IBMT (dip) Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy

IBMT (cert) Developmental Somatic Psychology

ISMETA Registered Somatic Educator and Therapist

Body in harmony (cert) Fascial Unwinding and Energy Awareness

Reflexology Academy (dip) Clinical Reflexology

IYT (dip) yoga teacher 2003

Ehlers Danlos Society approved Movement Therapist for EDS, HSD and hypermobility populations

 

 

My training in Somatic Movement Therapy began with Linda Hartley and IBMT faculty in 2015.

I continue to practice regularly with Linda Hartley, and I assist on the three-year IBMT diploma program located in Totnes, Devon.

 

Somatic Movement Therapy offered me a breadth of modalities to integrate the many aspects that may be needed to facilitate respectful and compassionate holding for individuals on their own unique journey. These include Somatic Psychology, Authentic Movement, Embodied Anatomy and Infant Developmental Movement Patterning and re-patterning

 

With over 20 years’ experience teaching yoga, and movement, many disciplines weave together and inform my work. These include: Scaravelli Yoga, Hanna Somatics, Feldenkrais and Body Mind Centering®. Bodywork modalities from Cranial Sacral to Reflexology. And a teacher of Anatomy Physiology and Pathology to bodyworkers for a decade.

 

I teach with a passion for the wisdom, intelligence, and poetry of the human body.

 

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Somatic Movement Therapy

Somatic movement is a multi-modality process-work therapy that can support a client's unfolding and emergent process through therapeutic presence, bodywork and movement, trusting and following the inherent wisdom of the body-mind and its drive to return to wholeness and health.

Clients are supported and guided through embodied expression that may be physical, emotional, psychological, or energetic and can be facilitated in a co-creative exploration of movement patterning, re-patterning, embodied anatomy and relational touch.

 

 

Integrative Somatic Bodywork

Integrative Somatic Bodywork is a process-work approach to bodywork and may include aspects of Somatic Therapy in the setting of intention and in welcoming the body-mind into expression and therefore integration.

Bodywork is emergent and co-created and may include relational or cellular touch, working with the energy of organs, nervous or endocrine systems, muscular or skeletal systems, cranial sacral practices, fascial and energy practices, reflexology practices. It is a clothed bodywork practice.

 

Fascial Unwinding

Fascial unwinding is a light touch bodywork performed clothed.

Gentle touch and stretching of the fascia gives relaxation and activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This can in turn activate the central nervous system to spontaneously find an easier or more relaxed position through involuntary muscular releases, these releases are called ‘unwinding’.

Unwinding is explained by the principle that the body knows how to rebalance itself and occurs because tissues that hold memories of trauma adjust to a position of ease by letting go of frozen stress responses and unresolved trauma.

 

 

Authentic Movement

Authentic Movement is the practice of moving intuitively in the presence of a witness.

In this form individuals are supported to discover movement pathways that offer a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.  Movement as a pre-verbal developmental experience can offer deep listening to the body-mind when it is self-directed. The process of naming experiences of movement in the verbal realm, to a witness, clarifies and deepens this. This form explores the relationship between a mover and a witness, being seen and seeing.

I have practiced the discipline of Authentic Movement since 2015. Initially and currently with Linda Hartley and more recently with Jane Okondo and Brenda Naso.

I welcome individuals who wish to begin this practise as 121 students.

 

 

Therapeutic Yoga

I have facilitated Therapeutic Yoga practice to support many experiences of dis-ease or disruption to the body. This may be muscular, skeletal, developmental, systemic, or progressive and may be approached through working with movement patterns, strengthening or releasing and alignment practices. Or simply through facilitating awareness through touch, the breath and letting go of deeply held unconscious patterns to allow the body innate capacity to reorganise.

My specialisms include hypermobility (HSD, EDS), auto-immune conditions and neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis

My knowledge of Yoga, Anatomy and Physiology and the human body-mind enables me to have an informed understanding in working with a range of condition and adapting beneficial movement and awareness practices for all experiences of health, wellness and mobility. In my work I connect with the whole person to re-establish and restore this fundamental connection to health.

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Charges £75 /hour.

For more information on these practices please see my website or contact me to discuss.

Email: yogasoftley@gmail.com

Tel: 07815 624 368

Webpage: yogasoftley.com