Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Anti-Trauma Touch (Vickie- orange)

Massage class did NOT go well today. Apparently the basic tenets of Trauma Touch are relatively universal. Mueller College has its own version, and that was the topic of today's class! Once you start moving around the energy, it's like taking the stopper out from a bottle. But, you can't put it back in. Several of my classmates even came up to me and said that my energy field was all over the place. I guess that would explain why I am still feeling the effects of Friday's session. Today, the crick in my neck that I've had for years just went away. I had been convinced that I needed a chiropractic adjustment.

Today was supposed to be a lecture class. But instead it was only half lecture. My teacher taught us some of the basic techniques that are used by trauma touch.... but not how to use them. I refused to receive or give the methods, but I watched. Most of the students didn't get it. They used the techniques in a way that facilitated massage work, but not energy work. Some did get it, but obviously didn't know what they were doing so they managed to release energy from epicenters of trauma but not control the energy in a way that wouldn't cause damage (because the energy lodged itself somewhere else instead of release it). Others knew quite a bit about energy work and ended up hurting those on the tables so bad that they were in quite a bit of pain. My professor and TA went around the room doing the techniques too. I was appalled that my professor would do them, but in a way that completely violated the person on the table and their boundaries. She would release epicenters that were "central sites" so to speak. Places that had old trauma that were interwoven with many other parts of the body. She retraumatized one of the students so bad that I had to talk her through what had happened because she was completely overwhelmed and disoriented. It took 45 minutes. We had been talking about trauma and trauma touch extensively over the past few weeks and we have both been talking about getting certified in Trauma Touch.

I talked to the TA after class. She had no concept of what I was talking about how using these tools can be dangerous. She kept insisting that this was not Trauma Touch. I know it is not, but it is using similar if not the same methods and is still releasing the same energy and trauma, only without guidance and safety measures. I was concerned that several of my classmates were now in very real physical pain interfering in the ability to walk or rotate their necks, retraumatized, dissociated, disoriented, or had released something that may trigger them in the next class. Many of these students will probably not say anything either because no one seems to know what the signs and contradictions are for manipulating the body in such a way! Its like being an unlicensed massage therapist. Overall, the techniques and general knowledge of massage will produce a really good massage. But the inexperienced masseuse will miss the signs that something is wrong and could very well end up hurting the client by massaging the wrong area in the wrong way. The inexperienced person releasing trauma somatically will likely release a great deal of trauma in the average person, but someone that has a much more serious or delicate issue will end up hurt worse. Releasing trauma the WRONG way can cause flashbacks, dissociation, disorientation, out of body experiences, being stuck out of body, severe anxiety even panic attacks, new traumas that can be triggered, higher sensitivity to existing trauma, concentration problems, insomnia, pain in other parts of the body including severe headaches, malfunction of certain body parts and organs and systems, and more.

Even worse, the way that Mueller customizing releases trauma is designed is an incomplete process. For a complex epicenter that has connections to other parts of the body, the Mueller method can leave trauma from that epicenter scattered throughout the body making any place that is already a trauma epicenter or is structurally weak a place for it to settle, potentially causing havoc. That is what happened to my classmate. That energy from the released epicenter now makes all those locations worse (pain, malfunction, higher sensitivity to the existing trauma, etc), plus putting the client at risk for all the other bad things I already just mentioned!

I'm more convinced that ever that I need to get this certification. But after this experience, I don't know if I am going to be able to finish this class. I dissociated just from watching. How am I going to handle being naked and someone massaging inside my thighs and my butt at my next class? I can't drop it and take it again for financial reasons, but also because I'm too far in. It's also 101. I can't go on with any of my courses without it.

Dealing with a identity crisis/meltdown and an panic attack ridden introduction to massage class that if I don't finish I might as well not be in massage school situation are two HUGE issues that seem like it is too much. Tomorrow is DBT which always seems to destabilize me a bit more (just what I need, great) and a 3 hour lecture on human reproductive systems in which my teacher has a tendency of going off topic to related topics that have something to do with a student in the class. The last thing I need is 1/3 of tomorrows lecture somehow revolving around sex changes.

Just because I'm stressed, every little thing now puts me over the edge. Like I lost a classmates thumb drive tonight in class and the fact that I'm stressed is stressing me out which is stressing me that I will have bad insomnia tonight which stresses me out that I won't get enough sleep to handle DBT and my reproductive class and my ongoing identity meltdown and trying to contact the head of the holistic health department to figure out a solution to not dropping my massage 101 class. I want to cry. I guess in the end I can only conclude that at least by seeing trauma therapy the WRONG way, I more fully understand why what I am doing must be the right way. Thats because until tonight, Trauma Touch was just a relatively random set of rules and methods that made no sense to me, not to mention "probably just one of many ways to do this". I don't believe that anymore. After seeing how releasing trauma by holding the body can create a very real effect and cause people such pain and disorientation and harm, I'm convinced that there is something much deeper to all this that is calling for a pioneer in the field. There has to be a biological response that can be measured and published. Just imagine me.... 100 years from now my name will be in textbooks. :-) I have a challenge.... ok, ready, set GO!

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