NeuroAffective Touch®
I am currently deepening my practise and training with NeuroAffective Touch®, training with the founder Dr. Aline LaPierre.
NeuroAffective® Touch is a therapeutic practise which works to bridge the body-mind integration through touch. Touch informs our earliest experiences and an attuned, caring touch is of the greatest importance to our brains development and our emotional and cognitive maturation.
JOHN KEATS
“Touch has a memory”.
NeuroAffective Touch® is a therapeutic method that looks to heal the relational matrix. It is a polyvagal - informed somatic approach that integrates relational and psychodynamic psychotherapy with the therapeutic use of touch and bodywork. This method addresses emotional , relational and cognitive developmental deficits that cannot be reached by verbal means alone.
Nurturing touch addresses breaches in the development of the relational matrix that cannot be reached by verbal means alone.
In the work of early repair, nurturing touch is particularly valuable to address neurological deficits, disassociation, states of chronic bracing, dread, fragmentation, and collapse.
Working with the felt sense and touch, we begin to pay attention to the body’s sensations, not for the sensations themselves but in order to retrieve the knowledge encoded in sensations - knowledge that the body holds on non-verbal levels.
With attuned touch and holding we can experience an emotional connection essential for the development of trust and the capacity to feel safe, yield and receive.
Sessions
NeuroAffective Touch® is most commonly practised on a massage table with a memory foam mattress. However the work can also be done sitting up with support from a chair.
In the sessions we might also work with heated and weighted pillows. These pillows are specifically designed for NeuroAffective Touch® and can be molded to support the body to awaken the touch receptors and enliven the body-mind heat connection.