Ana Große Halbuer

Psychosomatic Therapy

All of our experiences, feelings and life circumstances move through us and through our bodies. And even when we seem not to notice: our human capacity for processing and integration is not infinite. It needs a restoring balance between stimulation and rest in order to remain flexible and healthy.

Psychosomatics is concerned with the interaction between body and mind where our unconscious strategies and the body’s autonomous regulatory capacities move hand in hand within the context of our personal lives.

When the finely tuned interplay between psyche and soma falls out of balance, we can tolerate this for only a short time. When stress and imbalance become chronic or when traumatic experiences are added the body often becomes a translator, making the invisible visible. In my work, I understand the psychosomatic perspective as an integrative approach to holistic health, one that holds mental and physical wellbeing as equally important.

SOMA – OUR BODY

Our body finds its expression in the landscape of all our feelings, sensations and experiences. We can even say that everything we have ever lived through, thought, felt, internalised and experienced we carry in our bodies today. Often we only truly feel ourselves physically when we reach the emotional or physical edges and limits of our body. And yet we forget: our body has always been there, throughout our entire lives and it is the most important place and harbour for our safety, healing and transformation.

When we consider how little most of us have learned to read and nourish our body’s basic needs to understand our feelings and strong emotions with empathy and to accompany them well it becomes clear how important and timely it is to bring the body into our biographical work and into our understanding of illness.

When we experience our body in reciprocal dialogue with our mind, we can create a living balance that gives us trust and safety in life.

Psychosomatic illness often arises when the mutually regulating interplay between body and psyche falls out of balance. We know today that sustained overwhelm, stress, trauma, anxiety and depression can give rise to countless and very individual symptoms  including sleep disturbances, hypervigilance, panic attacks, irritability and emotional dysregulation. Changes in the immune system, hormonal imbalances, migraines, neuralgias, digestive shifts and non-specific pain can also emerge under stress or following psychological strain. We can understand these symptoms as the body’s way of making something visible and their full integration and resolution requires that the physical dimension is also addressed and relieved.

My therapeutic approach

Over the past two decades, advances in modern neuroscience and psychoneuroendocrinology have significantly deepened our understanding of the relationship between psychological stress and physical symptoms. As this knowledge has grown, so too have our therapeutic possibilities and approaches.

Drawing on my specialisation, I have been complementing the foundations of my psychosomatic knowledge for more than a decade with a particular focus on psychological traumatisation and its physical consequences.

For many people, this means that certain experiences were once so overwhelming that they could not be sufficiently processed and integrated. In somatisation, the body often acts as an important and relieving valve or as an indicator, bringing an inner imbalance into visibility. This does not mean, of course, that all physical symptoms can or should be traced back to psychological stress or traumatic experience. And yet we must not underestimate or dismiss the individual intelligence of the human body in its reciprocal relationship with our psyche.

Processing and integration, in our humanity, has several dimensions. We process psychologically and cognitively and also emotionally and physically.

A particular focus of my work lies in the connection between neuroscientific and immunological knowledge, and the effects of chronic stress and post-traumatic strain on hormonal regulatory cycles and the immune system. In this context, I have developed a further specialisation in the therapeutic accompaniment of female trauma and degenerative, chronic conditions within the field of naturopathic women’s health.

Further information on this topic can be found under KNOWLEDGE and on my BLOG.