SALT CITY BODYWORKS IS ABOUT

Enhanced

Nervous System Regulation

How Salt City Can

Support You

You feel most alive when our mind, body and psyche are connected. The effect of trauma—whether an accumulation of events or one sudden impact—flips the breaker switch between these parts to prevent disintegration and help you survive. While critical in the short term, living in a disconnected fashion over time can deprive your life of its sense of meaning and depth. Salt City Bodyworks offers somatic approaches to heal trauma and support reconnection so you can transform from surviving to thriving.

Somatic Experiencing®

A world renowned body-based approach designed to enhance regulation in the nervous system.

Somatic Bodywork

Trauma healing via Somatic Experiencing® implementing therapeutic touch.

Trauma-Informed Massage Therapy

Massage therapy designed to support clients who have experienced high impact to their nervous system.

Somatic Experiencing®

The Body Remembers

$140 for 50 minutes
$225 for 80 minutes

When a traumatic event occurs, a protective circuit between the brain and body activates. The brain’s flight-or-fight impulse responds with defensive emotions of fear, anxiety, panic or rage. At the same time, the body activates physiological responses like trembling, crying, or running. These physiological reactions to trauma discharge energy that signals to the brain that you are alive and safe—the need for fight-or-flight has passed. The circuit is complete and you can return to a state of balance and calm. But when trauma strikes unexpectedly—an accident, an assault, a sudden death or loss—the body is often too overwhelmed to respond and physiological responses are suppressed. You find you are too shocked to cry, to tremble or to fight. You feel empty or numb. With time you may come to understand and even accept the impact of the event, but you struggle to move forward. Without the “all clear” from the body, the fight-or-flight fear and anxiety remains as real as the moment the trauma happened.

Somatic Experiencing® is a world renowned body-based approach developed by Dr. Peter Levine that seeks to close the protective circuit and restore your sense of calm and balance. Through guided exploration in a safe and comfortable environment, your practitioner can help you renegotiate traumatic events in the past by slowing down the experience and allowing your body to process events in the present moment, completing the circuit that was interrupted by trauma. Learn more at traumahealing.org. If you have any questions about whether Somatic Experiencing® is right for you, a 30 minute consultation may be a good place to start. Somatic Experiencing® is not psychotherapy. Jenny Winkel is not a licensed mental health care professional.

Somatic Bodywork

$140 for 50 minutes
$225 for 80 minutes

The purpose of somatic bodywork is to address the impact of trauma using the added element of therapeutic physical touch. The appointment proceeds in a similar style as a "non-touch" Somatic Experiencing® session except for two main differences. First, the client is comfortably dressed while lying on the massage table as opposed to being seated in a chair. Second, the therapist uses still (non-moving) touch with light pressure to facilitate the trauma healing process.

Using touch in this way can be helpful for three main reasons.

1) It brings mindful awareness to areas of the body impacted by trauma. These may be places that carry a surplus of energy (i.e., chronic tension, lack of mobility, constriction, pain, etc.). There may also be a notable lack of energy experienced as diminished mind-body connection, sluggishness, decreased physical sensation, a "stuckness", impaired mechanical function, etc.

2) It can provide the client with an added sense of safety and connection. Touch allows the practitioner to feel what's going on in the client's nervous system. This information shows up through the tactile experience of vibration, temperature and texture. It also provides another way of connecting to the client's breathing rhythm, heart rate, muscle tension and other indicators of nervous system activity.

3) Using therapeutic touch does not necessarily make the session more effective than Somatic Experiencing® alone. It just makes it more customized to the preferences and needs of a client who responds to touch with an increased experienced of safety.

Somatic bodywork is different than trauma-informed massage therapy because it expressly seeks to address the underlying dysfunction in the nervous system. Trauma-informed massage, on the other hand, specifically addresses the physical symptoms of muscle tension and pain caused by dysregulation in the nervous system but not the dysregulation itself. For more information, see "Trauma-Informed Massage Therapy" in the section below.

Somatic Bodywork is not psychotherapy. If you have any questions as to whether or not somatic bodywork may be right for you, scheduling a consultation may be a good place to start.

Jenny received her master’s degree in somatic psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA in 2014. In 2016 she completed a three-year training from the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute (SETI) to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) in order to provide trauma-informed bodywork at advanced levels. In addition, she has received specialized training from Kathy Kain through SETI in using touch-based methods to work with the physiological effects of complex trauma. Jenny is not a licensed mental health care professional

Trauma-Informed Massage Therapy

$140 for 60 minutes

$225 for 90 minutes

Trauma-informed massage therapy serves clients who have experienced impact to their nervous system. The purpose of each session is to provide the general benefits that bodywork brings—relaxation, pain relief and connecting touch—but with the added security of working with a therapist who has advanced education in somatic-based trauma physiology and who is skilled in working with heightened activation in the nervous system. If the client happens to experience a trigger or onset of symptoms during the session, the therapist will assist the client in feeling safe and grounded while gently facilitating the nervous system in returning back to a relaxed and resting state. There is communication between the client and therapist throughout to ensure the client's comfort as well as the effectiveness of the session.

Trauma-informed massage therapy is not psychotherapy. It does not address the underlying dysregulation in the nervous system that may be causing the muscle tension and pain. It works to provide relief for these physical symptoms by using traditional massage therapy techniques and methods. Somatic bodywork, on the other hand, is specifically designed to work with the dysfunction in the nervous system by combining therapeutic touch (not massage) with Somatic Experiencing®. See "Somatic Bodywork" above for more information.

If you have any questions as to whether or not trauma-informed massage therapy may be right for you, scheduling a 30 minute consultation may be a good place to start.

Jenny graduated in massage therapy from Myotherapy College of Utah in 2010 and received her master’s degree in somatic psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA in 2014. In 2016 she completed a three-year training from the Somatic Experiencing™ Trauma Institute (SETI) to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) in order to provide trauma-informed bodywork at advanced levels. Jenny is a licensed massage therapist. She is not a licensed mental health care professional.