
What is Transforming Touch?
Transforming the Experience-Based Brain® (TEB) is a regulation-based model utilizing touch, either in person (Transforming Touch®) or remotely over Zoom (Transforming Intentional Touch®).
This modality was developed by Dr. Stephen Terrell, who found that approaches such as talk therapy and certain types of somatic work aren’t very effective in healing developmental trauma. In this model, we understand that chronic stress, fear, and trauma affect our ability to grow, learn, explore, and relate. And as we heal and begin to have more regulation on board, we develop more capacity for all aspects of life.
Transforming Touch® Therapy: Hands-On Healing for
Developmental and Attachment Trauma
Transforming Touch® is an attachment-focused, neurophysiological modality utilizing hands-on healing to gently intervene with the client’s nervous system. Most developmental trauma happens very early in life before verbal communication has developed. Trauma is stored in the part of our nervous system that is not cognitive. In other words, we can’t think our way through it. Touch is our first language and is often the missing piece needed for healing. Transforming Touch therapy holds the container for safety to develop both in the mind and in the body which allows for subtle awareness of inner experiences, repairing attachment and strengthening capacity for self-regulation.
Who Benefits from Transforming Touch® Therapy?
Support for Trauma, Anxiety, and Chronic Stress
Transforming Touch® May Help If You’re Experiencing:
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Anxiety or Depression
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Stress
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Chronic physical conditions
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Pre/post-natal trauma
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Abuse or neglect
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Fears or Panic attacks
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Life transitions
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Aches and pains in the body
What happens in a Transforming Touch session?
Transforming Touch is done with full verbal and written consent, on a table while fully clothed. There is dialogue about exactly what therapeutic touch interventions will be used. Most sessions involve gentle therapeutic touch at the brain stem, adrenal glands, shoulder-opposite hip, and ankles. Sometimes the therapist and client may decide to use intentional touch while the client remains seated. In these cases, both the client and the therapist bring intentional awareness to an area of the body that assists in nervous system regulation.
How does it heal the nervous system?
Transforming Touch is provided by a trained professional who understands and regulates their own nervous system, while providing support, empathy, and attunement to the client. Through this process clients develop feelings of safety, and the capacity to have a felt sense of their bodies, while feeling the presence of a caring therapist. It provides the opportunity to repair past relationship ruptures, down regulate their nervous system and slowly experience themselves in the world in a new embodied way.
For more information about Therapeutic Touch visit austinattach.com