What
is SomatoEmotional Release®?
Have you ever had a physical injury that seemed to plague you long after the site
had healed? That's not as unusual as you might think. Even when CranioSacral Therapy
releases restrictions in body tissues, sometimes a release of emotional energy
is necessary to fully discharge a trauma. In those cases, the CranioSacral Therapist
may gently encourage a SomatoEmotional Release. Research
conducted in the late '70s by Dr. John Upledger and biophysicist Zvi Karni led
to the discovery that the body often retains the emotional imprint of physical
trauma. These imprints, especially, of intense feelings that may have occured
at the time of injury - anger, fear, resentment - leave residues in the body in
areas called "energy cysts."
Although you can adapt to energy cysts over time, your body needs extra energy
to continue performing its day-to-day functions. Then as years pass and the body
becomes more stressed, it can lose its ability to adapt. That's when symptoms
and dvsfunctions begin to appear and become difficult to suppress or ignore.
Through SomatoEmotional Release, the therapist engages in imaging and dialoguing
techniques that can guide the patient through an otherwise challenging encounter
with long-held emotions. The patient does not need to analyze the problem to release
it. Often the body will spontaneously return to the same position it was in when
the injury was first sustained. As this occurs, the therapist can feel the tissues
of the body relax as the energy cyst is expelled. Then the body is free to return
to its optimal levels of tunctioning. - Return to "Self-Care Articles" - |