My second article What is Complex Trauma? Part 2 Working with the Body was published in September 2021.
Abstract
This paper follows directly from my previous article ‘What is Complex Trauma?’. This current paper is the first of several in which I reflect on the implications of this theory for clinical practice, starting with what it shows us about our need to work with the body. It looks at 1) bodily regulation as an enabler of therapeutic engagement, 2) releasing chronic physical tension and 3) encouraging the completion of the physical impulses of defence in order to trigger fear system deactivation, and 4) methods of increasing ventral vagal signal in order to strengthen the regulation of fear system responses.