What is Clinical Somatic Education?

‘Clinical Somatic Education’ with Evolve Life Somatics teaches you how to reconnect with yourself and learn simple relaxing techniques that allow you to take back control of chronically tense muscles that maybe contributing to your pain and limiting your movement options. 

In the same way as learning to play a sport or musical instrument, when we repeat the same movement habits our body and brain also learn these patterns which can mean that, without realising, we hold patterns of tension or always move/sit/stand in the same way.  Although these movements in themselves are not a problem if they become a habit and limit other movement options it can lead to tension, restriction and become a contributory factor in pain. 

Clinical Somatic Education is taught in 1:1 sessions with ‘hands on’ work with the practitioner, focusing on the clients patterns of restricted movement. By helping the client to reconnect and sense themselves they can then learn how to take back conscious control of their muscles, releasing habitually contracted muscles, creating more freedom of movement and helping to eliminate associated pain. 

Can Clinical Somatics help me?

Clinical Somatic Education goes to the root of most chronic muscular pain: the brain. The condition of chronically tight muscles can occur due to accidents, injuries, surgeries, and on-going physical and emotional stress on the body. These muscles have learned to remain unconsciously habitually contracted due to messages from your brain. It is the brain that controls the muscles, and therefore it must also be involved in the process of teaching them how to relax, release and learn to move easily and efficiently again. 

Chronic muscular tension can lead to a wide range of different problems. Clinical Somatics can help with a wide range of conditions including:

• Joint and muscle pain

• Neck, shoulder and back pain

• Sciatica

• Hip, knee and foot pain

• Repetitive use injuries

• Headaches

• Persistent pain from accidents &  traumas

• Temperomandibular Joint Dysfunction

• Physical stress and tension.

• Restricted movement & stiffness.

Benefits of Clinical Somatic  Education include: 

• Long-term pain relief from many common muscle pain conditions.

• Lifelong skills that teach you how to regain voluntary control of habitually tight muscles

• Greater physical independence and mastery of your movement.

• Increased flexibility, energy, coordination, balance and proprioception.

• A safe, easy and common sense alternative to drugs and surgeries

What makes Clinical Somatic different to other ‘treatments’ and forms of pain relief?

Clinical Somatics is not a ‘treatment’, it is an education process in which the client is taught how to alleviate chronic muscle pain for themselves, unlike other forms of treatment in which the client receives passive therapy which is ‘done to them’ rather than them being involved in the process.

Many other forms of treatment including manual therapy, massage, acupuncture or even medication focus often on one specific area of pain and the symptoms. Clinical Somatic Education looks at working with the client holistically, understanding that pain is multifaceted, often caused by various aspects of someones physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Although Clinical Somatics Education works primarily with the physical aspect addressing the patterns of muscular dysfunction within someone’s body, addressing emotional and social circumstances is also important as these can greatly affect someone’s physical wellbeing.

Although Clinical Somatic Education involves hands-on pandiculations with the client, this is to help provide greater guidance, feedback, and awareness to allow the client a deeper experience rather than being passive therapy.

Clinical Somatic Education not only teaches you Somatic Movements (pandiculations) to retrain your brain, but also teaches you to be aware of how physical and emotional stress affects your body, and how your body develops postural adaptations and habits. Clinical Essential Somatics refers to theses adaptive postures as full body stress reflex patterns that are reflective of typical responses to stress. These reflex patterns are known as Green Light Reflex (Landau), Red Light Reflex (Startles), and Trauma Reflex (Galant).

Key points:

• Clinical Somatics is ‘Education’ not treatment, and is active not passive.

• It looks at the whole person holistically and addresses whole body movement patterns, know as ‘Stress Reflexes’.

• It helps people to alleviate muscular pain caused by habituated muscular tension, referred to as ‘Sensory Motor Anmesia’ (SMA)

• It uses ‘pandiculation’ as a method to re-educate the brain, and to restore muscle function, awareness and control.