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Autor: Julio Cesar Tafforelli | Publicado: 2011-09-20T14:11:00-07:00

and Talk.

a full breath, we can see how body posture can affect a
person’s sense of wellbeing. The head falls off its vertical
access making the back and shoulder muscles work
harder. The back and neck start to hold the necessary tension
associated with holding up the 12 to 14 lbs that the
head weighs and the ribcage and diaphragm work harder
to get a breath in because of the depressed chest.

&nbsp;When breath is restricted, more stress hormones are created by
the subtle and not so subtle physical demands that are
being put on the immune system, which in turn start to
effect health and wellbeing. At a very primal level when
the body doesn’t get enough oxygen there is a message
sent out that something is slightly amiss. It goes into
a yellow alert – not enough to make it a red alert, but
enough to have the autonomic nervous system engaged
at above normal. Further, in this posture, to maintain verticality
through the whole body the pelvis has to slightly
alter its position, and in this case pushes forward and
jams the whole torso down on to the back of the hip joint.


The low back to counter this braces arches forward - this
is the classic sway back posture. Whatever job this person
has, whether it be in a clerical situation where they are
sitting at a computer for extended periods of time, or if
they are active and moving (nursing, mother with small
children etc) the body will not like this posture. Over
time they may present with the physical symptoms of low
back problems, difficulty with breath, neck issues, lack of
vitality from lack of oxygen, and possibly over time low
grade depression. They start to not enjoy their work, and
their relationships with others start to dull and suffer. Life
starts to become hard which is further expressed in postural
contraction. There is always the discussion of what
came first the psychological depression or the postural
dysfunction – in my view it’s a non linear experience and it
is all happening at the same time in layers.
Our whole chemical makeup can change with a
shift in either attitude or circumstance which in turn influences
every system in the body. Candice Pert says in her
book ‘Molecules of Emotion’, that the mind as we experience
it is immaterial, yet it has a physical substrate, which
is both the body and the brain.

It may also be said to have a non material, non
physical substrate that has to do with the flow of that
information. The mind, then, is that which holds the
network together, often acting below our conciousness,
linking and coordinating the major systems and their
organs and cells in an intelligently orchestrated symphony
of life.

&nbsp;Thus we might refer to the whole system as a psychosomatic
information network, linking psyche, which
comprises all that is of an ostensibly nonmaterial nature,
such as mind, emotion, and soul, to soma, which is the
material world of molecules, cells and organs. Mind and
body, psyche and soma.

Compared to most mainstream medical practice
which is more focused on symptom, Hellerwork is very
interested in causation. As in Hakomi, we see that the
person brings in their whole story – it is a mind body
issue, not just their sore back or neck symptom. We are
interested in helping our client to get a sense of just how
they live in their body on a daily basis with the premise
“from awareness springs change”. Of course our posture
is something that we pretty much unconsciously create
and over time it becomes our innate expression of who
we are. It is the result of how we organize our experience.
Some aspects we integrate and grow from, and
some we are wounded and stunted by. These pieces of
unintegrated experience are what I see as pieces of the
body frozen in time, causing us pain and discomfort.
One of the premises of quantum physics is that energy
is matter frozen in time, (the good news being that they
are interchangeable), so it is fascinating to see this energetic
truncation expressed in a body posture. Of course
posture when it is combined with movement is a powerful
image creator. We can see someone we know from a
distance and recognize who it is straight away from how
they are moving, well before we can see the detail of their
face. Why? Because they move in time and space in a
very particular way. I see movement as an expression of
our character, and that is why in Hellerwork we play with
movement awareness.
In a way, the whole process of Hellerwork is like
an experiment. I am constantly checking in with my client
“so how do you notice that? ” I invite them in to their
inner body experience, into the world of sensation. As
students of Hakomi we discovered that we often did not
have a vocabulary for our inner sensational experience and
could not really describe the sensation that went along
with sadness – how do you know that it is sadness? In a
Hellerwork session I teach clients to study the body sensations
that go along with their experience of receiving
bodywork and in turn there is the invitation to study the
sensations that go along with any emotions or thoughts
that may come up. In a Hellerwork session I might also
invite my client to notice how the pain in an area might
intensify in certain positions, when they moved in a particular
way or when they are feeling an emotion or thinking a
thought. When I slow it right down, they usually find out
other things they are doing alongside the discomfort they
are experiencing – often a deep breath will bring awareness,
and as only the body can do, from awareness things
change. What they were experiencing as extreme discom-
Continued on page 16
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enough to be in the world.” At that moment it was the
first real direct eye contact between us (this is 6 months
into the therapy), and she was able to face herself, who
she was and had become. She took a sabbatical from
her work, much under the protest of her father, intensely
studied alternative healing modalities and enjoyed herself
tremendously. She then returned to the business on the
condition that her father was to step back in his roles and
she was to run the business on her own. He complied and
she turned this business into an environment that she
favoured, with new environmental policies and internal
new business structures that supported women in this
male-dominated business: equality of pay, and processes
for disgruntled workers to have a voice.
At the time of therapy termination she had not
been in a lasting relationship, but began to date men. “I
would never notice them before”, she described in the last
session, “They are so nice and normal, not the ones I usually
would gravitate towards.”
Her journey from feeling unsafe in the world to
becoming a powerful, safe-enough woman in the world,
was truly remarkable. Our last couple of sessions were
filled with much laughter and mischief as she recounted
the new adventures she was making in her romantic life
as well as her pride in her work life. She felt like change
wasn’t so bad after all.
Manuela Mischke Reeds, M.A., MFT, certified Hakomi
Therapist and Trainer, and Somatic Psychotherapist, training
in the Hakomi Method in San Francisco and Sydney.
Manuela specializes in integrating somatic psychotherapy,
attachment therapy, pre-perinatal psychology, movement
therapy and somatic trauma work. She is adjunct faculty
at JFK University, Institute Transpersonal Psychology, Palo
Alto and CIIS, San Francisco. She co-developed “Waking
up from the Family Trance”, a somatic approach to exploring
and transforming internalized Family Systems and is an
authorized Continuum Movement Teacher, leading regular
Continuum classes in SF and abroad.
She holds a MA in Somatic Psychology, a BA in Dance
Therapy and has trained in various methods of working with
trauma. She has extensive training in the field of arts,
movement/dance, and Buddhist meditation and maintains a
private practice in Menlo Park, working with individuals,
couples and children.
Continued from page 7
I need to change ...
fort moves in to something else. They did not notice until
they took a breath, that they were scrunching their shoulders
right up to their ears which was pulling and grating
on that sore spot in their neck. The thought they were
having at the time was about going back to work and the
abusive atmosphere they would have to endure. They
realized that they were bracing themselves all the time,
and not just at work.

The work I do continues to evolve and change.
However, using the Hellerwork series I blend the Hakomi
principles and Hellerwork dialogue with the powerful
experience of structural integration to create an awakening,
where a person has the unique opportunity to move
towards more balance and ease within gravity, where they
are the conscious choreographer of their own experience.

The on-going discussion of touch and talk will no doubt
continue, and all I can say about it is that it is a powerful
healing tool and one that is definitely more than the sum
of the parts. This is where magic happens.
I hope that this can open up further discussion.

References and Research material:
Bodywise: Joseph Heller- founder of Hellerwork
Rolfing: Ida Rolf Phd – Founder of Rolfing
The Body Bears the Burden: Robert Scaer MD
Molecules of Emotion: Candice Pert Phd
The Dialogue of Hellerwork – A presentation &amp; paper at the
Seattle International Assn of Structural Integrators 2005:
James Dohn DC, CHP
Emotional Anatomy: Stanley Kellerman
Linda McClure has been a certified Hellerwork Practitioner
since 1989, and completed the Hakomi Developmental and
Trauma Trainings in 1996 and 1998 respectively.
She has studied extensively with Judith Aston in movement
therapy and is a certified Aston movement coach since
1996. She has also been on the faculty of the Hellerwork
Foundation since 1996 and currently chairs the Foundations
Board of Education. Linda lives on the Gold Coast of
Queensland Australia and runs a private practice with her
partner Sean Petersen, and is a Director of the Australian
School of Hellerwork Structural Integration.
Linda can be reached at info@hellerwork.com.au

Touch and Talk.

What drew you to Hakomi?
A workshop I did with Maya and John, and a strong sense
of the inherent restraint in Hakomi. I guess as someone
who is quite emotional and intense, I found it very liberating
to see a tradition of psychotherapy that’s really about
self-study, pausing and going deeper, and not about being
cathartic or expressing and dramatising the feeling state. I
love the focus of non-violence and mindfulness.
what’s helped to shape you as a psychotherapist?
I think respect and kindness. Perhaps I’ve been shaped by
the personal as political notion, and I think that we live in
a profoundly troubled world in lots of ways.
How did you and Hakomi `find` each other?
A good friend, Subhana, had done the training. I did a
workshop in Brisbane and just remember having a really
powerful experience of coming home to myself on some
deeper level. It felt very in tune with my values, having had
quite a strong background in meditation and a focus on
non-violence and mindfulness.
Could you briefly tell us about your background?
I’ve lived for close to thirty years in an intentional
Buddhist-inspired community on the north coast of
N.S.W, with a focus on living simply, respecting the earth
and cultivating an intimate, small village life. My main
working life has been broadly in social-welfare, domestic
violence and am currently working in mental health.
You’re about to finish the Training, any comments?
Three years have flashed by and sometimes I feel like I`m
still in kindergarten. I think I understand and live by the
principles, but the skills are very subtle and far-reaching.
It’s been a really wonderful learning for me and I feel that
I`ve become much more robust as a human being. I have
a real sense of gratitude about it.

Any thoughts on your future with Hakomi?

I hope to do the Relationship Training with Halko. The
Hakomi training has felt like an apprenticeship in an area
of life where I`m not ripe enough to move on from. I feel
it would deepen the work we’ve done over the last three
years, and yet create a slightly different channel.
How does your spiritual life inform the way you work?
I`ve got a reasonably strong sitting background from both
Vipassana and Zen meditation, Christopher Titmus in
the Vipassana Insight tradition and Robert Aitkin in the
Diamond sangha. I feel like I`m a person who’s had enormous
privileges and maybe that’s why I want to work with
people who’ve had much tougher times than me. I love
the Dalai Lama`s line of “my religion is kindness” and
another from the Desert Monks tradition of “Live love,
let love invade you, it will never fail to teach you what you
must do”. That’s what interests me in spiritual practise.
Anything else about who you are that you want to add?
I think we’re in a time of enormous suffering and a time
of enormous material inequity, and maybe that’s what
spurs me to work in a N.G.O in mental illness (but it
could be some other kind of field). I don`t know that I feel
particularly called to do private practice: there’s something
that I love about working in a good functioning team, but
really bringing the Hakomi principles into the nature of
the work that I do.
What are you reading right now?
I`ve just finished Irving Yalom`s wonderful, “Momma and
the Meaning of Life”, which I just loved.
Is there a therapist who`s inspired you the most?
I was enormously inspired by Halko, seeing his capacity
to really touch the essence of people in a really brief
moment. I also have a great regard for a sort of fierceness
that I see in Manuela, a real warrior woman quality that I love.
What is Hakomi `Gai` style?
Having fun and feeling at ease in myself. Learning to be
in my `back` and holding my practice lightly. I suppose
there’s a generosity and a warmth that I like to bring.
What sustains you on your personal journey?
Nature, flowers, gardens, ancestors, music, the love of my
friends and my fantastic relationship with my daughter.
Anything you want to add?
Maybe my final thing is that I think I underestimated what
a deep and profound process this has been. I`m really grateful
for all the trainers and tutors along the great way.
What brings you here?
Roving journalist RYTA KUNCIUNAS talks to Hakomi student GAI LONGMUIR
about what first attracted her to Hakomi.
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In our ongoing series that looks at common problems of therapeutic practice,
Hakomi trainee CAROL PERRY invites Hakomi Teacher SUHARI BOHM for suggestions on
working with a meditation practitioner yearning for liberation.
CAROL:
Margie is a committed meditation practitioner. We have had
two sessions so it is very early in the process to be offering a
case study. She is yearning for liberation and is looking for a
“Buddha” as she put it to show her the way. I have been cast
into that role.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
How do you as the therapist experience this transference?
What does that evoke within you? Where do you go
with this ‘demand’?
CAROL:
There is also a belief about “who am I to experience liberation?”
There is a lot of tiredness and along with this oceans
of sadness sequencing into frustration and anger. There is
probably quite a lot to explore in the anger.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
She wants you to guide her towards liberation but is also
defended against it. Who am I to experience liberation she
says? The tiredness suggests perhaps deep-seated anger
and depression perhaps. Lots of energy is needed to hold
it down. That is tiring.
I wonder about her need to have somebody show her the
way. It feels child-like, a child needing the guidance of an
adult to show her the way. Oceans of Sadness about having
to know it all??? To be good, productive, etc. Experiment
around that. Notice what it is like when I take you by the
hand and lead you? Two things might emerge: 1) resistance
or 2) relief. Also, further exploration around the tiredness,
such as a probe “It is OK to rest” and study the defence.
CAROL:
It is relatively easy for her to access sensations and to see her
resistance to having lots of strong emotions. There is also
strong judgmental rejection of her resistance: “I can’t even
be with what’s there, and I know that’s what I have to do”.
Along with this belief there is some shame.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
Suggestion of mindfulness and studying the defence,
contacting, deepening keepening at the same time also
honoring her defence. You are here working at the barrier,
no nourishment is getting through.
It is really hard to hang out with that huge level of
judgment and shame around not getting it. Lots of support
is needed. Really supporting the child that was shamed
about NOT GETTING IT. Also supporting the part that is
so industrious and achieving.
CAROL:
Because it easy for her to be mindful of the sensations of
sadness (we haven’t got to the anger yet) she accesses a very
pleasant, open and receptive experience and can stay there. I
checked whether there was room for the sadness in this openness
and yes, the sadness was experienced as a fluid movement
through this place and there was no resistance to it.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
The “spiritual” place is a resting place, a safe space for a
shamed and judgmental person. It needs to be supported
and honored. I am also wondering about her mindfulness.
Is she truly witnessing or just hanging out in a nice quiet
space?
Could this turn into
a type of “Spiritual
Bypassing?
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IF YOU’D LIKE FEEDBACK ON A CASE
please email the HAA News Editor at
&lt;haanews@hakomi.org.au&gt; with a short
summary of your case and your dilemma.
CAROL:
I am interested in how this could possibly turn into a sort of
“spiritual bypassing” of what needs to be explored here.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
The spiritual place is already a bypass. It does not feel
only like witnessing or meditation.
CAROL:
The character style seems to be Industrious. There is a lot of
smiling and there is a signature movement in the form of a
dismissive laugh when we uncover some aspect of her process.
It is as if she is constantly dismissing herself.
SUHARI RESPONDS:
Her formative experience or core belief might be “I am
not good enough just for myself” / “I have to produce in
order to be loved”.
The supervision really highlights the question how
does the practitioner work with this transference and what
serves the client? Can I be Buddha for a while until she
finds it in herself? Can I just enjoy her for what she is and
at the same time start working on making core beliefs
conscious.
Her missing experience might be to be simply accepted,
to just have loving kindness just because she is a human
being.
This is very short case and early in the piece. Other
facets of her being might show up a bit later. Like always
we hold our ideas and insights lightly and let them go,
should the client choose to explore something else.
SUHARI BOHM is a certified Hakomi therapist and Hakomi
teacher. She is a qualified medical doctor (Germany) and
naturopath (New Zealand). She leads workshops in Healing
Relationship and Loving Presence and is currently teaching
on the Hakomi Professional Training in Sydney. Suhari lives
in Dunedin, New Zealand, where she offers supervision and
teaching days for Hakomi graduates. She has over 20 years
experience in the field of personal growth and has a particular
interest in trauma work and clients presenting with psychosomatic
symptoms.
Sydney Group Supervision
with Karen Workman
Sydney-based Hakomi therapist Karen Workman is to
offer a further series of group supervision sessions,
commencing February 2006. Aimed at Hakomi
therapists and students, the supervision will be
offered in Sydney on the following dates:
Fridays, 3.00pm - 5.00pm:
February 3
February 17
March 17
April 7
April 17
These sessions offer a deepening of the underlying
principals of the Hakomi method in the realm of
spiritual practice. They include understanding Loving
Presence and developing ‘personhood’ as a therapist.
Within the group, we will explore and discuss cases
using both the developmental approach and the
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Method for Trauma
resolution.
The 2 hour sessions will be a mix of case study, discussion,
theory and experiential work.
To participate fully, you will need to be committed to
growing as a therapist while using this method.
You can expect to feel refreshed, inspired, and
empowered to use your skills with clear intention following
each meeting. These sessions are for
professional development and as such, will not
involve personal processing.
This series