Touch Therapy for CPTSD

What is Transforming Touch (TEB)?

Developed by Dr. Stephen Terrell, TEB is an approach to healing a variety of childhood traumas by offering supportive touch to the specific areas of the body most impacted by trauma. TEB creates an opportunity for change by providing presence, regulation, and a relationship to help your nervous system slowly repair.

Touch that is safe and offered within a healing environment also has the potential to strengthen the therapeutic relationship, making non-touch interventions more effective.

Science of Touch

Touch releases oxytocin and stimulates the vagus nerve, resulting in the following effects:

  • Releasing endorphins, bringing relief from physical & psychological pain

  • Calming the amygdala, decreasing fight/flight/freeze in the body

  • Reducing stress hormones (e.g., cortisol) in the body, shifting the HPA axis

  • Reducing depression and anxiety; improving the immune system (Diego & Field, 2009)

  • Creating positive emotions

  • Building trust in the therapy relationship

Deb Dana highlights the power of touch within the context of early childhood development:

  • Touch is the first sense of the body to emerge and is the most developed at birth. The skin goes on to remain the largest human organ.

  • Touch can bring up emotions, calm emotions, and communicate emotions (Gallace & Spence, 2010)

  • Early touch experiences shape adult experiences of touch (Gallace & Spence, 2010).

  • Many people suffer from a lack of interpersonal touch or “touch hunger.” (Field, 2014)

Famed family therapist, Virginia Satir, once remarked, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth”.

CPTSD: Benefits of Touch Therapy

  • Doesn’t require effort or willpower to “do” anything; the client can just receive. (Kids can use an iPad on the table!)

  • It can heal body-based traumas which are often so early that they’re difficult to remember.

  • It is a right-brained psychotherapy, meaning it can access deeper regions of your brain more effectively than talking.

  • Builds trust and connection with the therapist.

  • Helps with a wide range of symptoms: anger and anxiety, depression and dissociation, startle reflex, focus, and attention, and chronic pain.

  • Changes are often seen more quickly due to its ability to work directly with the body.

A Typical Session

We use clothed touch on a table while the client is lying on their back, face up. (TEB is not massage or energy work.)

We’ll begin by determining what you want to see change and address any concerns you might have around touch. Each session always starts with consent.

We’ll discuss which TEB protocol is right for you. A full session is up to 40 minutes of touch. I recommend starting at 5 minutes or less and then working our way up slowly. The standard TEB protocol supports 7 specific areas of the body. We may also do work with primitive reflexes.

Telehealth Work

For clients not ready for any physical touch or are simply doing telehealth therapy, we can use ‘transforming intentional touch’. This allows us to work with attention. For example, instead of supporting the brainstem with my physical hands (a step in the protocol), I would draw our attention to this area. According to Dr. Terrell, “Some believe it is stronger than using physical touch.”

FAQ

Expectations

TEB works with the nervous system in small doses. As powerful as it is, it can take several sessions to build resiliency in the nervous system. I recommend trying TEB multiple times. Healing must be slow.

We also recommend taking it easy the following days after TEB. As the body begins to digest trauma, you may notice an intensifying of psychological (e.g. more easily irritated) or even physical symptoms (e.g., muscle aches, rashes). Unlike symptoms arising from re-traumatization, these symptoms are a sign that the body is healing.

What if I’m not comfortable with touch?

If you’re still interested in TEB, we can move to “Transforming Presence” and work with attention. Alternatively, we can shift to a non-touch modality.

Testimonials

  • "I do a lot of primitive reflex work with my clients and every single one has benefited."

    TEB Therapist

  • "We've been working a long time, but table sessions were the best sessions we've ever had."

    Client

  • "I don't ruminate as much, I don't hold grudges, and I feel more confident."

    Client

Dr. Candace Pert

“Psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely, physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other.”