Somatic Therapy in AT – Unified Field

“It was just as easy, I found, instead of setting up two fields — one for the self (introspection) and another for the environment (extraspection) — to establish a single integrated field in which both the environment and the self could be viewed simultaneously.” *

That’s Frank Pierce Jones - shown teaching above - describing his early Alexander lessons. He’s also - without knowing it - describing how a Trauma-Informed Alexander (TIA) session must operate.

TIA TRACKING ORIENTATION

In traditional somatic therapy practice, Tracking often refers to detecting the signals arriving from the client’s internal (interoceptive and proprioceptive) environment.

Somatic therapies present the tracking of the internal environment (trauma perception) and the orientation to the external environment (outward focus) as separate occurrences. Babette Rothschild addresses this through what she calls dual awareness — holding both channels at once. TIA Touch goes further, following Frank Pierce Jones’ advice to establish a single integrated field that brings tracking and orientation together simultaneously.

Thinking too much of “internals” and “externals” can lead both you and your client into fixed behaviour: either going “in” by getting glassy-eyed in trying to assess their internal environment; or going “out” by losing themselves in the people and objects around them.

Alexander lessons don’t succeed well in either environment.

Therefore, encouraging a unified field that reaches from the internal out into the environment is an effective way to be orientating during your session. Imagining it any other way is a trap in language. For example: two eyes don’t take turns - the brain fuses them into a single field of depth.

TIA UNIFIED FIELD

This is what Orienting and Tracking mean in TIA work: fusing multiple strands of sensory and motor information into a unified field of awareness and attention. This helps to generate a predictive model of your session that can guide your actions. This kind of Psycho-Physical Unity was a constant song in Alexander’s writings - there’s every reason to continue this unity into awareness and attention in the way you manage a TIA session.

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In the last three Dailies, I’ve related the concepts of Resource, Titration, Pendulation, Tracking and Orienting※ to the architecture of TIA Touch, offering an alternative way to use Alexander Touch. I’ve shown that an Alexander lesson features the same quality of unexpectedness that occurs in sessions exploring trauma. Finally, I’ve given you an example of how you might set up an initial session using Tommy’s magical exercise.

What’s left? Two things:

1. Experience it for yourself (see below).
2. The Arc of a TIA Session.

*** You Are Invited To ***

TOMMY’S MAGICAL EXERCISE

August 23rd London - October 25th New York. (10-5)

Experience this exercise - then discover how to guide it.

Information and Bookings

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NEXT: The Unhidden Secret of a TIA Session

Stay Tuned.

* Frank Pierce Jones, Body Awareness in Action: A Study of the Alexander Technique (New York: Schocken Books, 1976, 1979), p. 9.

※ Pendulation is a term originated by Peter Levine, as part of his Somatic Experiencing methodology. While unique to SE, it acknowledges a truth that transcends its origins: namely, our nervous system is constantly pulsing, like breath itself. Titration is a concept borrowed from chemistry, whereas Tracking comes through Gestalt therapy and Ron Kurtz’s Hakomi Method, then Pat Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Resourcing traces back to Milton Erickson’s hypnotherapy and NLP. Orienting, in the sustained sense TIA uses it — as an ongoing scan of the environment — traces to Nikolaas Tinbergen’s ethology: the study of how animals continuously monitor their surroundings for safety, a confirmed direct influence on Levine’s own early work.

NOTE
This is the 6th in a series of 12 emails as a prelude to my Trauma-Informed Alexander workshop in London (August 23rd) and New York (October 25th). You can book at the link below. Email me for a discount if you are an AT trainee or financially challenged:

Information and Bookings