Massage

One of the symptoms of PTSD is numbness.  Numb from dissociative survival skills learned during the traumatic event; numb from drugs or alcohol, or numb from other distractions created to hide behind, survivors of trauma often can't feel their bodies or have parsed apart their various pieces of being.  "They numb out everything - their joy, their capacity to feel alive and their ability to feel safe in the world. It's frustraing.  Their capacity to experience life is greatly diminished.  This is what brings people into the therapy.

Bodywork is a simple approach for working with people who've forgotten what it means to be in the here and now, people who've forgotten what it feels like to "feel".

The practitioner focuses specifically on the somatic interventions that restore vitality and presence for someone who has been in war or who has been affected by combat or the violation of human rights.  Indeed, massage therapists, as well as energy healers and bodyworkers of all kinds are the most likely candidates to contact the truth of war.  Our hands traverse territories where secrets are embedded.

War is like chemotherapy or radiation for cancer.  The residual toxins, however, live even longer.  These toxins include environmental pollutants, like depleted uranium or Agent Orange, that enter the soil of the earth and the bodies of the survivors. Guilt, rage, frustration, horror, grief and shame are also toxic byproducts of war.  They burrow into the folds of the brain and therefore into muscles, ligaments, tendons and nerves.  War lives in our bodies and in the body of the earth for generations. Unless the energies of war are resolved, pacified and repatterned, wars are inherited, passed from generation to generation in palpable ways.Bodywork inevitably seduces and draws out the body's stories.

Benefits of Massage:  Receiving a massage can be physically as well as a mentally pleasurable experience. Massage has been known to reduce physical pain, reduce swelling, reduce fatigue and reduce muscle tension.  Emotionally, massage leaves one with feelings of peace and well-being.  Massage has been known to increase alertness and decrease anxiety and depression.

William M. Hall, LMT