Trauma

Trauma means being the victim or witness of an event that threatens your life or the life of others, or that results in serious injury. Victims’ responses include feelings of intense fear, helplessness, or horror. A traumatic experience triggers a stress response that serves survival. There are essentially three possible responses: fight, flight, or freeze. The “play dead reflex” occurs when fight or flight is no longer possible. Mentally, a kind of anesthesia (emotional anesthesia and insensitivity to pain) and dissociation (“mentally stepping away”) take place. Later, one often cannot remember the event itself. A key element of trauma is that there are disruptive repercussions in thinking, feeling, and acting. The trauma is still in the nervous system – the body remembers. Traumatizing events lead to overt post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in about 25% of those affected. Important clinical pictures associated with PTSD are: anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, somatization, dissociative disorders and addictions. Physical suffering as a result of trauma-related symptom formation is rarely recognized. Today it is also assumed that many so-called personality disorders, such as borderline disorder, are a reaction to severe early trauma.

Luise Reddemann has contributed important insights into the structure and treatment of traumatic disorders. She is chief physician at the clinic for psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic medicine in Bielefeld. She has this to say about body therapy: “We believe that mindful work with the body, which is primarily about feeling, is the best form of body work with and for traumatized people. The body is the place of traumatization, which means we have to include it. Any trauma therapy that is going to be successful will have to find ways to involve the body.” Trauma is also a violation of boundaries. Shiatsu can help to better perceive one’s own body and to get to know one’s own (body) limits that have been overwhelmed by trauma. Shiatsu strengthens lost confidence in one’s own body and mental stability. Shiatsu supports the free flow of life energy that has become frozen during the trauma. This may gently start moving again. Anything that is interrupted (e.g. an escape movement) can be “completed” and integrated. All of this happens on an energetic level, without us having to consciously remember the actual trauma. Clients can also be instructed by Shiatsu therapists in body exercises with which they can independently optimize their energy balance. You acquire the ability to remain in the here and now during flashbacks and when there is a risk of losing contact, for example through conscious breathing and grounding yourself. Shiatsu promotes and strengthens the self-regulatory powers of the organism and has a supportive effect on physical or mental stress. Shiatsu as a therapy over a longer period of time helps traumatized clients to feel alive again and to find their inner center again.

Ms D. is the mother of two adolescent children and a family woman. She is involved in various institutions in her community. She suffers from an early childhood trauma and is therefore in psychotherapeutic treatment. At the beginning of the treatment, she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorders such as flashbacks, anxiety and panic attacks, which can be triggered by a wide variety of stimuli. Manic phases are replaced by those with severe depression. She has uncontrolled outbursts of anger, suffers from itching without any noticeable cause and has a lump in her throat for months. Regular Shiatsu treatments help you to perceive your own body better and to be able to gently reintegrate the trauma energy. In the beginning, however, Shiatsu also triggers very unpleasant feelings in her, and she sometimes loses touch with reality. In such moments, her therapist shows her in a clear and guiding manner how she can reestablish contact with the here and now. Because in such moments there is a risk that clients will be caught up and overwhelmed by the past experience. Slowly she can relax and later integrate the trauma energy again. In addition to Shiatsu, the therapist instructs Ms. D. on body exercises. Ms D. appreciates their positive effect and practices them regularly at home. She feels more and more alive and rests more and more in her center. Ms D. can complete the psychotherapy after just one year. After 4 years of regular Shiatsu treatments, Ms. D. is free of symptoms.