The following session is an example of how the tool of Somatic Awareness can translate the nonverbal narrative of sensation and integrate it with the verbal narrative. The client’s parts, speaking only through sensation in her head, are welcomed and witnessed. We bring Somatic Awareness not only to the parts that were “speaking” but also to those that were silent—to her largely disembodied lower body. Rachel suffers with chronic migraines. She has been doing some good work with another IFS therapist but hoped that Somatic IFS could help her specifically with the headaches. My heart went out to her as I heard of the intense and unremitting pain and saw the pain in her eyes. I became aware of
We have all experienced the automatic changes in our breath when we are stressed or frightened. The sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system causes our breath to become more rapid, more shallow, and higher in the torso. Once the perceived threat is gone, the breath is supposed to be governed by the parasympathetic branch and return to a deeper, slower rhythm. However, sometimes parts are frozen in the time and place of the stress or trauma and continue to believe they are in danger. The individual’s nervous system becomes locked into the fight-or-flight mode and can’t return to the rest-and-relaxation phase of the parasympathetic branch. Somatic IFS’s tool of Conscious Breathing ca
