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SOMATIC EMPATHY: FEEL I N G W H AT OUR CLIENTS FEEL Cindy Engel explains why some holistic therapists experience a somatic response, feeling what their clients are feeling…
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HE first time it happened, I thought I was having a panic attack. As I placed my hand on my client’s abdomen, my heart raced and my chest tightened, constricting my breathing. What was wrong with me? I pulled my hand away, looked out of the window, and my heart rate calmed down. As I turned to focus on my client again, my heart rate raced again. Over the years, as my experience grew, my somatic responses to clients became more sophisticated and incredibly useful, as this next example illustrates. My client had recently lost his wife after a protracted illness. He couldn’t sleep and acknowledged that he was probably depressed. He found receiving bodywork from me helped him feel less scared. During his third and final session, I felt a very unpleasant sticky feeling in my own body. I had not felt this before making physical contact with him. While working on him, I felt unwell as if I had an infection or was on unpleasant medication; the words ‘infection?’ and ‘medication?’ rolled around my mind. The unpleasant sticky sensation was so strong that I asked him, at the end of the session, whether he was on any medication or was aware of having any infection anywhere. He said he felt fine, physically.
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HOLISTIC THERAPIST 2021
holistictherapistmagazine.com
