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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Pat Ogden
Started reading
March 18, 2020
Clients often reference gait without awareness
As Franklin (1996) points out, “Unless you ‘evolve’ into new movements very slowly, change sends
an alarm through the body” (p. 43). It is best to proceed gradually, with one slight intervention at a time.
comparing the impact of different ways of moving on mood and beliefs.
asks clients to practice discovering their own gait by noticing the fine details of their movements and body responses while they walk.
imaginatively study how attachment relationships impact their style of walking and possibly make connections
experiment with changing their walk and should be introduced in a way that evokes interest rather than self-consciousness.
integrates orienting to the environment with mindfulness.
Hypoaroused clients especially can benefit from this material because physical movement can often spontaneously bring their arousal into the window of tolerance.
Walking is influenced by the strength and flexibility of the spine and surrounding muscles, which provide an axis around which we literally move through the world (cf. Chapter 17, “Core Alignment: Working with
We form patterns of walking as we imitate how our parents move, so if they walked proudly with heads up and shoulders down and back, with a gentle sway in the hips, we might follow suit,
Our emotional and psychological experience also shapes the way we walk.
Past trauma and dysregulated arousal can also affect the way we walk.
our mood moment to moment. Our gait changes depending on how we feel, the environment, and who we are with.
Your walking style can be thought of as your posture in motion,
The way our feet strike the ground is significant,
Our gaze while walking may be oriented downward, which might communicate the compliant or withdrawn attitude of someone who does not feel empowered.
When we walk, many parts of our body work together to produce our particular style—the arm swing, head carriage, movement in the shoulder girdle, pelvis, and through the joints; how we place our feet, how we push off with the balls of our feet, the resiliency of our spine.
clients to understand and develop adaptive relational boundaries is an essential focus in treatment
Attachment trauma is inherently a relational boundary violation,
Clients come to therapy presenting with relationship difficulties that often reflect either a failure to set relational boundaries, a propensity to set boundaries that are too rigid, or a vacillation between too-loose and too-rigid boundary setting.
clients who have problems saying “no,” maintaining their own opinions or identifying their own priorities and wishes with others, become enmeshed in relationships, or cannot differentiate themselves from others as
Clients who experience alternating approach–avoidance tendencies
Clients who tend to set too rigid boundaries, experience chronic distrust, tense musculature, or tend to be distant and withhold personal information will benefit from this material.
explore the boundary styles
cultures differ in terms of accepted personal boundaries.
Boundaries help us to think before we speak, contain emotions and thoughts, screen out toxic or unwanted input from others, and set protective limits.
having a felt sense of appropriate containment, differentiation, and protection can allow some relaxation of their guardedness.
observe these indicators in their relationships to
Because the therapeutic relationship evokes the boundary styles of both therapist and client, we can use the relationship directly to explore boundary styles.
it is often useful if you describe the actions connected to a sense of boundary in neutral language (“make this gesture” rather than “make a stop sign” or “set a boundary”) and if you demonstrate it first.
Internal conflicts about which type of boundary style is safe or safer can interfere with identifying the client’s overall style or can complicate exploring boundary exercises.
step toward differentiation and eventual integration.
This boundary style is particularly well adapted to a family environment in which members tend to merge with each other, where what is “me” and what is “you” is blurred.
This boundary style tends to be rigid, impenetrable, inflexible, and dense instead of permeable.
With this boundary style, we might swing back and forth from underbounded to overbounded.
grounding and alignment resources
Her therapist’s instruction to practice the opposite physical movement from the collapse
An overbounded style is often the result of a fear of becoming underbounded and vulnerable, and it is important that you do not try to override such a boundary, physically or emotionally.
Learning to strengthen the physically felt sense of self in your body that was not present when the overbounded habit was first learned can be helpful.
By increasing awareness of your own body cues and those of others and practicing new physical and verbal boundary habits, you can transform your relational boundary style into a choice rather than an automatic habit.
Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self Allan N. Schore
