Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Children and adolescents face readjusting to return to school, camp, work and life pre‐
pandemic, yet for some there is a reluctance to go back to the way life was (e.g., pressure,
hecticness, over‐programmed, socially challenging, anxiety‐ridden, depression inducing)
Less than half of young people with a mental disorder seek treatment and only a small
minority of individuals affected with depression receive care. (Plemmons & Hall Pediatrics
2018) For adults, stigma, around mental disorders and suicide, means many people are not
seeking help.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children, adolescents, and young adults age
15‐to‐24‐year‐olds in the US, (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 2021)
and the fourth worldwide among 15‐19 year olds.
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Suicide was the leading cause of death among Blacks between 15 and 24 years of age (U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services of Minority Health 2019; Forbes, 2022)
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Native American youth ages 10‐24, and
Native youth teen suicide rates are nearly 3.5 times higher than the national average.
(Center for Native American Youth)
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer young people attempt suicide at nearly five times more
than their peers (Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al., 2020).
*The clinician should be aware that most suicidal patients suffer from a state of
mental anguish or pain and a total loss of self respect.
*We can’t be afraid that talking about suicide will lead to or foster, or encourage
suicide.
Farbarow, N and Shneidman, E. (1961) The Cry for Help, NY McGraw Hill, P 193‐203; (LA Suicide prevention center)
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute
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Contributing Factors:
•Children may have limited vocabulary to describe their experience
•Child and adults may feel shame, inherently “bad” or that things are their fault
•Child (and adults) may fear that they will get in trouble or be blamed if they tell of
abuse/trauma
•Traumatic events are not available for verbal recall if they are not encoded verbally
•Traumatic events may be dissociated (split off from conscious awareness) and stored as
sensory perceptions rather than as verbal narrative
• Intergenerational and historical trauma do not lend themselves to verbal description
•White‐centered narratives may cancel out stories and experiences of others
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute Ogden & Goldstein in press
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Proximity Seeking
Proximity‐seeking
actions are based on
predictions of whether
attachment figures are
accessible and how
probable it is that they
will be empathic &
supportive if needed.
Ogden 2014
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A
L
Hypoarousal Symptoms:
FEEL THREATENED: Flat affect, low energy, low vitality, difficult to reach, numb, little facial
expression, passive, “spacey,” poor eye contact Ogden 1992; Ogden & Minton 2000; Ogden et al 2006;
Ogden
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute& Fisher 2015; Ogden & Goldstein in press
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Immediate Results
Hopeful sign‐‐Tommy wanted to come to therapy whereas initially mom
bribed him to come
• Mom reports that he seems more hopeful and has moments of joy—
something she missed over the past few years—and feels more a part of
the family (e.g., more engaged, communicative, offering stories of his
day).
• School reports more interactions with classmates (e.g., returned to
playing sports with classmates rather than reading book in solitary; picked
a partner during school project rather than insisting to work solo)
• Physical changes include: Arms moved more freely and playfully replacing
his rigid, frozen stance, opening of his chest allowing for deeper full‐
bodied breathing
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute
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Caregiver’s
Child’s Window Window of
of Tolerance Tolerance
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A Paradigm Shift:
Embedded Relational Mindfulness:
Mindfulness has its roots in Eastern practices and spiritual traditions and has been
widely appropriated by Western cultures. It serves a different purpose when
applied to psychotherapy than it had in the original contexts.
Ogden, Taylor, Jorba, Rodriguez & Choi 2021
•Prioritize mindful awareness of present moment organization of Thoughts
experience instead of talking about, problem solving, interpretation & Beliefs
• Shift the focus from conversation Shift the focus from Emotion
Sensory
conversation about the past and narrative to mindful awareness of Perception
the building blocks of present experience.. Movement
• Conduct experiments (“what happens when…”) to discover the Sensation
organization of experience
• Track & name how the organization of experience changes in
response to a particular stimuli © Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute Ogden et al 2006; Ogden
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2021
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A stimulus is
an experiment”
“What happens
Present Experience when…..”
Therapist & client together mindfully study the elements of the client’s
present experience (the building blocks) that emerge spontaneously in
response to a selected stimulus.
Ogden
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute& Minton 2012
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Celia, age 13
Somatic Presentation and Interventions
• Body tight, pulled inward, head tilted dramatically to one side
• Spoke in very soft, mumbled voice (often refused to speak at all)
Interventions:
• Discover what part holding her head to the side represents (lack of confidence)
• Empathically contact the part of her that held her head to the side; find out what that part needs;
experiments to facilitate communication between parts; track and contact results.
• Experiment with a change in posture by bring head on top of shoulders
• Track and contact the results (anxiety)
• Experiment with a gesture that reassures the anxious part so as not to override that part
• Return to experiment with the change in posture and track results
• Throughout, the therapist attends to the therapeutic
© Sensorimotor relationship
Psychotherapy® Institute
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Celia:
“I’ve, how to say, been practicing, and my mom’s been reminding me. I’ve been
increasing my voice level. I’m holding my head up more. That’s been going good,
and I’m increasing my confidence in myself. I’ve been socializing more with my
family. I’ve been feeling better about myself and wearing nicer clothes. I’m
wearing dresses, and I was self conscious about that too. School had been OK.
It’s been easier……I’m talking to my family.”
Physical Changes:
Head aligned on top of shoulders; posture lengthened, eye contact, audible
speaking voice
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute
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Movement Vocabulary
We underuse, distort, or abandon altogether
certain actions (push, reach, lengthened posture)
that might mitigate suicidality when the action
repeatedly leads to a negative outcome.
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Tessa
•Therapist: So, feel the tension, and then just bring your hands up and start to push
and see what happens…. (client smiles as she starts pushing) It feels good….
• Tessa: Yes…(pushes hard)
• Therapist: Feel that power…feel your body
• Tessa: It is, it’s power, like I’m able to finally get away
• Therapist: Push as hard as you want and feel your strength (Tessa pushes harder)
Yeah, that’s right, that’s right, it feels t feels good huh
Tessa: Yeah but it also makes me want to cry, it’s such a powerful feeling……it’s so
powerful…..
• Therapist: It is, that’s right.
• Tessa: I wish so much, you know I…. could have gotten away…
• Therapist: Do it now, you can do it now, you couldn’t do it then, but you can do it
now… . Feel that power in your body…
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute
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Immediate Results:
Physical Changes:
Head lifted instead of pulled into her shoulder girdle. Spine more upright (but
still quite collapsed)
In Tessa’s words:
I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the pillow. It was different for me because I was
emotional afterwards. It felt like grief. It was coming from my heart and
tummy. I haven’t had any body memories. That is new. Before I got them
about once a week. The pushing on the pillow was amazing. It was awesome.
I felt that sense of hope, like a little kid, I’ve never had that before.
But it’s hard to sustain it.
I’m so glad I felt it, even a little bit, it is so nice to remember.
© Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® Institute
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