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Creative Arts and Somatic Therapies
Published in Tricia L. Chandler, Fredrick Dombrowski, Tara G. Matthews, Co-occurring Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders, 2022
Tricia L. Chandler, Roberta Shoemaker-Beal, M. A. Lawless Coker
Somatic Therapies: Somatic means ‘of the body’ as somatic therapies use body/mind approaches that are psychotherapeutic and holistic. Kinesthetic approaches can be accessed through dance-movement therapy, which has been a foundation of somatic approaches.
The Industrial Body
Published in Roger Cooter, John Pickstone, Medicine in the Twentieth Century, 2020
Among the methods of “management by stress” may be included various techniques of ‘stress management,’ which have been widely adopted within industry under the guise of welfare services for employees. Such techniques commonly have a strong somatic component, ranging from meditation and breathing exercises, through massage to various forms of physical recreation. Significantly, the beneficial effects of such practices are commonly supposed to be mediated by a strengthening of the immune system. Similar ideas about bodily adaptability are also applied in a wide range of managerial training programs, most notably in the various forms of ‘experiential learning’ that are increasingly being used to promote teamwork and flexible working practices. Such programs start from the supposition that stress is an important and inevitable component of learning and adaptation. Consequently, workers are placed in circumstances of considerable stress and anxiety, for instance on so-called ‘ontward bound’ courses, in order to enhance their ability to learn to work together and rely upon one another. Again, it is commonly argued that the experience of stress serves to tone up the immune system, and thereby to stimulate the somatic as much as the mental and social effects of training.
Somatization and Posttraumatic Stress in Gulf War Illness
Published in Peter Manu, The Psychopathology of Functional Somatic Syndromes, 2020
The main data collection instrument was the Structured Clinical Interview (Spitzer et al., 1990), designed to identify current and lifetime psychiatric diagnoses. The diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder was made with a clinical rating scale (Blake et al., 1995). The presence of 49 somatic symptoms during the most recent 30-day period was assessed with a standardized questionnaire. Twenty-four of these 49 symptoms were used to calculate a separate score indicating distress into one of nine different body systems. Finally, combat exposure was assessed with a standardized instrument that included traditional military experiences, such as being surrounded by the enemy, as well as items specific for the Persian Gulf conflict, such as being on alert for attacks with biological weaponry.
Sexuality, sex therapy & somatics. In bed with the most likely bedfellows. So why aren’t they?
Published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2023
Conceptually speaking, somatics is any therapeutic modality where the pathway to healing draws on body-based intelligence (in contrast with cognitive/emotional) and ‘embodiment’ as the guiding principle. While the wisdom that informs somatics is ancient, the ‘somatic movement’ as it’s currently conceptualized, is approximately 50 years old (Maupin, 1998). The key concept of embodiment is inextricably linked to all somatic practices, whether movement, touch, relational/systemic or breath-based, and a core principle of the work in every context it exists. Embodiment can be described as ‘every aspect of experience maintains some link with the sense of the lived body’ (Maupin, 1998). In this, the ‘goal’ or intention behind therapeutic somatic interventions, is to offer the client a framework to move closer to a permanent state of embodiment, or at least ‘embodiment-on-demand’. The intention being set in a more robust experience of being alive, including embodied ways of ‘knowing’ beyond just the conceptual and intellectual, such as a ‘felt sense’ (Gendlin, 1978). Somatic practices create opportunities to practice therapeutic engagement, even when doing so may be experienced as mentally or emotionally uncomfortable; like used in social justice communities when unpacking privilege, power (Gillet, 2016) and in erotic communities, pleasure.
Brief Report: Child Sexual Abuse and Somatic Symptoms in Older Adulthood for Men
Published in Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 2022
Scott D. Easton, Jooyoung Kong, Samantha M. McKetchnie
Additionally, our analyses indicate that there is an inverse relationship between health status and SSS; higher scores on self-rated health status were linked to lower levels of somatic symptoms. This result is consistent with previous work that connected higher SSS with higher rates of physical illness (Lee et al., 2009; Selkirk et al., 2008). Also, we found that SSS generally decreases with age. This finding is important, as the empirical literature on somatic disorder trends across the life course is mixed. A systematic review found that although somatic symptom disorders and medically unexplained conditions are prevalent in older adulthood, the levels decrease after age 65 (Hilderink et al., 2013). Conversely, more recent, large-scale studies in China and Germany found high levels of somatic problems in older adulthood (Beutel et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2022). More research is needed on aging and population trends for somatic disorders.
Mental health indices may fully mediate the relationship between morningness–eveningness and disease control among adult asthma patients
Published in Journal of Asthma, 2022
Łukasz Mokros, Andrzej Witusik, Dorota Szydłowska, Konrad S. Jankowski, Piotr Kuna, Tadeusz Pietras
Low morning affect predicted poor disease symptom control among patients with asthma. The effect was fully mediated by non-psychotic mental health indices, i.e. somatic symptoms, social dysfunction, anxiety and insomnia, and depressive symptoms. The strongest effect was observed for complaints of general somatic symptoms.Evening-time preference was associated with a rise in asthma control and mediated by somatic symptoms and anxiety/insomnia when controlled for morning affect.The current study underlines the significance of assessment of both individual morningness–eveningness preference and mental health in the management of asthma symptoms.