We are delighted to announce the release of our newly developed Body Of Knowledge card deck. This unique resource provides accessible activities for professionals and individuals keen to explore a diverse array of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy exercises, themes, and self-discovery practices.
Available to order now, the card deck brings together a wealth of information in clear language, ensuring that every user can extract value and insights from these experiential practices, returning to the cards as often as they wish to uncover new learning.
The author of the deck, Dr Pat Ogden, says, “Because physical habits are inextricably linked with our emotions, beliefs, and fundamental ways of being in the world, practices that explore sensation, posture, and movement can directly impact our quality of life.” When we attend only to cognitive analysis and emotional experience to navigate life’s issues and make decisions, we are neglecting the amazing resource of our bodies. Through the simple, practical exercises in this card deck, users will increase their connection to their embodied self and learn to draw upon the wisdom of their bodies to enhance awareness, decision making, self-regulation, connections with others, and more.
Using Visual Prompts and Exercise Cues in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
The “Body Of Knowledge” refers to the vast scope of learning and understanding we hold within our bodies. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy practitioners use the the skills of this approach to guide clients through movements, self-awareness, and exercises to uncover the underlying wisdom of their bodies to help resolve the effects of trauma, emotional dysregulation, and limiting beliefs and behaviors. The somatic practices described in this card deck are designed to help people work towards self-acceptance, comprehending how and why unwanted patterns or responses emerge, how our bodies contribute to these patterns and how to change them.
Tapping into the innate but often unexplored knowledge of the body provides us with an understanding of the significance of our physical habits – our movements, postures, sensations, and sensory perceptions, all of which can assist with creating a closer, accepting connection within ourselves, with others and with the wider world.
In creating the Body Of Knowledge deck, we have mapped out sensorimotor practices in an accessible and simplified format as a resource to supplement therapy, to help individuals benefit from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy practices outside of a therapeutic setting, and to support anyone interested in learning more about their bodies and the intelligence they hold.
The cards have no prescribed usage, nor do they need to be used in a specific environment, order, or way. Instead, users or practitioners supporting their clients are encouraged to engage or revisit exercises at times when doing so feels relevant or appropriate. Users are encouraged to trust their intuition to determine the themes or individual cards that resonate and that they are drawn to.
Themes Covered Within The Body Of Knowledge Card Deck
The Body of Knowledge card deck contains 60 beautifully printed cards published by Norton Professional Books. Each card is double sided, and contains an explanatory text on one side to foster understanding and context, and tips and suggestions for practice on the other. Some exercises focus on body awareness, others on regulating arousal, and still others on expansion.
Created to provide sensorimotor practices that users can easily follow, these cards are color coded to group the deck into 15 themes.
A few of the themes are:
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- Ancestors and community: Exploring ways to tap into and embody ancestral resilience, support, and care for the communities around us, drawing knowledge and encouragement from our ancestors and communities.
- Body connection: Healing our relationships with our bodies, including the judgements we may have developed due to trauma, difficult relationships, social pressure, or other influences.
- Breath: Noticing and acknowledging how we breathe, how our posture and movement habits impact our breathing, and exploring different ways of breathing to increase our sense of well-being.
- Grounding: Tuning into the sensation we feel from the pull of gravity and using somatic exercises to reap the benefits of feeling grounded, such as increased confidence and focus, presence in the moment and being able to respond with intention rather than reaction.
- Positivity: Exploring pleasurable sensations and movements, drawing on pleasurable past experiences to ground a positive feeling in the body, practicing actions to deliberately create a sense of well being.
- The Future: Discovering how to inhibit limiting patterns developed to manage negative experiences of the past, and i practicing new actions to capitalize on neuroplasticity, to change our brains and bodies and move toward a more positive future.
Practices involve mindfulness of physical habits and of the relationship of our thoughts, emotions and the body, self reflection, exploration of new postures, movements and ways of focusing attention, and can be used alongside other practices such as art therapy or journaling.
Applications for the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Body Of Knowledge Deck
Emphasizing how to capitalize on the innate wisdom of the embodied self to enrich our lives, the Body Of Knowledge deck can be used in a wide variety of settings and circumstances as a professional resource for practitioners as well as a tool that anybody is welcome to use, whether they have experienced somatic exercises before, are interested in a general better awareness of their bodies or would like to try sensorimotor practices for a specific purpose.
For Practitioners
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy practitioners can use cards with their clients in session as a visual, illustrative practice alongside psychotherapy, or can encourage clients to use the cards independently in their own time to integrate therapeutic gains between sessions. Practitioners may also encourage clients to draw on the cards after their time spent with a therapist has concluded to maintain therapeutic change and continue their growth.
Psychotherapists who are not trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy but who want to explore how somatic practices can support therapeutic change will find the cards useful.
The cards can also be beneficial as psycho-educational tools and practice exercises for physiotherapists, movement therapists, or practitioners who teach pilates, yoga, martial arts or other physical disciplines.
For Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Course Participants
Graduates and training course attendees can use the Body Of Knowledge cards to further ground their understanding of the method and assist with integrating Sensorimotor Psychotherapy more fully into their clinical practice.
For Clients
Clients engaged in therapy of all kinds can use these cards to tap into the wisdom of their bodies to support and enhance therapeutic gains. Even when clients are involved in “talk therapy” or other therapeutic approaches that omit drawing upon the body’s potential for healing, these cards can serve as valuable supplementary activities.
For Laypeople
Accessible to the layperson, these cards can benefit anyone interested in learning about their own body and how they can draw upon the resources of their own body for self-discovery and to enhance the quality of their lives.
Ordering the Body Of Knowledge Card Deck From the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute
The Body Of Knowledge deck is available to order now online. Each deck contains 64 individual cards.
Should you wish to learn more about the Body Of Knowledge deck, the themes covered or about Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and the training curriculum we offer, please refer to our website, or get in touch.
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