Whether experienced in adulthood or childhood, sexual violations can have a significant and lasting impact. Some of the impacts of sexual trauma and boundary violations can include secrecy and shame, difficulty with intimacy, and a sense of disconnection from the body.
Healing from sexual trauma can include gradually developing a sense of safety in your own body and your environment, learning to feel sensations again without the sense of threat, and rebuilding your own sense of boundaries.
When our boundaries are breached, our sense of safety in the world can be altered. Boundary violations are sometimes overt, such as a sexual trauma or physical assault, and sometimes they are more subtle, such as a breach of emotional boundaries, an intrusive medical procedure or pap test, or having something unexpectedly and rapidly enter our space, such as in a motor vehicle accident.
Somatic Experiencing® can support you in re-establishing your own boundaries and sense of self in the world.
Sometimes medical trauma can feel like a violation of our boundaries. Surgery and other invasive procedures can leave a sense of disconnect in the nervous system, even if everything went according to plan. The nervous system can get stuck in a state of freeze, which can interfere with future medical needs or other vulnerable states such as intimacy.
We can support your nervous system to access a sense of safety and move through incomplete survival responses that were unable to occur during the circumstances of your medical situation.
Birth experiences and the early postpartum weeks can be beautiful but also incredibly challenging.
Some examples of challenges after giving birth include pain and recovery, mood changes, breastfeeding and bottle feeding challenges, identity changes, lack of support, trauma from medical interventions, grief about changes to the birth plan, or plain old exhaustion.
We can work with you to process and move through a traumatic pregnancy, birth, or postpartum experience, or to explore tools and strategies to help you through this significant transition.
Commonly reported sexual health challenges in women include pain, lack of desire, lack of pleasure, sex as a chore or expectation, fear of sex, medical, challenging family or religious expectations about sex, or a lack of education about sex. Sometimes sex issues stem from a clearly identifiable incident such as sexual trauma or gynecological injury, and other times the cause is less clear.
This is a safe place to talk about sexual health, and work collaboratively to heal, overcome barriers, and move towards your sexual health goals.
There are many kinds of pelvic pain, such as dyspareunia, vaginismus, endometriosis, and interstitial cystitis. Pelvic pain can get in the way of everyday functions, such as sex, bladder and bowel function, parenting, and work.
Increasing overall body awareness, improving the connection between the body and the mind, and exploring safety and pleasure can assist with managing pain and increasing function.
Through small shifts in how we respond to pain, we can alter the experience and impact of pain.
Somatic Experiencing® helps build capacity in the nervous system to improve presence and coping in day to day life. Somatic trauma work many include working on specific challenging events, and it may include a general focus on increasing capacity for both the good and difficult feelings. This work is not just about the trauma, it is also about reconnecting with life and joy, and coming back to who you are at the heart.
