Water-Based Methods of Healing

Healing Birth and Prenatal Shock
Using Water and Movement-Based Methods

Annie Brook, MA LPC

© 2001 Annie Brook. All rights reserved.

This paper is written from a perspective of clinical treatment addressing prenatal and birth shock, water-based treatment methods, and issues of early attachment. This article is written with a deep sense of gratitude for all the teachers and the teachings in awareness and consciousness, and with the intent to provide insight to practical application in clinical and healing work.

Shock and trauma can occur as soon as there is consciousness, which means it can occur during time in utero and at birth (pre and peri-natally). It can occur before the cognitive brain is recording memory; however memory can exist in the awareness and presence of the cells and tissues and it is from here that pre and perinatal experiences can be reactivated. Shock can affect both the sympathetic and parasympathetic aspects of the nervous system. Activated shock undermines the relational stability and interactive engagement of people who might usually have a balanced and healthy expression. A person in activated shock can appear dissociated, ungrounded, collapsed (as in parasympathetic expression) or vigilant, testy, confrontational and defended (as in sympathetic expression). In addition a person can freeze and withdraw.

History of Water-Based Prenatal Method

Water based methods are being used as an effective treatment method to sequence shock out of the body. Pioneering work developed by David Sawyer has brought together the fields of movement and psychotherapy. Methods used include: Watsuu (water massage), the work of Dr. William Emerson (Pioneer in Pre and Perinatal treatment), aspects of IBP (Integrated Body Psychotherapy), and BMC (BodyMind Centering) and BMP (BodyMind Psychotherapy). David invited me to join him in this work because of my certification in both BMC and BMP. BMC, the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, is an exquisite sensation, perception, and movement awareness training. It brings clarity to the body and provides empowering tools for repatterning shock responses. BMP, developed by Susan Aposhyan, a certified BMC teacher, addresses the psychological/emotional integration of sensations. BMP supports embodiment in behavior and relating.

The thread that weaves together all of the masterful teachings previously mentioned, and creates the Prenatal Journey, is the thread of sustained compassion and awareness. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen would never claim to teach compassion; yet her teachings exemplify awareness and compassion at its deepest level. William Emerson expresses extreme compassion for an infant's birth and prenatal experience. Both David Sawyer and Susan Aposhyan were students of Trogyam Rinpoche, a Lama and teacher of the Shambhala teachings of Wisdom and Compassion. Effective prenatal work demands wisdom, empathy, compassion, and the application of skillful means.

These methods mentioned provide the foundation for the Prenatal Journey. The Prenatal Journey is a training in pre and peri natal shock and healing for advanced health care practitioners that occurs on land and in the water. Trainees process their own shock and learn how to facilitate water sessions focused on healing.

Understanding Shock and its Influence on Identity and Development

Personal sessions as a client, professional training, clinical practice, and Naropa University teaching have honed my clinical skills and helped me understand how shock and trauma differ. I will share this understanding and include experiences from clinical work with children and their mothers using water-based methods.

In an earlier paper, "The Physiology of Shock and Trauma", I addressed how shock works in the body and offered somatic exercises that demonstrate these principles. In that paper I spoke about the difference between shock and trauma. It is important to understand this both cognitively and experientially. This paper furthers the understanding of shock by including the impact of pre and perinatal experience and early attachment issues when working with both children and adults.

In trauma a singular incident startles the nervous system and then gets buried in the psyche and body. A therapist can guide a client toward the trauma and uncover it layer by layer with somatic awareness and integration. A client can have other resource channels still available while working with trauma.

Shock however, is not singular but universal. It can occur through a singular event that is too much for the nervous system to process or through repeated unmanageable stimulus delivered consistently over time. Activated shock floods the body with chemical messengers. It is immediate and produces whole body overwhelm. Shock influences tissue tone. Activated sympathetic shock, as expressed in hyper-vigilance and defensiveness, can create a hypertoned response to life. Activated parasympathetic shock, expressed as lethargy, ungroundedness, and depression, occurs from the tendency to go hypo-tone under stress. It can produce keen spiritual insights or adeptness in intuition and clairvoyance. However, these insights occur while in a dissociated state. Developed skills of intuition are better integrated when the shock has been cleared from the system. Unlike trauma, when shock emerges a person is literally unable to resource and regroup in an effective manner. Irrational social behavior can occur at these times.

During pre natal experience, shock is layered in through the cells and can be activated or added to by a birth that has sudden or numerous medical interventions. This shock will influence the ability of the mother and the baby to bond. One task of an infant is to develop internal self-regulation of emotional and energetic states. This can be impaired if shock is still hovering in the infants' system. The baby cannot yield in the body enough to release the shock and connect with its mother. Parents may still be in shock if they were under-supported or overwhelmed by medical interventions during the birth. They cannot yield enough in the body to connect with their infant.

If the baby or the mother has not negotiated shock that occurred prenatally or at birth, their ability to bond is jeopardized. Untrained parents may not empathize with or understand their baby's lethargy, hyper vigilance, or dissociation due to shock (or influence of anesthesia). A mother may withdraw or blame herself in response to her baby's distress, and become invasive, depressed, solicitous, or non-attuned. A baby will experience its mother's distress but have no cognition as to why this occurs. An infant will often internalize the blame for the lack of quality care, thinking something is deeply wrong with them, which manifests later in adults and children as a deep sense of insecurity of identity. Unresolved shock produces a mismatch of expression and energetic exchange between a mother/father and child that become a base line for their interaction. Healthy reciprocal interaction is damaged and can set the template for all relationships. This can even manifest later in adults in issues relating to sexuality and intimacy.

Unresolved shock shows up in infants and adult bodies. These include low tone tendencies, such as dissociation due to ingestion of anesthesia (as in a caesarian birth), or hypertonic tendencies related to ingestion of nicotine from a smoking mother, adrenaline from a fearful mother who may have experienced previous miscarriages or been battered, or administered chemicals such as tributaline (a muscle contraction inhibitor used to prevent premature labor). I see tributalin often related to ADDHD children who cannot relax. There seems to be a corollary between tributaline and hyper arousal in the nervous system; mothers describe the drug as relaxing their muscles while jarring their nerves and children who have experienced this are often tactile defensive children.

Chemicals that enter the baby's umbilicus become part of the matrix of the baby's cellular experience. Because the cortex is not so developed, a baby cannot differentiate so fully what is their or their mother's experience. The fluids of the in uterine experience become the building blocks of a prenates' sense of self. If a mother were anxious, suffered loss of family members and was grieving, or had other highly impactful stressors, the prenate will feel this. Whether produced through ingested chemicals, or the emotional chemicals released by the mother's thought forms, the baby is influenced. If a mother is not delighted about her pregnancy, a prenate can feel not wanted, if she is afraid, a baby will be flooded with adrenaline. It is important to understand these influences without blaming parents or medical institutions. This type of listening without judgment is essential training for parents when working with their child's shock patterns. In the section on treatment, I share tools to help with this.

In uterine and birth experiences express as themes in adult psychology and produce various behaviors. They can appear as a low self-esteem in persons who seem very accomplished (identity being influenced prenatally by not being wanted at an time in utero when the heart was forming). They may appear as a pervasive yet nameless anxiety and hyper-vigilance in persons (influenced by emotional chemicals from mothers who considered abortions, were beaten, or afraid their baby would die). An adult can go to sleep under stress and lose motivation during the opportunity for a promotion (recapitulation of the effects of anesthesia at birth response). They can struggle externally by engaging in contradiction and often set up difficulties with authorities. They may also struggle internally by never knowing what choices are right for them (both are an expression of forceps which would have deprived them of their own authority to be born, and created a lack of inner trust if they were pulled out in the opposite spiral of their original birth spiral).

Treatment of Shock

Excerpts from my journal, describing the effects of shock and impact of treatment.

It is amazing how the water can soften shock in the body. Little by little the fluids and tissue ripple out. Chronic deep holding in the cells begins to soften and vibrate. People yield a bit their opposition and start to find first a trust in their own experience, and then the possibility to trust in relating with others. It is a complex dance. Even the most "normal" births in these modern western times are often a template for shock. I was born 6 weeks early and put in a glass box for 17 days without touch. Through my life I have struggled with finding home, with developing a long-term relationship that did not end in my betrayal. I am just now finding the actual feelings of terror in my tissue at being that alone after such a big experience as birth. I have felt now the despair and the smart solution I made at the time to minimize all needs. Now as I can witness and feel again, I also repattern. I face connection rather than isolation. I face attachment, rather than minimizing my needs.

As a clinician, it is worthwhile to know about shock and how to treat it. This takes study, experiential training, and individual session as a client. I advise caution when learning about shock. Do not centralize shock nor pathologize your clients. Awareness of shock should not be exaggerated. I have often seen early students or young practitioners in the field orient too much toward trauma and disease rather than health. Their focus activates shock patterns and this creates concern and escalation in their clients. Treatment of shock is about layering in support in the body and psychological system. Shock treatment can be an early intervention resource that resolves core issues easily and compassionately. It may be used skillfully with adult clients to resolve long-standing patterns that interrupt success and intimacy. A shocked infant is not permanently damaged. Remind parents that a loving relationship following a difficult birth can do much to release shock patterns.

The resolution of shock produces aliveness in the body tissue and results in vitality. It helps people integrate their experience cognitively and develop self-compassion. Release of shock combined with repatterning of movement brings more clarity in expression, a greater ability to be present and embodied, and more ease during social interaction. When a pre or perinatal issue gets resolved, people are less likely to keep re-creating ineffective and unpleasant circumstances in adult life. People tend to be more proactive, interactive, and resourceful. It appears that treatment produces results in a qualitative fashion that are sustainable.
The language of movement and sensation is a primary resource for treatment because shock occurs on a preverbal level. In working with shock, it is important to know how to work with and through the body. Knowledge of BodyMind Centering (BMC) and BodyMind Psychotherapy (BMP) provides supportive tools before and when shock gets reactivated. Essential tools of skillful means are empathy skills, pacing skills, and compassion.

Cognitive and experiential understanding of the difference in methods of treatment between shock and trauma is also essential.

The treatment of shock requires a practitioner's empathy and compassion as an antidote to a client's subcortical sense of overwhelm. Working with shock has an entirely different pacing than working with trauma. The healing of shock cannot be rushed. A client is learning to manage their internal sensations and return to physiological homeostasis. This is happening on a sensation level, much more than an intellectual level. As the sensations are integrated and empathy extended, a client can regain balance and presence. They can then integrate cognitively their experience and make sense of the overwhelm that just occurred in their system.

Shock works as a field theory, and has field level influence. A clients' shock can quickly activate an unskilled therapists shock. In group work, one person can activate shock in many other participants. It is challenging for practitioners and facilitators to stay present when a shock field is activated. For these reasons. shock is often avoided or not encouraged to emerge during clinical treatment. However, there are supportive means available to clinicians. The ability cultivated through BMC for cellular presence allows a practitioner to stay present during client or group overwhelm. Use of BMP skills guides a practitioner to use her body as a resource and container for support when shock surfaces during clinical treatment.

The use of the body systems and integration of developmental patterns can encourage a client to pay attention to sensation and to regain balance and awareness on a cellular and body level. In relationship, the IBP "love pie" model of invasion and abandonment speaks of the healthy need for contact and space, the use of containment, and resourcing the adult self with clear boundaries. This model is extremely helpful to a client's cognitive integration and understanding. Compassion and embodied presence, the foundation of BMC and BMP, combined with the sequencing of emotions allows charge in the body to self-regulate. Dr. Emerson's work on understanding the impact of prenatal experiences produces empathy for these themes, and is instrumental support for a practitioner. Practitioners must witness with compassion their clients' pre and perinatal experience and have an understanding of how this works in the body in order to heal shock. As therapists provide witness, help contain energy, and maintain a respectful boundary of a shock field, a client can return to their body through sensation and begin to sequence shock out of their system.

See Birthing the Self, by David Sawyer, and the book and video set, From Conception to Crawling, by Annie Brook (available here).