Peter A. Levine
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Peter A. Levine
Somatic experiencing (SE) is a form of alternative therapy aimed at treating trauma and stressor-related disorders like PTSD. The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The Clients’ attention is directed toward internal sensations, (interoception, proprioception and kinaesthesis), rather than to cognitive or emotional experiences. The method was developed by Peter A. Levine. SE sessions are normally held in person, and involve clients tracking their physical experiences.Scaer, Robert C.: ''The Trauma Spectrum. Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency''. W.W. Norton & Company, N.Y. & London, 2005 Practitioners are often mental health practitioners such as social workers, psychologists, therapists, medical professionals, rolfers, practitioners of the Feldenkrais practitioners, yoga therapists, educators, clergy, coaches, etc. Regulation Unlike some of its sister somatic modalities (biodynamic craniosacral therapy, polarity ...
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Alternative Medicine
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM), and holistic medicine attempt to combine alternative practices with those of mainstream medicine. Alternative therapies share in common that they reside outside of medical science and instead rely on pseudoscience. Traditional practices become "alternative" when used outside their original settings and without proper scientific explanation and evidence. Frequently used derogatory terms for relevant practices are ''new age'' or ''pseudo-'' medicine, with little distinction from quackery. Some alternative practices are based on theories that contradict the established science of how the human body works; others resort to the supernatural or superstitious to explain ...
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm. Most people who experience traumatic events do not develop PTSD. People who experience interpersonal violence such as rape, other sexual assaults, being kidnapped, stalking, physical abuse by an intimate partner, an ...
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Interoception
Interoception is contemporarily defined as the collection of senses perceiving the internal state of the body. This can be both conscious and unconscious. It encompasses the brain's process of integrating signals relayed from the body into specific subregions—like the brainstem, thalamus, insula, somatosensory, and anterior cingulate cortex—allowing for a nuanced representation of the physiological state of the body. This is important for maintaining homeostatic conditions in the body and, potentially, facilitating self-awareness. Interoceptive signals are projected to the brain via a diversity of neural pathways, in particular from the lamina I of the spinal cord along the spinothalamic pathway and through the projections of the solitary nucleus, that allow for the sensory processing and prediction of internal bodily states. Misrepresentations of internal states, or a disconnect between the body's signals and the brain's interpretation and prediction of those signals, have b ...
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Proprioception
Proprioception ( ), also referred to as kinaesthesia (or kinesthesia), is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position. It is sometimes described as the "sixth sense". Proprioception is mediated by proprioceptors, mechanosensory neurons located within muscles, tendons, and joints. Most animals possess multiple subtypes of proprioceptors, which detect distinct kinematic parameters, such as joint position, movement, and load. Although all mobile animals possess proprioceptors, the structure of the sensory organs can vary across species. Proprioceptive signals are transmitted to the central nervous system, where they are integrated with information from other sensory systems, such as the visual system and the vestibular system, to create an overall representation of body position, movement, and acceleration. In many animals, sensory feedback from proprioceptors is essential for stabilizing body posture and coordinating body movement. System overview In vertebrates, limb ve ...
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Kinaesthesis
Proprioception ( ), also referred to as kinaesthesia (or kinesthesia), is the sense of self-movement, force, and body position. It is sometimes described as the "sixth sense". Proprioception is mediated by proprioceptors, mechanosensory neurons located within muscles, tendons, and joints. Most animals possess multiple subtypes of proprioceptors, which detect distinct kinematic parameters, such as joint position, movement, and load. Although all mobile animals possess proprioceptors, the structure of the sensory organs can vary across species. Proprioceptive signals are transmitted to the central nervous system, where they are integrated with information from other sensory systems, such as the visual system and the vestibular system, to create an overall representation of body position, movement, and acceleration. In many animals, sensory feedback from proprioceptors is essential for stabilizing body posture and coordinating body movement. System overview In vertebrates, limb ...
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Rolfing
Rolfing () is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf (1896–1979) as Structural Integration. Rolfing is marketed with unproven claims of various health benefits. It is based on Rolf's ideas about how the human body's " energy field" can benefit when aligned with the Earth's gravitational field. Rolfing is typically delivered as a series of ten hands-on physical manipulation sessions sometimes called "the recipe". Practitioners combine superficial and deep manual therapy with movement prompts. The process is sometimes painful. The safety of Rolfing has not been confirmed. The principles of Rolfing contradict established medical knowledge, and there is no good evidence Rolfing is effective for the treatment of any health condition. It is recognized as a pseudoscience: "The idea of vital energy... does not correspond to known facts of how the human body operates. Similarly, there is absolutely no support in psychological literature for the idea of traumat ...
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Feldenkrais Method
The Feldenkrais Method is a type of exercise therapy devised by Israeli Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984) during the mid-20th century. Participants are led through varied patterns of body movement, either hands-on or verbally guided, with the aim of improving motor performance. There is no reliable medical evidence that the Feldenkrais method improves medical outcomes.There is limited evidence that the Feldenkrais method improves some quality-of-life related measures and performance on some motor coordination tests. It is not known if it is safe or cost-effective, but researchers do not believe it poses serious risks. Description The Feldenkrais Method is a method of exercise or physical therapy that aims to improve human movement performance by engaging in varied patterns of movement. According to David Gorski, the Feldenkrais Guild of North America claims that the Feldenkrais method allows people to "rediscover heirinnate capacity for graceful, efficient movement" and that ...
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Clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the terms used for individual clergy are clergyman, clergywoman, clergyperson, churchman, and cleric, while clerk in holy orders has a long history but is rarely used. In Christianity, the specific names and roles of the clergy vary by denomination and there is a wide range of formal and informal clergy positions, including deacons, elders, priests, bishops, preachers, pastors, presbyters, ministers, and the pope. In Islam, a religious leader is often known formally or informally as an imam, caliph, qadi, mufti, mullah, muezzin, or ayatollah. In the Jewish tradition, a religious leader is often a rabbi (teacher) or hazzan (cantor). Etymology The word ''cleric'' comes from the ecclesiastical Latin ''Clericus'', for those belonging ...
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Reichian Therapy
Reichian therapy can refer to several schools of thought and therapeutic techniques whose common touchstone is their origins in the work of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957). Some examples are: *Character Analysis, the analysis of character structures that act in the form of resistances of the ego. *Bioenergetic analysis, which combines psychological analysis, active work with the body and relational therapeutic work. *Body psychotherapy, which addresses the body and the mind as a whole with emphasis on the reciprocal relationships within body and mind. * Neo-Reichian massage, whose practitioners attempt to locate and dissolve body armoring (also called "holding patterns"). *Vegetotherapy Vegetotherapy is a form of Reichian psychotherapy that involves the physical manifestations of emotions. Development The fundamental text of vegetotherapy is Wilhelm Reich's ''Psychischer Kontakt und vegetative Strömung'' (1935), later included ..., a form of psychotherapy that invo ...
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Body Psychotherapy
Body psychotherapy, also called body-oriented psychotherapy, is an approach to psychotherapy which applies basic principles of somatic psychology. It originated in the work of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and particularly Wilhelm Reich who developed it as vegetotherapy. Branches also were developed by Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, both patients and students of Reich, like Reichian body-oriented psychotherapy. History Wilhelm Reich and the post-Reichians are considered the central element of body psychotherapy. From the 1930s, Reich became known for the idea that muscular tension reflected repressed emotions, what he called 'body armour', and developed a way to use pressure to produce emotional release in his clients.Totton, (2005) p.3 Reich was expelled from the psychoanalytic mainstream and his work found a home in the 'growth movement' of the 1960s and 1970s and in the countercultural project of 'liberating the body'. Perhaps as a result, body psychotherapy was marginalised ...
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Embodied Cognition
Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. Sensory and motor systems are seen as fundamentally integrated with cognitive processing. The cognitive features include high-level mental constructs (such as concepts and Categorization, categories) and performance on various cognitive tasks (such as reasoning or judgment). The bodily aspects involve the motor system, the perceptual system, the bodily interactions with the environment (situatedness), and the assumptions about the world built into the organism's functional structure. The embodied mind thesis challenges other theories, such as Cognitivism (psychology), cognitivism, computationalism, and Dualism (philosophy of mind), Cartesian dualism. It is closely related to the extended mind thesis, situated cognition, and enactivism. The modern version depends on insights drawn from up to date research in psychology, linguistics, cogni ...
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Psychosomatic Medicine
Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field exploring the relationships among social, psychological, behavioral factors on bodily processes and quality of life in humans and animals. The academic forebear of the modern field of behavioral medicine and a part of the practice of consultation-liaison psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine integrates interdisciplinary evaluation and management involving diverse specialties including psychiatry, psychology, neurology, psychoanalysis, internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, allergy, dermatology, and psychoneuroimmunology. Clinical situations where mental processes act as a major factor affecting medical outcomes are areas where psychosomatic medicine has competence. Psychosomatic disorders Some physical diseases are believed to have a mental component derived from stresses and strains of everyday living. This has been suggested, for example, of lower back pain and high blood pressure, which some researchers have sugge ...
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