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agm banner 2016

Hi PACT members, Here are the details for the upcoming AGM

Date:    Saturday 27th May 2017

Time:   10.00am  Potency Lab
           4.00pm    PACT 2017 AGM
           6.30pm    Dinner (included in cost for those attending Lab and AGM)

Venue:    
Linen Room - Abbotsford Convent - 1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford, Melbourne

Skype:  If you wish to join by Skype, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If your membership has expired please login to the website and renew your membership before registering for the AGM and workshop.

Please note that members can also gather in the following NZ locations where there will be therapist swap sessions and a group Skype to join the meeting:

Papakura:        Lyn Mackay    0
Northland:       Alice Grant    02
Hawkes Bay:    Nadine Vollmerg    

Please call the relevant contact for address details.

If you would like to organise a gathering in your location, please let us know. It would be wonderful to make this a global community event.

 

A total of 6 CPD points will be awarded for members who attend for the day.



________________________________________________________________

The Power of Potency - A Hand's On Lab Session

We are all set to have a day of exploring potency through movement, discussion and hands on sessions.  

We'll start the morning with some gentle Chi Kung (qigong) to wake up our felt sense of potency in the body.  We will use slow, gentle movement and work with intention to open energy gates and encourage the flow of life force.

We will have time to discuss our experiences and understandings of potency before engaging in some hands on table sessions.

There will be time to debrief after the sessions and to further explore the nature of potency and its place in the clinical setting.

AGM
We'll have a brief discussion and workshop some ideas around the future of PACT and how we can continue to improve our services.  Following this will be the official Annual General Meeting at 4:00 pm.

Dinner
Members attending the Potency Lab and AGM are invited to join the Committee for dinner (venue to be advised).


NOMINATIONS

PACT is now asking for nominations for the Executive Officers and committee positions. All current Professional financial PACT members are allowed to nominate a PACT member (who must also be a current professional financial member). Nominations can be made for more than one position. This is your opportunity to become involved in your Professional Organisation and help develop the future of our profession. All help is given to support each committee member and to guide those who are new on the committee. GIVE IT A GO!

The positions available are - Executive officers

Chairperson  Deputy Chairperson  Secretary  Treasurer  Registrar
Please note that the current Chairperson is looking to step down from the committee and the position of Deputy Chairperson remains vacant.
 
Additional Committee members
Up to 5 including a student representative and overseas representative.
 
As part of the committee responsibilities, there will be someone assigned the role of Web Administrator, Post grad coordinator, NZCHP rep, Newsletter writer & Promotional/brochure organiser.

The skills people bring to the committee will determine how these tasks will be apportioned to maximise the skills all members bring to the committee and to share the work around. It should make for an interesting and enjoyable time on the committee. So come and share your skills!
 
All nominations need to be sent to the current secretary
on or before 19 May 2016.
 
Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Body Keeps The Score

 

Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma

By Bessel Van Der Kolk  (Penguin Books Ltd, Paperback, 446pages)

“Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation” (Katie Cannon, p. 184).

 

The connection between trauma and the physical body is of great interest to me, and when I saw this book, I bought it without thinking twice. My heart sank when I realised that the reference list is about 50 pages long and I prepared myself for some dense academic reading. However, I was hooked right from page one. Although the book is full of facts, which are backed up by research, it is very accessible and hard to put down. Personal experiences and many case studies make this book so fascinating and readable.

 

The author, Bessel Van Der Kolk, is a psychiatrist and founder of a trauma centre in Boston. He has been working with victims of abuse, neglect, natural disasters, wars, accidents, human trafficking and assaults for over 30 years. We follow the journey of this remarkable man who tirelessly examines what works and for whom. His work centres on the question: “How can people gain control over residues of past trauma and return to being masters of their own ship?” (p. 3).

 

 

In the late sixties high hopes were put in newly developed pharmaceuticals and many doctors were mostly concerned about how to manage suicidal thoughts and self-destructive behaviour of mental health patients rather than listen to peoples stories. Although trained as a pharmacologist, Van Der Kolk saw the limitations of a purely chemical approach to help people with their post-traumatic responses. Today we know that half of the people who seek psychiatric care have been assaulted, abandoned, neglected or raped as children or have witnessed traumatic events. While drugs can improve traumatised peoples lives, the underlying issues often don’t get addressed. The brain-disease model takes control out of the patient’s hands and puts doctors in charge of fixing their problems.

 

As a young intern on a research ward of a mental health centre Van Der Kolk had the role of a recreation leader. During sports activities he noticed that the patients were clumsy and physically uncoordinated. They also lacked natural flow of gestures and facial expressions during conversations. These were his first observations how trauma is held in people’s bodies.

 

The development of brain-imaging techniques such as MRI, gave scientist the opportunity to visualize the brain as it is processing memories, sensations and emotions. Van Der Kolk was part of a team who studied brain activities of people during flashbacks. One of the participants was a mother, who killed her four-year old daughter in a car crash after running a red light. Although the accident happened 13 years ago, during a flashback her limbic system lit up. In particular the amygdala, which warns us of impending danger and activates the bodies stress response. Her heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen intake went up, the body was ready for fight or flight. At the same time there was a significant decrease of activity in one of the speech centres of the brain, which means that thoughts and feelings cannot be put into words. This area is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply is cut off. The effects of trauma are similar to the effects of physical lesions caused by a stroke. Another area that lit up was in the visual cortex that registers images when they first enter the brain. The mother saw the accident as if it was actually happening. During flashbacks there was very little communication between the emotional brain and the rational brain, which explains that traumatised people may not realise that they are re-enacting the past.

 

Van Der Kolk uses the triune (three-part) brain to explain “the anatomy of survival” (p. 51). The oldest part is the reptilian brain, located in the brainstem. Above is the limbic system and he calls these two parts the emotional brain. The top layer of the brain is called the neocortex. We sense danger through our eyes, ears, nose and skin and these sensations converge in the thalamus (inside the limbic system), which acts as the “cook.” This blended “soup” of sensations is then extremely fast passed on to the amygdala and slightly slower to the frontal cortex. He calls the amygdala the “smoke detector” that picks up danger clues. It triggers stress hormones that get the body ready to response. Van Der Kolk likened the medial prefrontal cortex (located in frontal lobes) to a “watchtower.” This part of the brain makes judgements about the signal from the “smoke detector.”  A balance between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex is important for our relationships with other people. In a traumatised person there is reduced activity of the “watchtower” and they may become enraged by small frustrations, or freeze when somebody touches them.

 

 

Van Der Kolk tells the story of a couple that survived a horrific car crash physically unscathed. Both had become hypersensitive and irritable and, although both were sitting right next to each other, Stan suffered from terrible flashbacks while Ute became numb. Her mind went blank and the MRI scan showed decreased activity in nearly every area of the brain. While Stan was stuck in fight or flight, Ute had shut down. As a last resort the reptilian brain was activated. Often victims that are pinned down during a traumatic event or children that can’t escape from a terrifying caregiver react by shutting down. “Dissociation is the essence of trauma” (p. 66) and has huge implications for the body. It is often overlooked and treatment is more difficult.

 

 

The brain gives us two options of effectively dealing with emotions and stress. Learning to regulate the balance between smoke detector and watchtower can be achieved “from the top down or from the bottom up” (p. 63). Top-down involves talking therapies and re-connecting with others to process memories of the trauma. Bottom-up regulation involves recalibrating the autonomic nervous system, which originates in the brain stem. The ANS can be accessed through breath, movement or touch.

 

When Stephen Porges developed the Polyvagal Theory (Polyvagal refers to the many branches of the vagus nerve) in 1994, the importance of social relationships gave a new insight into trauma. Being able to feel safe with other people is the most important sign of mental health. The social-engagement system involves mostly the vagus nerve. The vagus (wandering) nerve connects to many internal organs, including the stomach, heart and lungs. When the ventral vagal complex is running the show we are calm, centred and feel empathy with other people.

 

During a threat the first level of response is social engagement. We call out for help or assist others during a crisis. If the threat increases the older limbic brain takes over and gets the body ready for a fight or flight response. If there is no way out, an older vagal branch, the dorsal vagal complex gets activated for a freeze response. The Polyvagal Theory is vital for the understanding why more unconventional approaches in trauma treatment work so well.

 

Part three of the book examines trauma in children. Developmental trauma is a hidden epidemic and a study concluded that “eradicating child abuse in America would reduce the overall rate of depression by more than half, alcoholism by two-thirds, and suicide, IV drug use and domestic violence by three-quarters” (p. 148). Van Der Kolk discusses heartbreaking case studies and groundbreaking research. An immunology study on 12 women with incest history revealed that the ratio of RA or ‘memory cells’ (quickly respond to environmental threats they have encountered before) to RO cells (kept in reserve for new threats) was abnormal in comparison to a control group. All incest survivors had a higher proportion of RA cells, which means that their immune system is oversensitive to threat. The cells mount an attack when none is needed. Van Der Kolk noticed that a large number of women with incest history were diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. The traumatic experience of these women not only distorted their perception of threats coming from the outside; within their own bodies they had problems knowing how to feel safe.

 

The last part of the book describes the various ways to recovery, which involves restoring balance between the rational and emotional brains so that people can be in charge of their lives again. In the chapter ‘Befriending the Emotional Brain’, Van Der Kolk explains how we can access the limbic brain. Emotions are registered in the body, around 80% of the vagus nerve fibres are afferent, which means they carry information from the body to the brain. Age-old traditions like breathing exercises, chanting and movement reduced posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in people who did not respond to medication or any other traditional treatments such as talking therapies. Van Der Kolk mentions chi kung, tai chi, aikido and capoeira as examples. These arts require physical movement, breathing and meditation. The effects of yoga for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder have been studied and an entire chapter describes research and efficacy.

 

 

Another way to access the autonomic nervous system is through touch.

Craniosacral therapy and therapeutic massage are recommended as complementary treatments. Mindful touch by a confident and sensitive therapist can be helpful for traumatised people to get to know and trust their bodies again. As another example of body-based therapies, the work of Peter Levine is mentioned. He developed techniques to help traumatised people to complete their actions that were suppressed during an event in order to survive. People realise that it is safe to move and they are able to defend and protect themselves.

 

Re-connecting with other people is another important step in the recovery of traumatised people. Many patients responded well to music, dancing and choral singing. By singing or moving in harmony with other people, we also become physically attuned “and experience a sense of connection and joy” (p. 215).

Van Der Kolk also had great success in the treatment of PTSD with a technique called eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). Interestingly, with EMDR, people may be able heal from trauma without talking about it. Another chapter is dedicated to neurofeedback, which he uses to help with hyperarousal, confusion and concentration problems of people who suffer from developmental trauma.

At the core of recovery is self-awareness and mindfulness. It recalibrates the smoke detector, the amygdala. People become less reactive to triggers. “Imprints from the past can be transformed by having physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness, rage, and collapse that are part of trauma, and thereby regaining self-mastery” (p. 4).

 

Van Der Kolk comes to the conclusion that severely traumatised people require a combination of talk- and body-based therapy and sometimes medication to shut down inappropriate alarm reactions.

 

 

Recent research about the brain’s neuroplasticity is exciting and encouraging. People can change their behaviour, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions.

(Review by Arno Gasteiger)

 

 

Your PACT Committee

Chairperson
Michelle Driscoll
Vice Chairperson
unappointed

Secretary
Hinu Komene
Treasurer
Alice Grant
Registrar (Acting)
Danielle Rowarth
Web Admin
Tim Munro 
Post-Grad Coordinator
Joanna Pittwood
Newsletter Editor
Danielle Rowarth
Committee Members
Deborah Williams
Nadine Vollmerg
Alison Andrews
Rikta Hawkins
Pooja Sreenivasa


POST GRAD COURSES
Post Grad Learning Opportunities
Our member schools, Body Intelligence Training and Stillness Trainings, have a number of post graduate study opportunities coming up in 2016-17.
For courses with 
Body Intelligence please see the website for more details
Biodynamics of Blood
Australia 25-28 August 2016 
Spine, Nervous System and Pain
Sweden 26-28 August 2016 
Heartfulness 
India 29 September-2 October 2016 
Trauma, Embodiment & the Holistic Shift
Canada 15-18 September 2016
The Brain in Depth
UK 6-9 October 2016 
Spine, Nervous System and Pain
USA 27-30 October 2016 
Biodynamics of Blood 
France 24-27 November 2016 
Biodynamics of Blood
Israel 27-30 April 2017
The Brain in Depth
Canada 25-28 May 2017
Pain is Really Strange
Australia 9-12 June 2017
What is Emotion?  Working with the Heart, Belly and Throat 
New Zealand 15-18 June 2017
The Brain in Depth
India 6-9 July 2017


Stillness Trainings
Presence and Being  
August 6- 7 or 15-16 October Australia
For more information about Stillness Trainings please email Stillness Trainings (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

 

News from the Chair

A warm welcome to our new members:
Todd Stewart (NZ), Anne Rainbow (AU), Kate Evans(NZ), Carley Morgan(AU), Sandra Repnow(CA), Sandra Dwyer(CA), Rehano Rao (IN), Struti Pralhad Managol (IN), Pooja Agarwal (IN), Ankita Dhelia (IN), Mark Sephton (AU), Silvana Scungio (NZ), Sarah Rickerby (AU), Vincent Appel (IN).
 
And our new student members:
Susan Smeeton(AU), and Johanna Andreason (AU)
 
Our PACT AGM was held at the Soul Centre in in May and proved to be a great weekend.
 
Angela Wheeler and Rielle Friedrich taught a two day workshop on the vagus nerve called ‘Lost Vagus’ which was very informative and interesting. Ang and Rielle  are wonderful teachers, very professional and clear in their approach. It was great to have so many members participating, and always so good to get together with fellow Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapists.
 
The AGM was held on the Saturday night and it was good to have so many members present, in person and by Skype.
 
We said goodbye to Stacey O’Toole who has worked tirelessly over the past few years as our Registrar and will be greatly missed.

Deborah Williams who has been our dedicated Secretary for some years has also stepped down from her role but happily she will remain on the committee and continue to contribute to PACT.

We are thrilled to have four new members join our team. Hinu Komene has taken over the role of Secretary, and Rikta Hawkins, Pooja Sreenivasa and Ali Andrews have all committed their time and energy to working with us here at PACT.

Thank you to those members who are continuing on in their roles, namely Alice Grant, Tim Munro, Nadine Vollmerg and Joanna Pittwood, and to Danielle Rowarth who has recently rejoined the committee in a paid capacity as acting Registrar and marketing manager.

An acknowledgment also to Lynne McKay, Tanya Pawlick and Sangeetha Bhandari  who do a wonderful job of sending out member’s packs and brochures in their respective countries.
 
This will be my fifth and final year as Chairperson.
 
We have received quite a bit of feedback about our current website and the problems people are having with it. Rest assured we are focusing our efforts on getting the website up to a much higher standard so that it runs smoothly and efficiently and is aesthetically pleasing.
 
PACT’s mission has always been to promote its members and this incredible work that we all do and we will be injecting as much time, energy and funds as possible towards that this year. 


Best wishes, Michelle Driscoll (PACT Chairperson)

Happy, lovely AGM Workshop people

Facebook Advertising for Business - Webinar 

We had only 3 members respond so far.  Unfortunately that's not adequate interest to go ahead.  If you are keen and just haven't responded, please do, or let us know what else you'd like to learn about to help you grow your business and we'll find an expert to run a webinar.  Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  us here, we'd love to hear from you.  


Post Grad Learning Opportunities
Our member schools, Body Intelligence Training and Stillness Trainings, have a number of post graduate study opportunities coming up.  We've listed post grad offerings above.  Stillness Trainings has also offered the following...

Seminar 1 of 13 in the Professional Practitioner Training (PPT)  31 March- 2 April 2017
All PACT members are welcome to apply to attend the full training at a discounted price ($5400 or indiv idual seminars - POA)

Stillness Trainings has the following workshops in the pipeline and are a seeking expressions of interest

  • The Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapeutic Approach to Depression and Anxiety
  • Conversations that Connect
  • Womb Surround Process workshops

For more information about Stillness Trainings please email Stillness Trainings directly

Get Found 
Your membership comes with a free practitioner profile listing on the PACT website.  We've had plenty of feedback over the years that clients do use the website to find practitioners and members often use it to refer clients to practitioners in other locations.

How's your profile listing looking?  Do you have one?  Do you have a great photo of you up there?  Do you need some help to get it going?


The listing is something that you have to create yourself.  If you haven't created one, there won't be one.

We've made a short instructional video to show you how to get your listing up there.  You can find the video by logging on to the members' area of the website.

Our website stats have shown that practitioners with profile pictures get more hits than those without.  So it's worthwhile putting a picture up there.  If you have more than one clinic that you practice from you can put up extra profiles. There's lots of great tips for improving your listing in the video, so have a watch and tell us what you thin k.

PACT Connect 
The PACT community is growing and is reaching further afield.  Please come and join our closed Facebook group to help us grow a sense of community.  The group is for members only and is a great place to share informations, ask questions and to connect with other BCST practitioners and students.  
If you'd like to join please click .



Stories From The Frontline
We'd love to run a series of articles sharing stories of BCST success.  Success for you as a practitioner, what that looks like, how you got there.  Success for your clients... inspiring stories of BCST sessions and how they helped and made a difference.  Send us some positive stories that we can share with this community.  We'd love to hear from you, please send us your story or nominate someone that you think has something to share and we'll interview them (email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
 

The Fulcrum
CSTA is a Craniosacral Association in the UK.  The association publishes a magazine called The Fulcrum three times a year. It is a very interesting and informative magazine and if you are interested in receiving it you can subscribe to it or become a Friend of CSTA and receive The Fulcrum, plus e-newsletters and other information available to CSTA members, at a cost of £25 a year.

For more info  contact the CSTA Administrator, Susanne Wakefield at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


Member Blog
Blog posts and articles are a fabulous resource for practitioners and clients. They also help to spread the word about BCST.  If you have any thing to share with us please send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Doing of Non Doing

“What are you doing?”  “Are your hands moving?”   ;“Are you stretching me?”

I’m not doing anything.

Well, not exactly true. I am doing something, but I’m not doing anything to you.

I’m listening. I’m present. I’m holding. I’m trusting. I’m accepting and not judging. I’m acknowledging your incredible intelligence. I’m trusting that intelligence and your capacity to heal and repair yourself.

I’m doing non-doing.

When I do this, your body responds by showing both of us its story. It shows us its history and what its holding. Together we become witnesses, observers that hold the key to the door that opens the way for a return back to comfort, ease…. to health.

=9 “It feels like someones pulling on my right leg and my left shoulder, it feels like they’re stretching me”

“Can you hear that? There’s cracking in my ears, it feels like my bones are moving”

Out of nowhere intense pain shows up and then images from an event from 20 years ago. A hockey ball to the temple, the story unwinds. The held inertia releases and with it the pain. Other tension in the

body leaves too, tension seemingly unrelated but all a part of the global picture.  read more

 

 

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AGM Details

Date: 14th May, 2016

Time:  5pm

Venue: Soul Centre, 18 Huia Road, Titirangi

All current members are more than welcome and are encouraged to attend.  

 

Please contact Deborah Williams, PACT Secretary, via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) or phone (+64 ) if you wish to join the AGM via a conference call so details can be sent to you closer to the AGM.

Click here to download the Nominations form 

Click here to download the Proxy Voting Form

Click here to download the Agenda

 

vagus nerve

 

 2016 AGM WORKSHOP

Journey to Lost Vagus

with Angela Wheeler and

Rielle Friedrich

14 - 15 May

 

 

 

 The Vagus nerve our longest cranial nerve (CN X), wandering from our cranium to many parts of the body is one of the most extensive neural networks in the body. The vagus is the major contributor of parasympathetic control and in doing so, regulates our stress and trauma response.

Research and specialists in this field (Dacher Keltner, Poges, Levine) have suggested that the vagus nerve plays a large role in communication, emotions like compassion sympathy and gratitude, but also states of trauma, anxiety, depression, autism and more. Working with clients who struggle with anxiety and depression is unfortunately becoming more common. This workshop aims to provide participants with knowledge and skills to better understand the role of the vagus in general health, as well as in these clinical conditions.

From the Chair:

Dear PACT Members

Apologies that it has been so long between newsletters! We haven't had anybody to focus on writing a newsletter for some time, but happily we now have a new committee member, Barbara Short, who is willing to take on the role of Newsletter Editor. So we look forward to bringing you regular, informative newsletters in the future.

Welcome to our new members: 
Rashmi Ajay (INDIA), Mirai Rao (INDIA), Nicky Blackshaw (CAN), Terra Vaughan (CAN), Bhuvaneshwari Lakshminarayana (INDIA), Peter Engmark (DUBAI), Pooja Sreenivasa (INDIA), Scott Oda (AU), Shoba Abraham (INDIA), Bharti Odedra (AU). Karen Lewis (NZ), Megan Ballard (CAN), Yvonne Michaud (CAN), Anita Danson (NZ), Daniela Transchel (CAN), Sian Overfield (NZ), Lynet Anne Craig (NZ), May Nasser (CAN), Susan Herald (NZ), Laura Young (CAN), Dipika Belapurkar (INDIA), Janet Thomas (NZ), Rebecca Linton (AU).

And our new Student Members: 
Matt Daniel (AU), Karin Lingaard (AU), Sarah Rickerby (AU), Chris Skidmore (AU), Carolyn Fox (NZ), Kate Mander (NZ), Tracey Pike (CAN), Lynne Butterworth (NZ), Belinda Silk (NZ).

In May this year the PACT AGM was held in Melbourne for the second year running, and proved to be a great success.

The weekend began with a very informative workshop on working with the TMJ, presented by PACT's Secretary, Deborah Williams. Deborah works in in a dental clinic so has a wealth of experience in this area. All of us who participated came away with so much more knowledge and increased confidence in working with issues involving the TMJ.