Serge
Hi, Glenn.
Glenn
Hello, Serge.
Serge
So you have a very embodied, creative approach to therapy.
And what we're going to do today is discuss a case of yours. That's actually one that happened years ago. And look at it from the perspective, not just of what you do, but also what you perceive, what you notice, how you make sense of it.
And at an extra level of how now knowing what you do sheds light on what happened then and how you see things.
Glenn
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So the case is decades old, really.
But I will say in these cases, and not just her that I'll present, but others, these moments that happen seem to etch something, you know? I mean, you know, you can go through months or years of seeing someone week after week, right? Month after month.
And it's very, it's okay. I mean, it's, but when you have these moments that I'll share, I call them threshold moments, they really stay with you, you know, as if it happened yesterday. So this particular woman, when I first saw her, she was in her probably mid to late thirties.
Serge
Mm-hmm.
Glenn
At the time, is married, had three kids, I believe, and had a good job, healthcare professional. Outwardly, was doing very well. And when she first came, or somewhere in the first session, she mentioned that she had been sexually molested by a family member, maybe more than one, if I recall, when she was like between 11 and 13.
And this, obviously, had a huge impact. But for me, especially when you're first working, I don't go into that per se. We're just there together, right?
And so the main focus ended up being that she would have this pattern of going out to bars after work, sort of making up a story to her husband, and often flirting with or picking up men and often having sex or having affairs. And then she would sort of, quote, fall in love with these men and then get all obsessed, right? And then she'd have to go back and undo, you know, her husband didn't know, at least ostensibly.
So this was the main emphasis. And in the sessions himself, she was very, we'll say flirtatious, you know. You just feel it in the atmosphere.
You know, it had a sexually charged atmosphere. She would wear low-cut blouses. She would often lean in toward me, right?
she'd almost look at me longingly you know this kind of thing because i maintain boundaries and all this and occasionally might mention it she would ask me about her weight and her appearance you have to be careful because you don't want to shame someone you know make they're doing something wrong bad but i was very clear and calm about the boundaries and she understood that so through our work together over many many months or years really this this pattern of going out and seeking men and this kind of thing, it tended to diminish. Yes. And she was very relieved because it was creating a lot of angst in her, you know, her system, overwhelming.
But then one time she had come in to a session and she looked very, very distraught, I mean, like agitated. Well, she had, you know, she called a relapse, where the night before She went to a bar, picked up a guy who turned out to be very, like a brute type, and they had this very unpleasant, terrible sexual experience, and this, like, shook her to the core, right? So she came into the session, and this is what I want to highlight, Serge.
That moment, you could see, you know, it was really, oh, you know, like this. Why do I do this? What's wrong with me, right?
Serge
Why do I keep doing this?
Glenn
And she felt it like this incredible.
Serge
And so just what you're doing is your whole body language is in a way replicating some of the anguish you felt from her body language.
Glenn
Yes, that's right. And when you feel it, or I feel it, at least in those days, again, I didn't have the language, but now I call it being at a threshold, at an edge. Like the old pattern or old trauma world is impinging on the current life and they're right there. Right?
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
And that creates all this.
Serge
So let's just stay a little longer there because in some way what you're talking about is that what you sense, what you see in her presence, in her bodily presence in the room is something where the trauma is happening. and playing out in real life in her body.
Glenn
Yes. And I would add, not just in her body, but in the relational field in the room.
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
The book on her was, she had come for help, but this was the first time I really felt, help me, please. That's what I mean by heeding the call, by the way.
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
I didn't hang.
Serge
Yes. Yes. So you were feeling, sensing, present in the room, her relational trauma and the relational trauma was present in her body and in the relation with you. And there was also something else that you sensed that you had not been able to sense before is that implicit help me.
Glenn
That's right. And it's sort of like, I can't go on this way, but I don't know what else to do. you know, like this.
So we take that in, we breathe. But here's the key point of all that. Not just heeding the call, help me, but while she was sharing this, I don't know what's wrong with me, right?
Or I don't know why I keep doing this. Her body moved into this kind of posture. Her arms folded in front of her and she leaned forward like this.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Why do I keep doing this? And her body was like this, leaning forward.
Serge
Yeah. So they're all coming from each other and leaning forward.
Glenn
Yeah. Now she wasn't aware of this and it wasn't happening, you know, deliberately, consciously, but it was very clear. This was something distinct.
I had not seen this kind of posture, gestural stance before, at least in that way. So I take it in and further in me is like, wow, there's something in this whole body stance that seems important. I don't know what it is, but it came on its own right at that moment where she said, I don't know why I keep doing this, right?
Now, I felt it again, even at the time, although I didn't sense it as a call. This is what's bringing us back into what needs our attention, support, help, heal.
Serge
Yeah. So you were sensing something. It was not just idle curiosity of, oh, this is a different moment. You were sensing something, but you were not able to actually put more content into what you were sensing, but just sensing that something here was a call for attention.
Glenn
Yes. It almost like it thrusts itself into the relational field, right? Now, if it went unheated, as I would say now, it would have just dissipated back into the ethos and nothing would have happened.
And we would have gone on talking, sharing, maybe given some tips on how to not act out again, you know, and stuff like that. But when it is heated, it means we are responding to what the body or the being of the body and its spirit is sharp. So this stance, right?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
I felt I started leaning in toward her like, well, this is calling us in. So what happened is we stopped or I stopped and said, I'll make up a name, Jane. There's something here.
Look, you know, when you were saying, you know, why, you know, why do I keep doing this? What's wrong with me? And I feel your pain about that.
I really do. And your body was doing this. and I play back or mirror back the stance.
I said, I wonder, I wonder, because everything is done with permission, it's never imposed. I wonder if it would be okay if you and I sensed into this posture.
Serge
Yeah, yeah.
Glenn
Nothing has to happen.
Serge
So just what's happening there, it could have been unheeded, but there was something about you sensing that there was a moment that was very charged. And what you did was follow that intuition of giving more space for the moment to be lived more experienced than just it would if it was ordinary.
Glenn
That's right, yeah. And it also shows us the importance of observing and sensing and internalizing or integrating or experiencing what the client or our own body is actually doing. Don't, we're limiting the whole embodied field.
And often these gestures, postures are more significant, really, because they hold the trauma as an embodied stance than words. So when we did this and we leaned in, I suggested, we're invited, would it be okay if you close your eyes and just hold this stance and don't try to change it, analyze it, just see what comes. Nothing may come, but it's just sense that something emerges.
It seems significant.
Serge
And so for people who are not seeing the video just on the audio, that's the invitation to stay with that stance of the posture, leaning forward, holding her hands, her arms together and just inviting her to see what it's like to be there.
Glenn
Yes. And both of us actually.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
But it's very important as a point, Serge, that we don't change the stance or we actually invite to stay with it, stay into it, engage with it, feel it. So she did. She closed her eyes.
And I'll tell you, again, this is decades ago, but my memory is pretty clear. I'd say within not a minute either, she had this, she just burst open, her eyes burst open. Wow, what happened?
And she said, when you invited me to go in and hold this posture, immediately I felt myself as three years old leaning on a window looking out and right next to the window was a door the front door of our house and outside the window I could see my father was leaving and I knew somewhere even in three years old that he wasn't coming back he wasn't just leaving to go to work he was leaving the family and me. So that, so she was leaning out, she could see her daddy and I said, wow, okay, so just stay with that, see what else comes. So as the three-year-old now, now she's in it, right, and I'm softening, I'm just very gentle, I sort of let go of the posture and I think my arms kind of went almost like this, like I'm just creating a safe container here.
She said, "I kept crying, Daddy, Daddy, don't leave me. Daddy, Daddy, don't leave me. I'll be good.
I promise. I promise. Don't leave me."
Like that, right? Or she cried and I cried.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
And she said, after that, two things happened. Her mother became super embittered and blamed her for the daddy leaving just like she felt anyway. And became much harsher, colder, cooler. So she had a double abandonment, basically.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
Leaving and mommy turning. And then every time the door, someone would come to the door, a male, she would open the door, Daddy, are you back? Or can you be my...
Like that, right? This went on for months and months. I mean, so poignant, Serge.
It was just like that. So we held that moment. So that little girl, is right here in the room with us.
We hold that. Just let her know we're here. We welcome her.
And I feel like so tender
Serge
in our
Glenn
thing. And she cried and I cried. She had never cried before in any of our sessions.
But this time, just bursting. And she really made that connection that And then what followed, Serge, was that after that, when she was the 10, 11 and she was sexually molested, it was because her mother would ship her off to relatives. She didn't want anything to do with her anymore, right?
So she would stay with a couple of thousand whoever, and they were the abusers, right? So this cemented further the trauma.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
But as often as the case, as you may know, when you see a trauma like sexual abuse at 11, 12, 13, there's almost always a preceding trauma that happened before that set the stage for that, you know. So in this case, you know, she was shipped off to relatives. Her mother gave her no care.
And the only way she got any attention was through her body, sexual, right? I mean, it was terrible tension. So this fast-forwarded to that pattern, you know, that dynamic of seeking men at bars, right?
And I said, imagine this is not you as an adult, not even that teenager who was acting out sexually. What if it's that little girl seeking her dad and wanting the love and attention she never could?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
She's so proud. Yes. So I felt moved and I said, would it be okay? You tell me. Is it okay if I reach out my hands like this?
Serge
So you put your hands forward.
Glenn
I put my hands forward and I just said, would it be okay? You sense it. If we let that little girl reach out and touch me.
I'm a male, I'm old enough to be your daddy, but I'm going to be a very kind, loving, gentle, and caring, delicate. I would be him. She's not alone.
And I reached my hand, would it be okay? And she did. And it really felt in my body, my being, that it wasn't the adult, her, or even the teenage or young adult, it was the little girl.
We just held hands, you know, very gently.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
several minutes, and that was the threshold moment. Now, from that moment, you know, going forward, that opened the pathway to real healing, right, of the original trauma wound of the abandonment, right, and the cruelty of it.
Serge
So let's stay a little more with the word threshold, you know, like the threshold moment. So that is a moment where she was able to complete, in a way, the action she had had a yearning for, which is to connect, to be touched, to have that connection with a loving father. And so you want to talk a little bit more about what you mean by threshold there.
Glenn
Well, you said it very well, right? That's the moment that can go by different names, being at an edge or something. But I like threshold because it creates literally what we call liminal space.
Liminal means threshold or in-between world, right? We're right up against or right up at the edge of the old world and the new, you know, in the current world. how basically the body is saying, I can go on like this, but I can also complete the gesture or the need alone.
Serge
Yeah, yeah. And so, in a way, in that session that you talk about, there were two very profound threshold moments. One at the beginning of, I can't continue living that way. And you saw it in her posture, in her leaning, in her holding her arms, and then a threshold to something new, that the possibility of having that connection.
Glenn
Yes, but I would say before even something new, the threshold really is like almost a vertical one. It brings us deeper down. So that, see, the posture itself was the calling us, the little girl saying, I'm still, I'm here, I'm still at the window after 30, however many years, you know what I mean?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
I'm here. So attending to the body posture stands, sometimes it's a voice change or some other indication that we're really at that place where they can't go on, but they don't know what else to do. and then we go deeper into what the body is revealing.
Serge
Yeah, yeah. So the drama, the life drama, revealed itself embodied in that posture. That was the threshold between the trauma being stored and the moment of being able to process it by staying with it.
Glenn
Exactly. You said something earlier I wanted to mention because I think it's very important and right. The trauma isn't just internal or even stored.
It's playing out in the relational embodied field. You see? Continually there, even if we're not aware that is there.
You know what I mean? Because there are so many layers that unfold, right? And if we only pay attention to the verbal content or even the inner feelings, we're not really able to sense the whole pattern dynamic that's playing in.
Serge
Yeah. Yeah. And so what I love about how you describe in this situation is that notion of the ability of the therapist to see something that's hiding in plain sight and to help the client stay with it in a way that we can assist them to it. to complete what's incomplete in it.
Glenn
Yeah, exactly. Because there are two aspects of trauma. One is, of course, the original wounding, right, or abuse. But the second, probably the more sustaining one, is that those traumas, wounds, abuse, abandonment, neglect, violence, whatever, went unheeded. It means nobody cared, paid attention, picked up on the signals, right?
Serge
Yeah, yeah. And so that's where the word heating is very important to you because it's actually that it's there but unheeded. And so the intervention is actually to be able to notice it and heed it.
Glenn
Yes. And when we say heating, it means to let it impact in your viscera, in your body, in your awareness, so that we sense there's a scene here or a being in a scene or a world that's calling out to us from the trauma world into our world here. That's heeding.
Heeding is not meant to me. Heeding will call necessarily for everyday ongoingness, although it can be. That it's most important, if not essential, if not absolutely necessary at these threshold moments.
because that's when everything is, the word exigent means urgent. It's right here, right now. And if we don't heed, and heeding also implies, by the way, three stages, which I think I've mentioned to you before.
One is the first stage is listening and receiving, which we know, we take in. That's like any good reflective listening and receiving. But we're also receiving for the second phase, which is to sense or perceive the scene or the spirit or the being that's calling out to us and what the implied need is or what the incomplete or unfinished gesture or scenario is.
That's the second. And the third and probably most important is we respond and enact that moment together.
Serge
Yeah. And so...
Glenn
Meeting always implies taking action at some point.
Serge
And so that's what's very useful is as you told the story of what happened during the session, we can have the first one, as you said, the listening is obvious. But the second one that perceiving is what happened when the posture of holding her arms and leaning caught your attention so that you saw it not just, oh, this is posture or body language or whatever, but something that is a relational pattern that in some way has not been completed. And so that you saw it as something where it was worth lingering on and allow for the possibility of completion. And then once she had come into contact, into awareness with the abandonment and how it impacted her that third step of you feeling the need for a response and then extending your hands and inviting her to touch your hands so that, you know, so that something that was a very creative moment, you know, playing it out instead of just talking about it or making sense of it in some abstract way.
Glenn
That's right. Yeah. So we can also take those three stages, Serge, and use them this way, which they go together.
The first stage is more like free play. We don't intervene. We don't interrupt. We just let whatever's coming have freedom of space, play, movement, whatever.
The second stage of playing out is when something shows itself as being significant, we invite it to replay, slow down, like when she had the posture, right? That's the playing out. But the third stage is actually the co-play, where she and I together enact or reenact a sequence that was never completed or experienced in order to meet that implied need, right?
Or that missing presence, really.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
That's the thing. Heating really involves me sensing what's missing, not just what happened, but what didn't happen. And what didn't happen often is the unheated part, right?
Serge
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Glenn
So just as another quick example, real quick, but this is very common also. Someone who didn't have a protector growing up, right, from abuse or violence, right? I may feel called to become that protector, but not just as Glenn, you know what I mean?
Like, I'll protect you. No, creatively, we may do it through a kind of imaginative drama that we go play out or an act together. You know, like one woman who could not stand up for herself, the life of God.
She was just so, you know, had been so traumatized that standing up for herself was dangerous. And so she was in a situation that she couldn't get out of, again, a threshold, and yet couldn't stand up for herself. So I said, just came to me, how about I stand up for you?
And I said, let's go to your office. It was in a work situation. Let's go to your office imaginatively.
And I'm going to be your assistant. And she said, oh, this feels better already. And she started.
And anytime your boss comes in, who's very intrusive, abusive, right, etc. Disrespectful, demeaning. I'm going to say, oh, Sarah is not available. Or knock, knock, oh, I'm sorry, she's busy right now.
Or, you know what, this is not a good time, you're going to have to go away. And we just played, co-played this for several minutes. And she felt in her body, she started crying.
She said, this is the first time anybody ever protects me. No one ever stood up from my whole life. So that was heating the moment.
Serge
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Glenn
In subsequent sessions, we reversed the roles and she became the assistant. So she learned the inside, how to stand up for herself, but in this playful, imaginative way, not in real life. That's too scary, you know, risky, but in the play space. Yeah.
Serge
And so these are great examples. Something that the point that I think it's good to make is we're talking about experiential therapy and experiential therapy, of course, is about paying attention to what you experience and inner experience. But what you're pointing out through these examples is also the creating of experiences that allow people to see the situation and experience situation in a different way. So it's not just experiencing your inner world, but is also something about changing how things could be and seeing how it feels like.
Glenn
Absolutely. In fact, many, many decades ago, there was a psychoanalyst who wrote what he called a corrective emotional experience. And he was a psychoanalyst.
He said, all good analysis involves a corrective emotional experience. And I like that. And that's kind of simple, except we would call it maybe a restorative relational experience or something or an embodied experience where we're actually living through it.
And we take on character. So it changes my perspective, Serge, not just internally, but relationally. In other words, I see my role now as kind of a shape-shifter, meaning I move in relation to what's called sometimes I'm very quiet, silent, welcoming.
Sometimes I'm actively engaged. sometimes we play out a role together or a character you know but these are all like you said to generate the kinds of experiences and that are restorative and and also mostly fulfill
Serge
what the body has been implying for decades really right yeah yeah yeah and so this is about really not just paying lip service to the idea that our experiences are embodied, but actually being able to play with it because it's that mixture of what's happening in the body, what's happening in the relationship, and playing with all of that in order to create a reorienting.
Glenn
Absolutely. And just one other point there, Serge, you know, it also takes, it expands from this notion that things are inward, you know, because, you know, most experiential, focusing, even mindful, reflective work is about our inward connection. And in no way is that unimportant and super important. But it's only half the story. The other half is what comes through the body out of it and what shows itself in the field that may or may not be in awareness, right?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
As you know, our gestures, postures, movements, voice tones are often in the background. We don't know they exist. And trauma is embodied as a manner or a way of being, not just an internal storage in the nervous system. It's a full body way of living, relating, engaging. Like the case I shared, the pattern.
Serge
Yeah, yeah.
Glenn
Yeah.
Serge
So that essentially it's not just by the way you observe the body, it tells you something, body posture has a certain meaning or whatever, but is actually an entry point into the centrality of that experience into that particular human being and this being's interactions.
Glenn
Absolutely. Thank you so much. That was lovely.
Serge
Thank you, Glenn.
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Hi, Glenn.
Glenn
Hello, Serge.
Serge
So you have a very embodied, creative approach to therapy.
And what we're going to do today is discuss a case of yours. That's actually one that happened years ago. And look at it from the perspective, not just of what you do, but also what you perceive, what you notice, how you make sense of it.
And at an extra level of how now knowing what you do sheds light on what happened then and how you see things.
Glenn
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So the case is decades old, really.
But I will say in these cases, and not just her that I'll present, but others, these moments that happen seem to etch something, you know? I mean, you know, you can go through months or years of seeing someone week after week, right? Month after month.
And it's very, it's okay. I mean, it's, but when you have these moments that I'll share, I call them threshold moments, they really stay with you, you know, as if it happened yesterday. So this particular woman, when I first saw her, she was in her probably mid to late thirties.
Serge
Mm-hmm.
Glenn
At the time, is married, had three kids, I believe, and had a good job, healthcare professional. Outwardly, was doing very well. And when she first came, or somewhere in the first session, she mentioned that she had been sexually molested by a family member, maybe more than one, if I recall, when she was like between 11 and 13.
And this, obviously, had a huge impact. But for me, especially when you're first working, I don't go into that per se. We're just there together, right?
And so the main focus ended up being that she would have this pattern of going out to bars after work, sort of making up a story to her husband, and often flirting with or picking up men and often having sex or having affairs. And then she would sort of, quote, fall in love with these men and then get all obsessed, right? And then she'd have to go back and undo, you know, her husband didn't know, at least ostensibly.
So this was the main emphasis. And in the sessions himself, she was very, we'll say flirtatious, you know. You just feel it in the atmosphere.
You know, it had a sexually charged atmosphere. She would wear low-cut blouses. She would often lean in toward me, right?
she'd almost look at me longingly you know this kind of thing because i maintain boundaries and all this and occasionally might mention it she would ask me about her weight and her appearance you have to be careful because you don't want to shame someone you know make they're doing something wrong bad but i was very clear and calm about the boundaries and she understood that so through our work together over many many months or years really this this pattern of going out and seeking men and this kind of thing, it tended to diminish. Yes. And she was very relieved because it was creating a lot of angst in her, you know, her system, overwhelming.
But then one time she had come in to a session and she looked very, very distraught, I mean, like agitated. Well, she had, you know, she called a relapse, where the night before She went to a bar, picked up a guy who turned out to be very, like a brute type, and they had this very unpleasant, terrible sexual experience, and this, like, shook her to the core, right? So she came into the session, and this is what I want to highlight, Serge.
That moment, you could see, you know, it was really, oh, you know, like this. Why do I do this? What's wrong with me, right?
Serge
Why do I keep doing this?
Glenn
And she felt it like this incredible.
Serge
And so just what you're doing is your whole body language is in a way replicating some of the anguish you felt from her body language.
Glenn
Yes, that's right. And when you feel it, or I feel it, at least in those days, again, I didn't have the language, but now I call it being at a threshold, at an edge. Like the old pattern or old trauma world is impinging on the current life and they're right there. Right?
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
And that creates all this.
Serge
So let's just stay a little longer there because in some way what you're talking about is that what you sense, what you see in her presence, in her bodily presence in the room is something where the trauma is happening. and playing out in real life in her body.
Glenn
Yes. And I would add, not just in her body, but in the relational field in the room.
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
The book on her was, she had come for help, but this was the first time I really felt, help me, please. That's what I mean by heeding the call, by the way.
Serge
Yes.
Glenn
I didn't hang.
Serge
Yes. Yes. So you were feeling, sensing, present in the room, her relational trauma and the relational trauma was present in her body and in the relation with you. And there was also something else that you sensed that you had not been able to sense before is that implicit help me.
Glenn
That's right. And it's sort of like, I can't go on this way, but I don't know what else to do. you know, like this.
So we take that in, we breathe. But here's the key point of all that. Not just heeding the call, help me, but while she was sharing this, I don't know what's wrong with me, right?
Or I don't know why I keep doing this. Her body moved into this kind of posture. Her arms folded in front of her and she leaned forward like this.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Why do I keep doing this? And her body was like this, leaning forward.
Serge
Yeah. So they're all coming from each other and leaning forward.
Glenn
Yeah. Now she wasn't aware of this and it wasn't happening, you know, deliberately, consciously, but it was very clear. This was something distinct.
I had not seen this kind of posture, gestural stance before, at least in that way. So I take it in and further in me is like, wow, there's something in this whole body stance that seems important. I don't know what it is, but it came on its own right at that moment where she said, I don't know why I keep doing this, right?
Now, I felt it again, even at the time, although I didn't sense it as a call. This is what's bringing us back into what needs our attention, support, help, heal.
Serge
Yeah. So you were sensing something. It was not just idle curiosity of, oh, this is a different moment. You were sensing something, but you were not able to actually put more content into what you were sensing, but just sensing that something here was a call for attention.
Glenn
Yes. It almost like it thrusts itself into the relational field, right? Now, if it went unheated, as I would say now, it would have just dissipated back into the ethos and nothing would have happened.
And we would have gone on talking, sharing, maybe given some tips on how to not act out again, you know, and stuff like that. But when it is heated, it means we are responding to what the body or the being of the body and its spirit is sharp. So this stance, right?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
I felt I started leaning in toward her like, well, this is calling us in. So what happened is we stopped or I stopped and said, I'll make up a name, Jane. There's something here.
Look, you know, when you were saying, you know, why, you know, why do I keep doing this? What's wrong with me? And I feel your pain about that.
I really do. And your body was doing this. and I play back or mirror back the stance.
I said, I wonder, I wonder, because everything is done with permission, it's never imposed. I wonder if it would be okay if you and I sensed into this posture.
Serge
Yeah, yeah.
Glenn
Nothing has to happen.
Serge
So just what's happening there, it could have been unheeded, but there was something about you sensing that there was a moment that was very charged. And what you did was follow that intuition of giving more space for the moment to be lived more experienced than just it would if it was ordinary.
Glenn
That's right, yeah. And it also shows us the importance of observing and sensing and internalizing or integrating or experiencing what the client or our own body is actually doing. Don't, we're limiting the whole embodied field.
And often these gestures, postures are more significant, really, because they hold the trauma as an embodied stance than words. So when we did this and we leaned in, I suggested, we're invited, would it be okay if you close your eyes and just hold this stance and don't try to change it, analyze it, just see what comes. Nothing may come, but it's just sense that something emerges.
It seems significant.
Serge
And so for people who are not seeing the video just on the audio, that's the invitation to stay with that stance of the posture, leaning forward, holding her hands, her arms together and just inviting her to see what it's like to be there.
Glenn
Yes. And both of us actually.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
But it's very important as a point, Serge, that we don't change the stance or we actually invite to stay with it, stay into it, engage with it, feel it. So she did. She closed her eyes.
And I'll tell you, again, this is decades ago, but my memory is pretty clear. I'd say within not a minute either, she had this, she just burst open, her eyes burst open. Wow, what happened?
And she said, when you invited me to go in and hold this posture, immediately I felt myself as three years old leaning on a window looking out and right next to the window was a door the front door of our house and outside the window I could see my father was leaving and I knew somewhere even in three years old that he wasn't coming back he wasn't just leaving to go to work he was leaving the family and me. So that, so she was leaning out, she could see her daddy and I said, wow, okay, so just stay with that, see what else comes. So as the three-year-old now, now she's in it, right, and I'm softening, I'm just very gentle, I sort of let go of the posture and I think my arms kind of went almost like this, like I'm just creating a safe container here.
She said, "I kept crying, Daddy, Daddy, don't leave me. Daddy, Daddy, don't leave me. I'll be good.
I promise. I promise. Don't leave me."
Like that, right? Or she cried and I cried.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
And she said, after that, two things happened. Her mother became super embittered and blamed her for the daddy leaving just like she felt anyway. And became much harsher, colder, cooler. So she had a double abandonment, basically.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
Leaving and mommy turning. And then every time the door, someone would come to the door, a male, she would open the door, Daddy, are you back? Or can you be my...
Like that, right? This went on for months and months. I mean, so poignant, Serge.
It was just like that. So we held that moment. So that little girl, is right here in the room with us.
We hold that. Just let her know we're here. We welcome her.
And I feel like so tender
Serge
in our
Glenn
thing. And she cried and I cried. She had never cried before in any of our sessions.
But this time, just bursting. And she really made that connection that And then what followed, Serge, was that after that, when she was the 10, 11 and she was sexually molested, it was because her mother would ship her off to relatives. She didn't want anything to do with her anymore, right?
So she would stay with a couple of thousand whoever, and they were the abusers, right? So this cemented further the trauma.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
But as often as the case, as you may know, when you see a trauma like sexual abuse at 11, 12, 13, there's almost always a preceding trauma that happened before that set the stage for that, you know. So in this case, you know, she was shipped off to relatives. Her mother gave her no care.
And the only way she got any attention was through her body, sexual, right? I mean, it was terrible tension. So this fast-forwarded to that pattern, you know, that dynamic of seeking men at bars, right?
And I said, imagine this is not you as an adult, not even that teenager who was acting out sexually. What if it's that little girl seeking her dad and wanting the love and attention she never could?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
She's so proud. Yes. So I felt moved and I said, would it be okay? You tell me. Is it okay if I reach out my hands like this?
Serge
So you put your hands forward.
Glenn
I put my hands forward and I just said, would it be okay? You sense it. If we let that little girl reach out and touch me.
I'm a male, I'm old enough to be your daddy, but I'm going to be a very kind, loving, gentle, and caring, delicate. I would be him. She's not alone.
And I reached my hand, would it be okay? And she did. And it really felt in my body, my being, that it wasn't the adult, her, or even the teenage or young adult, it was the little girl.
We just held hands, you know, very gently.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
several minutes, and that was the threshold moment. Now, from that moment, you know, going forward, that opened the pathway to real healing, right, of the original trauma wound of the abandonment, right, and the cruelty of it.
Serge
So let's stay a little more with the word threshold, you know, like the threshold moment. So that is a moment where she was able to complete, in a way, the action she had had a yearning for, which is to connect, to be touched, to have that connection with a loving father. And so you want to talk a little bit more about what you mean by threshold there.
Glenn
Well, you said it very well, right? That's the moment that can go by different names, being at an edge or something. But I like threshold because it creates literally what we call liminal space.
Liminal means threshold or in-between world, right? We're right up against or right up at the edge of the old world and the new, you know, in the current world. how basically the body is saying, I can go on like this, but I can also complete the gesture or the need alone.
Serge
Yeah, yeah. And so, in a way, in that session that you talk about, there were two very profound threshold moments. One at the beginning of, I can't continue living that way. And you saw it in her posture, in her leaning, in her holding her arms, and then a threshold to something new, that the possibility of having that connection.
Glenn
Yes, but I would say before even something new, the threshold really is like almost a vertical one. It brings us deeper down. So that, see, the posture itself was the calling us, the little girl saying, I'm still, I'm here, I'm still at the window after 30, however many years, you know what I mean?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
I'm here. So attending to the body posture stands, sometimes it's a voice change or some other indication that we're really at that place where they can't go on, but they don't know what else to do. and then we go deeper into what the body is revealing.
Serge
Yeah, yeah. So the drama, the life drama, revealed itself embodied in that posture. That was the threshold between the trauma being stored and the moment of being able to process it by staying with it.
Glenn
Exactly. You said something earlier I wanted to mention because I think it's very important and right. The trauma isn't just internal or even stored.
It's playing out in the relational embodied field. You see? Continually there, even if we're not aware that is there.
You know what I mean? Because there are so many layers that unfold, right? And if we only pay attention to the verbal content or even the inner feelings, we're not really able to sense the whole pattern dynamic that's playing in.
Serge
Yeah. Yeah. And so what I love about how you describe in this situation is that notion of the ability of the therapist to see something that's hiding in plain sight and to help the client stay with it in a way that we can assist them to it. to complete what's incomplete in it.
Glenn
Yeah, exactly. Because there are two aspects of trauma. One is, of course, the original wounding, right, or abuse. But the second, probably the more sustaining one, is that those traumas, wounds, abuse, abandonment, neglect, violence, whatever, went unheeded. It means nobody cared, paid attention, picked up on the signals, right?
Serge
Yeah, yeah. And so that's where the word heating is very important to you because it's actually that it's there but unheeded. And so the intervention is actually to be able to notice it and heed it.
Glenn
Yes. And when we say heating, it means to let it impact in your viscera, in your body, in your awareness, so that we sense there's a scene here or a being in a scene or a world that's calling out to us from the trauma world into our world here. That's heeding.
Heeding is not meant to me. Heeding will call necessarily for everyday ongoingness, although it can be. That it's most important, if not essential, if not absolutely necessary at these threshold moments.
because that's when everything is, the word exigent means urgent. It's right here, right now. And if we don't heed, and heeding also implies, by the way, three stages, which I think I've mentioned to you before.
One is the first stage is listening and receiving, which we know, we take in. That's like any good reflective listening and receiving. But we're also receiving for the second phase, which is to sense or perceive the scene or the spirit or the being that's calling out to us and what the implied need is or what the incomplete or unfinished gesture or scenario is.
That's the second. And the third and probably most important is we respond and enact that moment together.
Serge
Yeah. And so...
Glenn
Meeting always implies taking action at some point.
Serge
And so that's what's very useful is as you told the story of what happened during the session, we can have the first one, as you said, the listening is obvious. But the second one that perceiving is what happened when the posture of holding her arms and leaning caught your attention so that you saw it not just, oh, this is posture or body language or whatever, but something that is a relational pattern that in some way has not been completed. And so that you saw it as something where it was worth lingering on and allow for the possibility of completion. And then once she had come into contact, into awareness with the abandonment and how it impacted her that third step of you feeling the need for a response and then extending your hands and inviting her to touch your hands so that, you know, so that something that was a very creative moment, you know, playing it out instead of just talking about it or making sense of it in some abstract way.
Glenn
That's right. Yeah. So we can also take those three stages, Serge, and use them this way, which they go together.
The first stage is more like free play. We don't intervene. We don't interrupt. We just let whatever's coming have freedom of space, play, movement, whatever.
The second stage of playing out is when something shows itself as being significant, we invite it to replay, slow down, like when she had the posture, right? That's the playing out. But the third stage is actually the co-play, where she and I together enact or reenact a sequence that was never completed or experienced in order to meet that implied need, right?
Or that missing presence, really.
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
That's the thing. Heating really involves me sensing what's missing, not just what happened, but what didn't happen. And what didn't happen often is the unheated part, right?
Serge
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Glenn
So just as another quick example, real quick, but this is very common also. Someone who didn't have a protector growing up, right, from abuse or violence, right? I may feel called to become that protector, but not just as Glenn, you know what I mean?
Like, I'll protect you. No, creatively, we may do it through a kind of imaginative drama that we go play out or an act together. You know, like one woman who could not stand up for herself, the life of God.
She was just so, you know, had been so traumatized that standing up for herself was dangerous. And so she was in a situation that she couldn't get out of, again, a threshold, and yet couldn't stand up for herself. So I said, just came to me, how about I stand up for you?
And I said, let's go to your office. It was in a work situation. Let's go to your office imaginatively.
And I'm going to be your assistant. And she said, oh, this feels better already. And she started.
And anytime your boss comes in, who's very intrusive, abusive, right, etc. Disrespectful, demeaning. I'm going to say, oh, Sarah is not available. Or knock, knock, oh, I'm sorry, she's busy right now.
Or, you know what, this is not a good time, you're going to have to go away. And we just played, co-played this for several minutes. And she felt in her body, she started crying.
She said, this is the first time anybody ever protects me. No one ever stood up from my whole life. So that was heating the moment.
Serge
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Glenn
In subsequent sessions, we reversed the roles and she became the assistant. So she learned the inside, how to stand up for herself, but in this playful, imaginative way, not in real life. That's too scary, you know, risky, but in the play space. Yeah.
Serge
And so these are great examples. Something that the point that I think it's good to make is we're talking about experiential therapy and experiential therapy, of course, is about paying attention to what you experience and inner experience. But what you're pointing out through these examples is also the creating of experiences that allow people to see the situation and experience situation in a different way. So it's not just experiencing your inner world, but is also something about changing how things could be and seeing how it feels like.
Glenn
Absolutely. In fact, many, many decades ago, there was a psychoanalyst who wrote what he called a corrective emotional experience. And he was a psychoanalyst.
He said, all good analysis involves a corrective emotional experience. And I like that. And that's kind of simple, except we would call it maybe a restorative relational experience or something or an embodied experience where we're actually living through it.
And we take on character. So it changes my perspective, Serge, not just internally, but relationally. In other words, I see my role now as kind of a shape-shifter, meaning I move in relation to what's called sometimes I'm very quiet, silent, welcoming.
Sometimes I'm actively engaged. sometimes we play out a role together or a character you know but these are all like you said to generate the kinds of experiences and that are restorative and and also mostly fulfill
Serge
what the body has been implying for decades really right yeah yeah yeah and so this is about really not just paying lip service to the idea that our experiences are embodied, but actually being able to play with it because it's that mixture of what's happening in the body, what's happening in the relationship, and playing with all of that in order to create a reorienting.
Glenn
Absolutely. And just one other point there, Serge, you know, it also takes, it expands from this notion that things are inward, you know, because, you know, most experiential, focusing, even mindful, reflective work is about our inward connection. And in no way is that unimportant and super important. But it's only half the story. The other half is what comes through the body out of it and what shows itself in the field that may or may not be in awareness, right?
Serge
Yeah.
Glenn
As you know, our gestures, postures, movements, voice tones are often in the background. We don't know they exist. And trauma is embodied as a manner or a way of being, not just an internal storage in the nervous system. It's a full body way of living, relating, engaging. Like the case I shared, the pattern.
Serge
Yeah, yeah.
Glenn
Yeah.
Serge
So that essentially it's not just by the way you observe the body, it tells you something, body posture has a certain meaning or whatever, but is actually an entry point into the centrality of that experience into that particular human being and this being's interactions.
Glenn
Absolutely. Thank you so much. That was lovely.
Serge
Thank you, Glenn.
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