Somatosensorische Therapien
Embodiment Techniques
Embodiment describes the phenomenon of how our body awareness and perception influence our psychological processes. In therapeutic contexts, embodiment is used to strengthen the connection between body and mind and thus promote psychological well-being. Techniques such as mindfulness-based body therapy or movement therapies are key applications. They help patients to become aware of their physical states and use these states to positively influence emotional and cognitive processes. This can be particularly effective in the treatment of trauma, anxiety disorders and depression by enabling patients to access blocked or suppressed emotions through physical sensations.
Embodiment techniques in a therapeutic context are based on the assumption that the body is not just a passive recipient of emotions and thoughts, but can be actively involved in shaping them. At the Insula Institute, we therefore also see embodiment as a way of influencing psychological processes through targeted stimulation of the body. The body is used consciously to influence and reshape emotional and cognitive patterns.
A key tool in this work are the so-called bifocal-multisensory interventions . These therapeutic techniques combine psychotherapeutic approaches with body therapy methods and have become popular worldwide over the last three decades. Their core principle is to simultaneously confront patients with an emotionally stressful issue and to physically stimulate them or have them stimulate themselves. This can be done through visual, acoustic or tactile stimuli. By dividing the patient's attention between an unpleasant physical sensation and an external stimulus, a bifocal and multisensory experience is created.
The therapeutic value of these interventions lies in their ability to promote the processing of emotional experiences by engaging multiple sensory channels simultaneously. This can help to resolve entrenched emotional reactions and facilitate the integration of traumatic memories. By combining mental and physical elements, bifocal multisensory techniques offer an innovative and holistic approach to therapy that overcomes the boundaries between body and mind and aims at deeper healing.
EMDR
The EMDR technique, for example, uses bilateral eye movements while a traumatic memory is kept in awareness. These mostly visual memories are often perceived by patients as very stressful and are often accompanied by strong emotions and physical sensations. Both the memories and the emotional and physical symptoms often lose intensity in EMDR therapy. In a veterans study, for example, after 10 days of intensive EMDR therapy, none of the participants met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (Hurley et al. 2018).
Tapping techniques (PEP, EFT, TFT, EDxTM)
In tapping techniques, acupuncture points are tapped with the finger during fear or trauma confrontation. This means that patients activate stressful topics in therapy and at the same time carry out the calming tapping acupressure until they can think about the previously stressful topic with less or even no stress at all. This means that phobias, for example, can be treated very quickly. In studies, a single session often led to a significant improvement in symptoms (Wells et al. 2013). In studies with veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a reduction in psychological symptoms and associated pain symptoms and sleep disorders was achieved in relatively few sessions (Church et al. 2013, Church 2014).
Sinosomatics
The Sinosomatics procedure combines elements of traditional Chinese medicine with elements of hypnotherapy. It works intensively with the therapeutic sensations of the patient. Unpleasant images and voices are kept in awareness, while, depending on the content, acupuncture points on the head and body are stimulated using a tuning fork, dermaroller or acupuncture until the image or voice changes. Sinosomatics is currently used primarily for pain syndromes such as endometriosis, infertility, but also for mental illnesses such as depression (Schweizer-Arau et al. 2007). For the painful endometriosis, which is often difficult to treat, astonishing pain reductions of up to 100% were observed in a randomized controlled study (Meissner et al. 2016).
Although various forms of sensorimotor stimulation are used in different bifocal interventions, the therapy outcomes are very similar: psychological symptoms that are accompanied by high physical arousal seem to respond particularly well to bifocal techniques. Associated symptoms such as pain and sometimes even somatic illnesses often change in parallel. Combining psychotherapeutic and physical therapy methods seems to be more effective for some conditions than using either verbal or physical interventions alone. For example, in the treatment of panic disorder, a tapping technique led to a similar reduction in anxiety in just 5 hours as cognitive behavioral therapy did in 12 sessions (Irgens et al. 2017). Furthermore, a combination of psychotherapy and tapping acupressure proved to be significantly more effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder than acupuncture alone (Sebastian et al. 2017; Grant et al. 2018).
Our research at the Insula Institute aims to better understand the mechanisms of action behind bifocal-multisensory interventions and other embodiment techniques. To gain more insight into the internal processes during such interventions, our colleague Dr. Antonia Pfeiffer conducted qualitative interviews between Winter 2021 and Summer 2022, exploring the subjective experiences of 25 patients who underwent bifocal-multisensory techniques as part of the sinosomatics therapy. Additionally, a review paper is currently being prepared, which will provide the psychotherapeutic community with an overview of existing studies on the mechanisms of bifocal stimulation techniques.
Babamahmoodi, A., Z. Arefnasab, A. A. Noorbala et al. "Emotional freedom technique (EFT) effects on psychoimmunological factors of chemically pulmonary injured veterans" Iranian Journal of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology vol .14 , no.1, pp. 37-47, 2015.
Church, D., C. Hawk and A. Brooks "Psychological trauma symptom improvement in veterans using
freedom techniques. A randomized controlled trial" in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, vol. 201, no. 2, pp. 153-160, 2013.
Church, D. "Reductions in pain, depression, and anxiety symptoms after PTSD remediation in veterans" in Explore, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 162-169, 2014.
Grant, S., Colaiaco, B., Motala, A. et al. "Acupuncture for the treatment of adults with posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis" in Journal of Trauma & Dissociation : The Official Journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD), vol.19, no.1, pp. 39-58, 2018.
Hurley E. C. "Effective Treatment of Veterans With PTSD: Comparison Between Intensive Daily and Weekly EMDR Approaches" in Frontiers in psychology, vol 9, pp. 1458, 2018.
Irgens, A. C., A. Hoffart and T. E. Nysaeter "Thought field therapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy and wait-list for agoraphobia. A randomized, controlled study with a 12-month follow-up" in Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 8, pp. 1027, 2017.
Meissner, K., Schweizer-Arau, A., Limmer, A., Preibisch, C., Popovici, R.M., Lange, I., de Oriol, B. and Beissner, F., 2016. Psychotherapy with somatosensory stimulation for endometriosis-associated pain: a randomized controlled trial. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 128(5), pp.1134-1142.
Schweizer-Arau A, Böhling B and Kron M. "Auswirkung einer systemischen Autoregulationstherapie (SART) auf die Schwangerschaftsraten bei einer anschließenden IVF/ICSI-Behandlung" in Geburtshilfe und Frauenheilkunde, vol. 67, pp. 1–6, 2007.
Sebastian B and Nelms J. "The Effectiveness of Emotional Freedom Techniques in the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analysis" in Explore, pp.16-25, 2017.
Wells, S., K. Polglase and H. B. Andrews "Evaluation of a meridian-based intervention, emotional freedom techniques (EFT), for reducing specific phobias of small animals" in Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 59, no. 9, pp. 943-966, 2003.