First, what is trauma? 

Trauma can be any experience that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope. It may be a one time event, but trauma can also occur in the context of relationships over time. People’s ability to cope can depend on the emotional resources they have, social support or community, and ability to access therapy or other therapeutic practices – this is to say, what’s traumatic to one person may not be traumatic for another, depending on the resources they have available.

What is my trauma-informed approach in shiatsu (and what is it NOT)?

Misconceptions around the meaning of “trauma-informed” abound, and different practitioners do a lot of different work under this umbrella term.

A traumatic experience involves our brain AND our body, and effects can last beyond any one incident. Knowing about the brain is one piece of all this, but using that knowledge to inform how I actually interact with people is just as important. Trauma can affect us not just physically (being cautious about touch or having our eyes closed, perhaps some autoimmune or other health conditions) but emotionally and mentally (how we approach relationships, difficulties setting or holding boundaries, wanting to please others, our relationship with ourself). 

All that said, trauma survivors are complex human beings, like everyone else! No one is defined by one experience, however significant, and trauma survivors can benefit from bodywork/yoga just like anyone else, even if that work isn’t directly addressing trauma. As you may know, shiatsu can improve sleep and digestion, relieve muscle tension, and contribute to overall stress relief.

My approach does NOT include:

None of this to say that these practices can’t be helpful; I just consider them outside my scope of practice, and beyond the meaning of “trauma informed”.

So ..what IS a trauma informed approach?

I’m informed about the physiological side of trauma and how it may continue to affect us long after a traumatic event ends. I use that information to make a healing practice – yoga or shiatsu – more palatable to people who may have had traumatic experiences, so they can utilize those practices much like any other person. Often this means placing the receiver in a position of agency and control over how the practice unfolds.

What this looks like in practice:

Before the session

For referrals regarding trauma informed approach, I’ll check in with any new client by phone or email prior to meeting to ensure we’re on the same page about what the session typically involves and their goals for receiving.

There’s also an opportunity to fill out a health intake online and add any info in writing you’d like me to know.

We can discuss any previous experiences of receiving bodywork before, and perhaps anything you already know works well for you (or doesn’t work well for you). Just like bodywork can be physically comfortable or uncomfortable, it can be mentally or emotionally comfortable or uncomfortable. We can discuss the best way for me to check in with you and how to bring your focus back to the present moment if needed.

I recommend that if you are dealing with trauma, you participate in therapy with a mental health provider.

During the session

In person, we’ll talk to better refine your goals for that day. I ask if there are any spaces in the body you’d like to focus on, as well as any spaces you’d rather not have worked on today. 

I’ll check in about the environment (lights, music, temperature), and let you know where bathrooms are and so on.

We can also talk about how you’d like to set up to start, for instance, traditionally a shiatsu session starts with some light abdominal work with the receiver on their back, but you could also start lying on the front of your body and I’ll work on your back if you prefer. 

You can also change your mind! I’ll check in fairly frequently, not only about pressure, but also with the intention to give you a heads up about what’s coming next so you can opt out of work on any particular location, or even request more of the same rather than moving on. If you realize you’d rather move from your back to your side, we can do that too, at your discretion. There’s nothing I “have to” finish before you move.

To some extent I can adapt how much I check in as we work together more, but if you are someone who prefers total silence and doesn’t want to respond at all, I might not be the best practitioner for you.

Why don’t you talk about trauma?

There are modalities – namely, talk therapy – where professionals are trained to talk about trauma, and many people do find this helpful in their healing. With shiatsu, I am trained to work with the body. I certainly will check in verbally! But I’m not trained to help people process trauma verbally. Talking about trauma, even directing our thoughts to traumatic experiences, has the potential to be unhelpful or difficult or painful – even with a trained professional, you might wind up feeling worse rather than better. Talk therapists may work with you to assess how helpful it may actually be (or not be) to talk about trauma before getting into it, and ensure you have resources to cope if things get difficult either in the moment, or after you leave their office. This is also not something I’m trained in. 

During traumatic situations, the part of our brain that processes time/order and language can go offline, so our survival instinct can take over to help us in the moment. This can be why it is sometimes hard to recall traumatic events in detail or in order or as cohesive experiences we can tell as a story to someone else. While many people still do find talk therapy and/or talking about their traumatic experience and emotions helpful, some find that talking isn’t enough. Work that focuses on the body instead of the brain – such as yoga or bodywork – can supplement the healing happening through talk in a helpful way, specifically because healing may involve things that can’t be put into words. 

So, in part, I don’t aim to talk about trauma with clients because I’m not trained in that, but also because the modality I *am* trained in has a lot to offer on its own, separate from talk. Re-directing the session to talk or the brain might actually undermine the body-based practice.

What if trauma comes up anyway?

Of course, it might. Someone might feel called to tell me about an experience they had. How I react would largely depend on the context, but I might remind you that while I’m certainly available with an empathetic ear, my training is in bodywork and not therapy. I don’t want my response to make things worse or be unsupportive. It’s not always obvious what might be most helpful, and what’s helpful to one person may not be to another…which could be harder to determine if we don’t know each other well. Particularly if we’ve talked about strategies you already have for helping soothe your nervous system, I can remind you of those and we can work on those together.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions: shiatsuwithkate@gmail.com