Chronic Pain & Trauma – Janina Fisher

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Many of our clients with harsh or traumatic childhood histories suffer physical pain and chronic health conditions that defy medical diagnosis and conventional treatments. While hoping to address their current issues or post-traumatic stress, the preoccupation with their bodies and physical suffering often gets in the way of focusing on the therapy. Equally, attempts to address the psychosomatic issues are apt to be misinterpreted by clients as an invalidating “It’s all in your head.” While therapists often suspect that there is a connection between the trauma and medical issues, psychotherapy models do not offer one clear-cut treatment method.

In this recording, we will approach chronic physical symptoms in trauma clients as a manifestation of unprocessed traumatic memories held in the body. Inspired by the work of Robert Scaer, this approach draws on interventions from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and clinical hypnosis to help clients locate the origins of their pain in the events of their past. You will learn how to help clients “hear” the communication conveyed by their symptoms, connect with the child self holding the bodily manifestation of memory, and begin to resolve the trauma-related fear and pain driving the chronic physical issues.

• Identify chronic medical issues and pain as expressions of traumatic memory
• Educate clients about the relationship between trauma and physical symptoms or pain
• Apply Sensorimotor Psychotherapy techniques to address the pain or condition as body memory
• Describe interventions that facilitate re-processing the memories and alleviate the physical distress

• Understanding the relationship between trauma and chronic pain or illness
• Challenges for clients in accepting medical issues as unresolved memory
• Interventions for addressing the interaction between chronic pain and traumatic experience