Since its inception, ISMETA members have participated in the Movement & Cognition Conference hosted at the world’s top universities. This year’s conference, held in September 2024, was hosted at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. ISMETA members Martha Eddy, Madelana Ferrara, Richard Mack and Talia Shafir, all of whom have presented in previous Movement and Cognition conferences, once again presented various aspects of their work in a symposium chaired by Richard Mack, MSME-T, LMT, MBA, entitled Rehabilitation thru touch, movement, and talk: An effective triune for addressing trauma and PTSD.
Richard Mack opened by presenting the case that trauma is a current epidemic which negatively impacts our global population in alarming proportions. Richard spoke of trauma as an event that leaves deep imprints, showing up in emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, and bodily responses. Somatic therapies, a diverse set of movement, touch and psychotherapeutic approaches, offer a unique path to healing pain, stress, and trauma by supporting the development of body awareness. They help individuals cognitively and physically process what is held within the body.
Madelana Ferrara, MA, MSME-T, CYT, CPA and co-founder of Mind Your Body, a somatic and yoga therapy clinic based in New Jersey, USA. Madelana emphasized her perspective that Somatic Therapy is a unique, stand-alone modality, not a subset of another discipline, and should be recognized as such. She spoke about how she effectively uses and teaches clients about The Threat Response Cycle to help them understand that there is a biologically coded, healthy path for recovery from stress, trauma, and PTS, which ends with discharge, release, recovery, and return to homeostasis. She spoke about how disruption of this cycle can lead to incomplete circuits and repetitive patterns which become imprinted in the connective tissues, and which can, thereby, be accessed through somatic touch therapy. The cellular connection between skin, connective tissues, and brain offers somatic touch therapists the means to guide clients through their incomplete cycles without rehashing the traumatic events. Her clinical work has provided abundant support for the success of using this educational model in somatic touch therapy to offer clients profound, healing experiences.
Talia Shafir, MSME-T, Ph.D., is a Somatic Psychologist and Clinical Hypnotherapist, on the faculty of Dynamic Embodiment, with a private international practice specializing in somatic approaches to trauma, PTSD, and adult attachment issues. Her topic, Utilizing Neurocellular Communication to Rebuild Psychophysical Resources, emphasized the importance of movement in psychophysical therapy, a holistic, integrative approach to activity and rehabilitation, the theme of this year’s conference. Dr. Shafir addressed the energetic and multi-dimensional aspect of language and the significance of its correlation to movement. This was illustrated by visuals from her doctoral research highlighting the contribution movement observation makes to speed the repair of adult attachment trauma and disruptions that underlie resilience. She gave several examples showing that movement pattern observation, when paired with specific vocabulary, added significant perspective to the cognitive-centered approach of traditional talk therapy or the purely body-centered approach of nervous system regulation, pain relief and expanding range of motion. Talia lead an interactive exploration of the use of Laban movement scales and the concept of spatial intent to alter a psychological state of feeling “stuck” or “trapped” by limiting emotions.
Martha Eddy, MSMT, CMA, Ed.D., Founding Director of Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Therapy, and Honorary Adj. Professor in BioBehavioral Sciences, Columbia University, highlighted the impact of social forces evident in individual and group trauma. She emphasized that whether through micro-aggressions, or macro-events, the resulting effects on the brain, body and cognition are potent. Dr. Eddy spoke of the need to follow sensations, support their expression, and practice new healthy behaviors. She also encouraged participants to pursue further research including determining if the latter-stage practice of new behaviors are the result of the somatic recovery process. Dr. Eddy stated the need for the somatic community to create research projects that investigate somatic movement solutions and whether they awaken neural pathways supporting emotional and behavioral options.
Contact information for individuals mentioned in this article can be found on the ISMETA website. The next Movement – Brain, Body & Cognition conference will take place in Cambridge (the UK) in 2026. Information regarding themes and guidelines for proposals and research paper submissions can be found at www.movementis.com.
