More About The Tuning Board and Somatic Therapy
“[Dr. Stone’s] basic thesis is simple. Life energy must flow through the body in a smooth uninterrupted way to maintain optimal health. When the ebb and flow of this life energy becomes blocked or interrupted, the balance of life is disturbed and something must be done to reestablish that balance and the continuity of the free flow of life energy. ”
First, experience the Tuning Board for yourself to understand its impact.
Then, help your client stand on the Tuning Board with your attuned support.
Watch Your client’s body and nervous system begin to respond to The movement.
By simply standing on the Tuning Board a few minutes at a time, clients become
more aware of their bodies;
more centered;
more grounded;
And can feel more clearly where energy is bound-up in holding.
Free online information is available to show you the basics.
Webinars, Q & A’s and Trainings are available to deepen your ability to use it Well.
the Tuning Board….
Helps to free obstructions and open the body to the flow of life and energy;
Facilitates movement into the deepest areas of our human experience;
Brings us into the present moment;
Promotes a conscious felt experience of the unity and integration of mind and body;
Enhances the intimate relationship of structure, function and experience;
Articulates and accelerates re-patterning;
Is a doorway into creative process for both practitioner and subject;
Is a feedback tool that reveals patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed and unchallenged.
Trauma and Physical Fixations
Health is characterized by centeredness, balance, connectedness, and movement. Experiences of traumatic overwhelm often result in functional and/or structural fixations that hinder the expression of health. These fixations and restrictive patterns, while they may be visible and accessible in the body, extend as well to the other channels of expression of the whole human being, including cognitions, emotions and behavior. The physical fixations might therefore be said to contain information which has the potential to manifest in any of these other channels.
Using the Tuning Board to Reveal Fixations and Work with the Associated Information
We work in gravity with the tuning board to introduce movement at very deep levels in order to reveal and work with these blockages and their associated information. When movement is introduced into a fixation, the information held there may be released and brought to our awareness, and so becomes available for transformation. We then engage with the information that is revealed, a process which leads to transformation in the direction of health.
Therapists use the Tuning Board with their clients to:
Get Them in Their Bodies
Invite fuller embodiment and kinesthetic awareness;
Restore a client’s ability to use their own body as a primary resource;
Improve the ability of clients to self-calm when anxious.
Connect Them to Their World
Train clients to simultaneously maintain internal body awareness and groundedness while fully perceiving and being present in their environment;
Encourage clients to be aware of and enjoy the safety and wholeness of the present moment;
Unlock Hidden Information
Reveal traumatic fixations through movement;
Invite authentic movement and archetypal expression to reveal and release obstructions;
Access the whole person through engagement with information held in postures and movement patterns;
Invite Transformative Movement
Restore the flow of movement and energy through the body and whole person;
Help clients become more flexible and resilient;
Encourage creativity and increase confidence through the somatic integration of....
stability and movement;
tension and release;
discomfort and flow.
Read also:
"Using the Original Tuning Board in Somatic Experiencing®"…
…an article by Darrell Sanchez, Ph.D. Published in Somatic Psychotherapy Today; Summer 2020, Vol. 10 No. 2 (republished with permission of Somatic Psychotherapy Today)
"Dancing with Gravity"…
…an article by Darrell Sanchez, Ph.D. published in Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Winter 2016 | Volume 6 Number 1(republished with permission of Somatic Psychotherapy Today)
"Dancing with Gravity: Using the Tuning Board to Promote vertical embodiment Resources and Vertical Integration"…
…an article by Darrell Sanchez, Ph.D. and Vivian Gettliffe published in the 2016 IASI Yearbook of Structural Integration
and excerpts from "Relative Balance in an Unstable World: A Search for New Models for Trauma Education and Recovery"
by traumatologist Anngwyn St. Just, Ph.D. St. Just describes her work with Tuning Board developer Darrell Sanchez to develop its use as a tool for trauma therapy.
How Does the Tuning Board Work?
Its continually moving surface places the user into an accelerated experience of constant motion and flow, challenging him or her with a new experience of grounding, orienting, and relating to 3-dimensional space. The experience is that of a continual dance, as centering and grounding are interwoven with movement. Because the Tuning Board will never be perfectly still, the individual is challenged to find, and quietly attune to, a relative stability while surrendering rigidity, fragmentation, and holding patterns to motion.
A variety of interventions which stimulate awareness and imagination are used to address goals in psychotherapy:
Exercises to invite fuller embodiment and kinesthetic awareness;
Exercises which increase the ability to successfully ground and center;
External orienting exercises to encourage simultaneous awareness of the environment and kinesphere, while maintaining awareness and presence in the body;
Exercises to restore the flow of movement and energy through the body and whole person;
Working with Patterns:
identification and recognition of patterns;
movement completion;
repatterning.Targeted Explorative Movement:
working with sensations, emotions, cognitions, or imagery;
working with specific issues.Explorative Movement Targeting Trauma, including....
explorations of movement completion;
engagement with or withdrawal from the environment.Non-Targeted Explorative Movement Using Free Association.
Some Basic Concepts Related to the Tuning Board’s Use in Somatic Therapy
Health is Flow
Health is characterized by movement, connection, balance, and centeredness.
People Get Stuck
Life experiences, from traumatic overwhelm or injuries to engrained habits of use, can result in functional and/or structural fixations that hinder the expression of health.
Stuckness Happens in the Whole Person
These fixations and restrictive patterns, while they may be visible and accessible in the body, extend as well to the other channels of expression of the whole human being, including cognitions, emotions and behavior.
Stuckness is Hidden Information
The physical fixations might therefore be said to contain information which has the potential to manifest in any of these other channels.
A Gentle Dance with Gravity Elicits This Information
We work in gravity with the tuning board to introduce movement at very deep levels in order to reveal and work with these blockages and their associated information.
Information + Awareness = Transformation
When movement is introduced into a fixation, the information held there may be released and brought to our awareness, and so becomes available for use in transformation. Engaging with the revealed information leads to transformation in the direction of health.
