‘Clinical Somatic Education’ is what Thomas Hanna called his approach to hands-on feedback to movement education.
Done on a wide and low table, the practitioner guides movement and uses different techniques to teach you how to release stiff, habituated tensions in full body patterns and encourage smooth, unrestricted movement.
The range of motion is always in your control, and we never push through painful movements. CSE is not body work – we don’t manipulate and work from the outside. We educate and give hands on feedback, so you can regain control over your movement again – you are the active participant in these lessons!
Movement will become more efficient, smoother and more controlled, with your commitment to a daily home practice. Taking responsibility for your body is essential to refine your sensory-motor control and keep you pain free. Ideally, you’ll come for a series of sessions spaced one week apart, and then continue with the established self-care exercises, which you can do on your own without getting dependent on regular sessions to ‘fix’ you. Gain freedom and control again!
Who is it for?
Somatic Movement Education has helped clients regaining control and awareness, a sense of a agency and choice. Whether you have chronic or returning aches and pains as a result of functional disorders or after a surgery or accident, flare up easily from general fitness classes, or simply feel you need to take better care of yourself, Somatic Education can help you find your balance again.
I have worked with clients experiencing Central Sensitisation of their nervous system (when pain wanders, there is no or no more tissue damage, pain gets worse with stress, etc), who reported great improvements and better ability to manage stress. Gentle movement, breathing work and graded exposure to movement is indicated for CS, so the nervous system activation can slowly decrease to manageable levels.
While Somatic Education is not a medical treatment and does not replace one, I do my best to keep up to date with evidence-based practice and understanding processes contributing to the experience of pain, outside of methods and techniques.
I have also worked with clients in post-cancer rehabilitation with great success and am trained in breast-cancer rehabilitation through exercise.
Somatic Education can also be beneficial as a supporting modality in combination with counseling/psychotherapy for clients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, Depression etc. Providing and holding space for reconnecting with the body can be beneficial to take a therapy to the next step of moving forward.
We address movement patterns and teach how to move more efficiently and smoothly, please note this is not a replacement for medical treatment neither physical nor psychological. I am happy to refer to Dublin based medically and up to date trained therapists if you wish.
David Butler from NOIgroup explains Brain map smudging – this is what Thomas Hanna called Sensory Motor Amnesia, which he believed is at the root of many modern day ailments. From taking courses with NOIgroup, I also have learned how movement has a positive effect on the immune system (which of course is closely intertwined with your nervous system, your endocrine system, etc – nothing works in isolation!) and good nerve mobility is dependent on mobile surrounding tissues like your muscles. So gentle movement is a good entry to improve the function of all systems in your body.