Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox
125 Worksheets and Exercises to Treat Trauma & Stress
By Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, LMFT
2018
You have to love a book that begins with the quote:
Be kind to your body – your inseparable best friend.
Full disclosure: I love workbooks, particularly when they’re thoughtfully presented, user-friendly and full of good, solid information. This one is all that and more. Therapists are embracing the mind-body connection, recognizing that cognitive reasoning alone isn’t enough. Not only do our bodies carry around our functioning brains, they also house what’s often termed “the second brain” – our gut. Our experiences are interconnected with our brain states and deeply influence our emotional patterns and how we inhabit our bodies.
This important resource helps clinicians connect both themselves and their clients with the experience of living fully in the moment. Through these somatic techniques, individualized maps can be created to help clients find their way home – to their own bodies, to the wisdom it has to teach them, to the appreciation of how it protected them when they were unable to protect themselves, and to the full experience of living mindfully every day.
Divided into four sections, the book provides a distinct roadmap for those experienced in EMDR and Mindfulness and those new to the processes. Section One offers guidelines for safely incorporating somatic techniques into clinical practice. Section Two includes tools and methods and outlines how to prepare for working with clients. Section Three offers a range of techniques and tools to combine with existing modes of the therapeutic process. This is the heart of the book and encompasses small steps for beginners to a range of safe movement exercises, to working with a wide audience in a group setting. Ethical considerations in the use of safe touch are also covered. By the time readers advance to Section Four, they’ll find in-depth, targeted somatic interventions for use with trauma and stress clients to aid in traumatic memory recovery and integration.
This book is filled with powerful exercises and worksheets for therapists andclients to be used during sessions or to be given as homework, and there are also worksheets for clients to complete. Mischke-Reeds has put a great deal of thought into creating these exercises, and the titles are delightful. “Imagine Running Faster Than the Tiger” to “Calling Your Experience By Its True Name” to “Sun Rays Into Your Body” as well as Charts to Track Triggers, and Trauma Stressor Timelines are resources for clients that include space to identify key unresolved issues. It feels like she’s put the best of her wisdom and experience into this amazing book.
Manuela Mischke-Reeds is no stranger to teaching. With 25 plus years of clinical practice and study under the likes of Peter Levine, Pat Ogden, Janina Fisher, and Marianna Eckberg to name just a few, she’s had tremendous mentors along the way. Now, at the top of her field, this established author, speaker, and educator has provided a magnum opus of practical skills for fieldworkers to immediately access and implement with their clients.
ISBN 9781683731351
261 pages, 8.5 x 11” workbook
Retail price at ODIN BOOKS $49.95