence that movement based work has greater impact in the beginning, compared to for example the body scan.

 

Personally, I would not use Peter Levines approach with mental images, mainly because I do not function that way. Wouldn't come naturally. Nor would I use Trauma Release Exercises, because they work a little too much with breaking down defences for my personal taste.

 

For myself, first I would inspect my patient in movement and stillness, finding the most obvious deviations from optimal alignments and a free, flowing movement pattern. After that, I mostly wing it I'm afraid. Every person is different, and one important point is to catch a reaction while it is happening.
On the other hand, balance, focus on the physical sensations, learning to ground yourself, replacing the startle reflex with optimal alignments, re-starting the social parts of the brain and so on is something most trauma-patients need.

 

Mostly, when I work with these basics, if there is a reaction we work that out when it comes. If a person can do the basics without reactions (that is a rare thing) we expand the exercises to include movements more related to specific affects, which usually activates reactions that then can be dealt with (with mindful awareness and small, smooth movements).

 

It helps to have knowledge of body psychology, actually most of the above mentioned books are a little weak on that part, because if you want to change a locked behaviour into something better it helps to know what direction you are headed to.

 

This is really a readers digest version.

It takes me an entire day to explain the theory supporting the use of five basic exercises, so this is an area with a vast body of knowledge if you just are interested enough to find it.

[gendao]

For myself, first I would inspect my patient in movement and stillness, finding the most obvious deviations from optimal alignments and a free, flowing movement pattern. After that, I mostly wing it I'm afraid. Every person is different, and one important point is to catch a reaction while it is happening.

 

On the other hand, balance, focus on the physical sensations, learning to ground yourself, replacing the startle reflex with optimal alignments, re-starting the social parts of the brain and so on is something most trauma-patients need.

 

Mostly, when I work with these basics, if there is a reaction we work that out when it comes. If a person can do the basics without reactions (that is a rare thing) we expand the exercises to include movements more related to specific affects, which usually activates reactions that then can be dealt with (with mindful awareness and small, smooth movements).

 

It helps to have knowledge of body psychology, actually most of the above mentioned books are a little weak on that part, because if you want to change a locked behaviour into something better it helps to know what direction you are headed to.

 

This is really a readers digest version.

It takes me an entire day to explain the theory supporting the use of five basic exercises, so this is an area with a vast body of knowledge if you just are interested enough to find it.

What are the 5 basic exercises?

 

What's a good source of info about body psychology?

 

And for an example, what if someone has a tough time balancing on their left leg with their eyes closed?  What would that mean and where do you go from there?

[seekingbuddha]

Currently I am in the process of helping someone who has gone through severe trauma.  Due to the extent of the trauma, the person is in denial  mode,  though he is willing to tacitly acknowledge that  some sort of treatment  would be good.   I  took it as a sign  that the person  is  reaching out for my help.   I performed an intense meditative retreat in order to seek the right way to help this person.   During this  meditation retreat  (which turned out to be one of the best in my life), it has been shown to me that  the best  way  to help this person,  is  by showing  this person that  the PATH of dhamma  provides  the best protection  against   various  sufferings  this person  has faced/will face/  in life.    This person has  some exposure to buddhism and meditation,  but  at a very basic level  and  is not  practicing any  spirituality   in life  right now.  

 

So, when i stumbled on this thread and read it,  I saw that the book suggested in topic of thread is available in amazon and is popular.  But there seems to be a more recent book, that has more excellent reviews.  My question is three fold:

1. Has  anyone  read this popular book titled  The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma  ?  
2. Though  I have read  extensively Buddha's  discourses (to monks as well as householders),  I am not sure  how  I can  impart this knowledge to the trauma victim  in a  stepwise/progressive/faith-creating   fashion.   The victim is a young mind, and I do not want to  overload  such a mind  with  all the depth of  knowledge at one  single  week of discussions.  I welcome  suggestions  from  those  who are experienced in  similar   situation.
3. Any  other  approches  other than gifting the book  &  dhamma  teaching to this victim ?  Gifting  a book of Buddha's discourses  is  unlikely  to be read  by this person  (because  the canons  are  lengthy  and deep books that need patience to read).

[Mudfoot]

Everything I do revolve around or evolve from:
1) Sitting still

2) Rocking in three directions
3) Pressing the feet into the ground
4) Standing (think high horse)
5) Walking on a line

 

Not because these are "the best" exercises, but they are easy to do, and there is a lot of knowledge about the mechanisms you can work on in these exercises.

From these, which patients also can practice at home, you can construct interaction exercises, work with the reactions that come up during the session or whatever you might find useful. If you have a solid background in qigong or meditation you will have encountered this stuff.

 

I would personally not draw any conclusion regarding any single symptom. It is more difficult than that, sorry.
 

And if there was any good books on this subject, combining clinical and traditional experience with scientific findings, I would not have had to spend so much time on Google Scholar. Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology is a very good source on relevant information, but they are not exercise-focused.
 

[Jetsun]

 

Currently I am in the process of helping someone who has gone through severe trauma.  Due to the extent of the trauma, the person is in denial  mode,  though he is willing to tacitly acknowledge that  some sort of treatment  would be good.   I  took it as a sign  that the person  is  reaching out for my help.   I performed an intense meditative retreat in order to seek the right way to help this person.   During this  meditation retreat  (which turned out to be one of the best in my life), it has been shown to me that  the best  way  to help this person,  is  by showing  this person that  the PATH of dhamma  provides  the best protection  against   various  sufferings  this person  has faced/will face/  in life.    This person has  some exposure to buddhism and meditation,  but  at a very basic level  and  is not  practicing any  spirituality   in life  right now.  

 

So, when i stumbled on this thread and read it,  I saw that the book suggested in topic of thread is available in amazon and is popular.  But there seems to be a more recent book, that has more excellent reviews.  My question is three fold:

1. Has  anyone  read this popular book titled  The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma  ?  
2. Though  I have read  extensively Buddha's  discourses (to monks as well as householders),  I am not sure  how  I can  impart this knowledge to the trauma victim  in a  stepwise/progressive/faith-creating   fashion.   The victim is a young mind, and I do not want to  overload  such a mind  with  all the depth of  knowledge at one  single  week of discussions.  I welcome  suggestions  from  those  who are experienced in  similar   situation.
3. Any  other  approches  other than gifting the book  &  dhamma  teaching to this victim ?  Gifting  a book of Buddha's discourses  is  unlikely  to be read  by this person  (because  the canons  are  lengthy  and deep books that need patience to read).

 

Buddhism may be a tonic for overall suffering but for PTSD things aren't straightforward. There were studies done on Tibetan Buddhist Monks who were suffering from PTSD and it turned out that many meditators had bad symptoms and increasing frequency of flashbacks, the meditation they were practising was reducing the minds capability to regulate their experience and making it worse. So it is a complicated issue, some forms of Buddhist meditation can make PTSD worse, although some forms which are more grounding may help.

http://www.wbur.org/npr/102373662/ptsd-treatment-for-monks

Edited July 12, 2015 by Jetsun

[gendao]

Everything I do revolve around or evolve from:

1) Sitting still

2) Rocking in three directions

3) Pressing the feet into the ground

4) Standing (think high horse)

5) Walking on a line

Interesting..

2) What 3 directions? Forward/backward, side-to-side, ?

3) While sitting? Seems that would be an imperceptible motion?

 

^ Sounds like the Tibetan monks have classic "root chakra" blockages. Separated from their mothers and families early to join monastery, separated from other monks, in exile from homeland, stuck up in their disassociated heads and rootless...

I think they missed their mothers. Many of these monks were put into the monastery at a very young age. Some of them I think were homesick. They had heartache, and they felt a longing for Tibet, for their homeland. And so, there was a lot of guilt because they were here in this country, and their family or other monks were back in Tibet.

One of the other things that happened to many of them was, is that when they were imprisoned, they were beaten every day and electrocuted, and so they started to separate from their bodies and just live in their minds, if you will.

This is also a common pitfall of Buddhism itself - if adherents mistake Buddhist "emptiness" for "nihilism."  Then, they can start subconsciously denying & negating their own "existence."

 

The odd thing is how they don't seem to recognize and effectively treat this common "spiritual" syndrome?

Edited July 12, 2015 by gendao

[Mudfoot]

3rd: around in a circle. Think the three whatever they are called in English, in the inner ear. Think also the eight extraordinary vessels.

 

You will feel the motion, that is enough. To much muscle work will hinder the process of releasing energy in the nervous system.

 

If you want to feel strong and secure, being able to feel your connection to Earth in your legs are a good thing. You take a stand, you put your foot down, these and other are body based metaphors that actually mean something.

Consider being in a situation where running (or striking someone) would been a natural option, but you were hindered to do it. Frozen in inaction instead of doing something. Well, working with the legs in this way can release that.

Does it feel good?

No!

Anger, frustration, fear, this must usually be released before you feel empowered. 

When your legs support your emotions, you van express the more fine-tuned one with your shoulders, arms and so on.

 

Many people with mental health issues become stuck in their head. Because their pain is below the skull, so they choose not to inhabit the body. The mind wants to live without pain.

[blue eyed snake]

3rd: around in a circle. Think the three whatever they are called in English, in the inner ear. Think also the eight extraordinary vessels.

 

You will feel the motion, that is enough. To much muscle work will hinder the process of releasing energy in the nervous system.

 

If you want to feel strong and secure, being able to feel your connection to Earth in your legs are a good thing. You take a stand, you put your foot down, these and other are body based metaphors that actually mean something.

Consider being in a situation where running (or striking someone) would been a natural option, but you were hindered to do it. Frozen in inaction instead of doing something. Well, working with the legs in this way can release that.

Does it feel good?

No!

Anger, frustration, fear, this must usually be released before you feel empowered. 

When your legs support your emotions, you van express the more fine-tuned one with your shoulders, arms and so on.

 

well, i disagree with you here.

 

because that is what happening to me during sessions and it feels very good, after that shaking follows, sometimes followed by crying, sometimes by dancing.

 

the running is a behavior that wasn't possible, and now my body is allowed to do that, the shaking and crying are the reactions that were prohibited by people around me.

 

(also years later, by professionals...they wanted me to talk. and prohibited shivering/shaking and screaming/venting anger.)

 

and the dancing feels like, another layer is gone. Some years ago i was deemed unreparably damaged by a "professional" ...now things are happening that are very healing.

 

so, running is good and feels good.

 

Many people with mental health issues become stuck in their head. Because their pain is below the skull, so they choose not to inhabit the body. The mind wants to live without pain.

 

but I do agree with this

I've been doing standing posture about every day since i started doing qigong and feel better grounded than before.

Edited July 12, 2015 by blue eyed snake

[gendao]

3rd: around in a circle. Think the three whatever they are called in English, in the inner ear. Think also the eight extraordinary vessels.

 

You will feel the motion, that is enough. To much muscle work will hinder the process of releasing energy in the nervous system.

 

If you want to feel strong and secure, being able to feel your connection to Earth in your legs are a good thing. You take a stand, you put your foot down, these and other are body based metaphors that actually mean something.

Consider being in a situation where running (or striking someone) would been a natural option, but you were hindered to do it. Frozen in inaction instead of doing something. Well, working with the legs in this way can release that.

Does it feel good?

No!

Anger, frustration, fear, this must usually be released before you feel empowered.

When your legs support your emotions, you van express the more fine-tuned one with your shoulders, arms and so on.

 

Many people with mental health issues become stuck in their head. Because their pain is below the skull, so they choose not to inhabit the body. The mind wants to live without pain.

Very interesting. Sounds similar to YIELDing/PUSHing, 2 of the 6 foundational baby movements identified and defined by Ruella Frank as:

YIELD

Gravity draws the baby’s body toward the surface of the earth. When the newborn lies belly down, he yields to the earth as the weight of his body is released to gravity. The baby lies on various surfaces: a mattress, the floor, and of course, the parent’s body. Each surface meets and differently resists the weight of the baby’s body in opposition to the downward force of gravity. The baby experiences a heightened pressure on those parts of the body that are in touch with a surface, so the muscles of each dimension of the body (front, back, and sides) are stimulated when the baby rests that part against a supporting surface. This slight increase in pressure leads to a slight countervailing muscular tone that gives the baby a sensation of weight, which flows from center (the spine) to periphery (head, tailbone, arms, and legs). Experiencing weight allows the baby to orient in space. In addition, moving from one position to another allows the baby to differentiate the front of his body from the back and from each side.

Yielding in each position not only brings with it a different postural organization with its varied sensations but also generates a sense of volume, or fullness of being, for the baby. With each postural shift, a different perception of, and therefore relationship to, the environment emerges. Yielding forms the ground on which the baby rests and organizes how the baby rests. For yielding to emerge fluidly, the parent–child relationship must be secure enough that the baby can sense the parent’s underlying support, which allows him to yield his weight to that support. Yielding provides the stable background from which all other movements up and away from the earth emerge.

Acts of yielding are the basis for experiences of receptivity at every level of functioning for both the baby and the adult. In a yielding moment, we are giving ourselves over to the other (person or object) and simultaneously receiving support and stability and a basic sense of orientation. The experience of yielding is not simple passivity (or the state of “no resistance”); rather, the degree and way of yielding are dependent on that to which we adjust. To sit in an easy chair is one thing, to lie on a floor is quite another.

To yield with someone receptive and inclusive is different from yielding with someone who is not. Thus, we learn something important about ourselves and ourselves in relation to others through our continual process of adjusting.

The stability that the baby experiences, in the absence of neurological impairment, then forms the platform on and from which the baby can discover and make support in a variety of relationships throughout his life.

 

PUSH

Each time a 2-week-old baby squirms to adjust to internal or external tensions, there is a subtle and ongoing process of pushing against. In yielding, the environment provides stability; in pushing, the environment provides leverage, including the leverage needed to further investigate the environment,

thus enhancing perception. For example, one part of the baby’s body pushes against a surface to stabilize, enabling another part to be free to mobilize. This is most obvious when a 3- to 4-month-old pushes his hands downward to lift his head and upper torso up and away from the underlying support.

As the baby pushes, the experience of weight condenses at the origin of the push, whether at head or tailbone, arms and hands, or legs and feet, as the act of pushing compresses tissues of the body. Mass gathers at these places and forms an experience of density, which then flows in particular channels

through the body. For example, pushing against the floor with forearms and hands creates condensation of mass and energetic flow that moves from the hands and arms, through to the body’s center (spinal column), then outward through the legs and feet. Sensing one’s mass, or experiencing density and energetic flow, brings about an experience of cohesion and integration as the body’s periphery is experienced in relation to its center. The repeated experience of cohesion and integration in turn fosters movements that are clear and well coordinated. When the baby cannot easily push, movements appear as clumsy and ungrounded. The experiences of pushing, then, have consequences for a baby’s mobility. By 3 to 4 months old, pushing his hands downward moves the baby out of a prone, horizontal position to one in which the upper body is more upright and vertical. This is a developmental step to a new perspective. Later in development, pushing against while in a prone position enables the baby to shift his weight from one side of the body to another, which becomes an important aspect of locomotion.

The earliest development of pushing and its vicissitudes not only are important to all later movement but also are crucial to the baby’s developing interpersonal relationships. Babies are always moving in relation to whatever stimulates them. A baby pushes against a surface to get a better look at something or someone or to hear where an interesting sound is coming from, or even to follow an interesting odor. For instance, the baby can set a body boundary as he or she pushes hands against a parent to gain greater distance, or the baby can say “no” by pushing away a spoonful of applesauce. We cannot push without something to push against. As a baby pushes against, she is simultaneously able to experience separating from while including the other. In essence, pushing is a primary way of gaining information about the contours of the world of objects and people and the boundaries of the baby’s body: “Here you are, and here am I.”As the baby is adjusting to the surface tensions of that which she pushes against, in some fashion, the surface also adjusts to the baby and is sensed as “pushing back.” There is adjustment on both sides of the boundary since even a wood floor has a certain amount of bounce to it. And accordingly,

the way the baby adjusts to the “other” varies considerably—a wood floor is altogether less flexible than the body of either parent.

Since the baby is continuously establishing procedural memories of whole interactions, how she pushes herself upward will anticipate the parent’s usual body tone and emotional tone through generalized memory processes of how they have already moved together. The anticipation of parental response often suffuses the baby’s routine movement repertoire in other situations or with other people besides her parents so that her actions show a generalized anticipation of, for example, cheerful enlivening or saddened dampening. In this process, what is being perceived comes to affect the movement itself as particular emotional colorations develop with the whole experience. For example, the movements of a baby who pushes herself up to meet the eyes of a smiling receptive parent will appear quite different from those of a baby who pushes up to meet a depressed and unresponsive parent. In the first experience, the parent has provided a solid enough response against which the baby can push—“I am here with you.” On the

other hand, the depressed, unresponsive parent fails to give the baby the sense of pushing back, so the baby does not appear as sure and energetic as she might be meeting a parent eager to greet her.

Whereas how one yields with allows one to join another, how one pushes against allows one to differentiate from another. Experienced as an almost simultaneous shuttling back and forth between one and another, yield/push and push/yield are essential to and necessary for interpersonal meeting throughout the life span.

(The key is how these movements represent both physical and psychological qualities.)

Edited July 12, 2015 by gendao

[seekingbuddha]

I was saddened to hear about Tibetan monks who get into monasteries as children.  This is simply wrong because Buddha himself  did not admit any children into his order of monks (except for Rahula, his child).   I have seen serious personality problems in people who got into boarding schools as children (because their parents were rich).  A child needs to grow up with the mother for sometime for emotional formation, no matter how difficult the circumstances - otherwise, the child grows up into an adult with emotional  issues to struggle with later in life.  My limited understanding of  these buddhist countries tells me that the main reason the children are put into monasteries at young age  is because  these countries  have  proper education & food  only  in monasteries.   Hence due to economics and cultural pressure,  parents put the children in monasteries.  

 

As far as the healing process goes, i do believe that any system needs to incorporate body as well as mind.  Since these two are interconnected and inseparable, body movement combined with proper cultivation of mind will yield the best results for the victim.  What works for each person maybe different  in each of these two components, but i believe that one of the problems with modern theraputic  systems is that many of them ignore the body component.   Across the world, all tribes had some form of  body movement or dance  as part of their routine rituals,  which  is lost  in the modern society  that lives in stress to meet the basic  human needs.

[blue eyed snake]

as an answer on this post

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/41910-energy-transmission-and-sharing-a-debate/page-7#entry707988

 

 

Dear Blue Eyed Snake,

 

   I've got a pretty good case of PTSD.

 

If you know of *ANY* Qi-Gong methods, to help subdue this monster, I'd be very happy to about them! 

 

You could send me a PM, or if you feel comfortable, you could write about them out in the open here.

 

​That might be a bit too much, so You decide.

 

I've been seeing a therapist who specializes in PTSD twice a month, for about a year and a half, but it's *very slow going* so far.

 

If you feel comfortable, please write to me by either method suggested.

 

Thank you SOOOOO MUCHHHH!     Differently Abled Daoist

 

Hi DAD,

 

I don't think there is any special sort of  qigong that is the answer, it's such a multilayered  thing.

 

I described my experiences in the other thread as an example of how bad a healing crisis can be and the need for help to prevent falling down an even worse pit. 

 

multilayered as in: mind ( emotions), body, energy and spirit are all involved. And imho all of these layers need to be tackled. I've done a lot of 'work' for many years on all these levels, this last one was the one that sort of ' popped' it.

 

( on the other hand, I'm not out of the woods yet, suffering from chronique fatigue wich may have some sort of relation with this ' popping' , not really causally though, just part of the road I'm travelling)

 

also multilayered in the sense of..er..I think it is a combination of starting with a ' weak' stressregulatury system (what the chinese call, i think, someone born with low vitality/jing)

the life stresses come on top of that and then the wammy that finally triggers the disorder as you know it. but that's just my opinion, that's what it was for me, can be totally different for somebody else.

 

all these layers have to be tackled i think, I know I did.

 

on the other hand, EMDR is the solution for some people., you might want to look into it, it's a painless route.

 

wish you the best BES

[rene]

BES, hi. I had total success with EMDR 5 years ago. My eyes weren't able to handle the process, so alternate tapping on my knees (while sitting with eyes closed) provided the necessary alternating stimulus required for treatment. Saved my life, that.

[Albion]

Hi Folks, I would not have seen any of this, except Rene kindly notified me that it was here.

 

I want to say 'Thank You' to everyone who wrote here. I will especially look into getting the book, I think that it was called 'Waking The Tiger'.

 

I've had well, I guess that you could say severe PTSD since probably 2002, but it got 'amplified' in 2005.

 

I would go into this more, but the person who helped to cause this, is here on this list.

 

The less he knows the better. You know?

 

But I do thank you ALL very much for your input here!

 

Deep Peace & my Love to you all!  D.A.D.

Edited September 17, 2016 by DifferentlyAbledDaoist