Touching the Heart
“There was something about being in touched and allowing the feelings to come that paved the way to knowing what caused the pain and sadness” – Marion Rosen
NeuroAffective Touch (NATouch) is an encompassing form of therapy incorporating somatic experiencing, sensorimotor psychotherapy, manual therapy and body work, energy work, fascial work, body psychotherapy and mind body dialogues and is something for which I am very grateful to Aline LaPierre for bringing this work to humanity. It is my latest training and modality and I love it. Here’s why…
Neuro Affective Touch (NATouch) is the work of Aline LaPierre. It is a form of body psychotherapy amd is particularly designed around early developmental trauma although it can really be used for almost any age trauma. There’s an argument that says that, often, the reason we respond the way we do in later years to life events, emotional challenges etc is very much embedded in how our body learned to cope in our early years and so everything is bedded in in that early year stuff anyway.
When I did my training with Aline, it was the first time that she had come over to the United Kingdom to teach in person, so I feel very lucky that I’ve been part of the first cohort of people to be taught in the United Kingdom. At the end of the modules, I said to her “Aline. Thank you. You know you’ve done it!” I said to her “Many of the things I’ve studied, be they touch modalities, manual therapy, conventional western medicine, be they fascia, be they energy work, be they developmental psychology – its all in your work. You’ve managed to pull so many things together beautifully.” She has achieved this with wonderful languaging in what she calls Mind Body Dialogues.
NATouch looks at the all the systems of the body: fluid dynamics, psychology, fascia, muscles and the skeletal system, the organs, the skin, the vascular system and the Energy System of the body in relation to trauma and healing and not just the nervous system – something I feel quite strongly about right now. You know “trauma” is the watch word at the moment in pain and chronic illness and is all over the internet – as is the Vagus nerve Rightly so as they are really important but there is more to trauma than an autonomic nervous system. We are not just a nervous system. We are living, breathing, energetic, socially interrelating species.
When I said to Aline “You’ve done it!” I meant she has taken all the work that I’ve looked at over my career of over 30 years but also somehow she’s managed to just find a way to bring the languaging piece of the mind and the body together in this beautiful way that just somehow seems to just speak to the human being and I love the touch that’s permitted within NATouch.
When working with trauma some key principles are essential:
- Generating a sense of safety in the system and that requires
- Protection
- Support
- Slowing down the process so the body can cope and not get overwhelmed
We often use warm pillows and blankets along with touch in various locations on the body but also communication verbally / psychotherapeutically to create a sense of protection but it’s then the use of hands and touch and contact with the body which is so different to conventional psychotherapy and even more that somatic experiencing- coming into contact with the tissues that somehow have been holding patterns of traumatic events from the past. Perhaps insights arise whilst working with the body in that way or perhaps working where tension arises as you lean into a narrative or discussion about experiences. Then the support and the protection and the contact with that tissue might just mean that, where it wants to go into a freeze or a lockdown, the touch, the presence, the nature of the whole set up of the session is really really supportive and allows the body and mind to process and integrate differently and change the pattern of freeze / dissociation, suppression, etc etc.
I find it actually is very deep work but it’s almost gentler. It is no less powerful, mark you, but there’s a gentler way about it. Its not as subtle as craniosacral therapy or certain energy therapies I might use but it might be at times. It encompasses so many aspects that it just feels that it’s so important to offer to patients sometimes.
Something about human touch is very very important in being able to really access old, old trauma. Think of it – as a baby we are soothed by the presence of a caregiver, their touch on our skin, the prosody of their voice, the unconscious awareness of their energy pattern we recognise. The nervous system of the skin and gut and heart are seen developmentally to be connected at an embryonic level. The ability to connect with the nervous system and the human through touch physically, spiritually, empathically, interpersonally and much more can be achieved beautifully through NATouch.
NeuroAffective Touch in Practice
Sessions with me are always an hour and Aline actually has 90 minute sessions. I haven’t gone that far yet in my own work routinely but it’s available if people wanted. If we collectively discussed it was something beneficial and desirable then I would be open to offering longer sessions and I know from my own personal sessions with NATouch that 90 minutes can allow a really deep, productive session and ois definitely worthwhile.
We certainly can’t do this kind of work nor any other somatic or trauma work in half an hour. We just can’t. I’ve tried it and doesn’t work – because we need to feel safe – and I mean our unconscious nervous system has to shift experientially into a safe state. Of course I believe all patients feel safe in my Practice with any of my team. I mean this much deeper. We need to drop in, we need to take the time and the mind and body cannot feel rushed in this work.
You can watch my video on Touching the Heart on my YouTube channel. Just click on this link: https://youtu.be/enTB1fVHWB0?si=k-LfutEn7W0OsK4r
