Touch Therapy for CPTSD
What is Transforming the Experienced-Based Brain (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 directly 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
When the skin's sensory receptors detect a positive touch, they send signals to the brain, which then activates the pituitary gland and hypothalamus to start hormones and biochemical reactions:
Releasing Endorphins – chemicals that promote feelings of pleasure and euphoria. These bind to the opioid receptors in the brain (mimicking drugs like morphine) reducing both physical and psychological pain.
Releasing Dopamine: feeling an increased sense of pleasure, reward, and motivation.
Releasing Oxytocin: calms the amygdala (reducing fight/flight/freeze) reduces triggers, makes it easier for us to connect with others, improves our immune system via white blood cells, and (4) reduces stress hormones in the body, lowers heart rate, lowering blood pressure.
Releasing Serotonin: improves mood, reduces anxiety and depression, improves sleep, and promotes feelings of connectedness.
Stimulating the Vagus Nerve: calms the amygdala, lowers blood pressure, creates a sense of peace, improves digestion of serotonin and dopamine, improves mood and decreases anxiety/depression, improves sleep, reduces the perception of pain, improves immune system, reduces heart rate, improving Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and protects against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
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
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"I do a lot of primitive reflex work with my clients and every single one has benefited."
TEB Therapist
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"We've been working a long time, but table sessions were the best sessions we've ever had."
Client
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"I don't ruminate as much, I don't hold grudges, and I feel more confident."
Client
Dr. Candace Pert