The bigger release the less the growth.

I see so many videos of clients screaming and crying from practitioners doing “fascia releases” to their body on social media lately. I see so many people commenting under those posts, “Oh my gosh, I NEED that!!”.

So what’s really going on here?

Firstly, I’m not so sure that the clients in these videos are releasing past traumas. I believe they are responding to the level of pain that is being inflicted upon them there and then during the “treatment”. There is always a huge power differential between a therapist and a client. So it is very, very common for the therapist’s ego to take over and go for the big, forceful, dramatic release and for the client to people please (nervous system fawn response) and do/tolerate everything their therapist does to them . The clients body tenses, their nervous system detecting a threat and wanting to fight against it or run away from it (flight) but not feeling empowered enough to do so, puts a freeze response in place. This all happens subconsciously, in a split second. Then when the procedure is finally over, the freeze completes and the client has a big emotional discharge from the fight/flight response that their system held underneath the freeze. This is not old trauma being released, this is a response to the harm that is being caused right there in the moment.

In the NeuroFascia Approach we teach practitioners how not to merge with their client’s nervous system, so they don’t get into “fix it” mode and try to force releases.

We also teach about how important non-forcing is. The client’s nervous system needs to feel safe enough for the fascia to release. If we try to force the release, the client’s system goes further into protection which is the opposite of helpful. We also teach about “just the right amount”. This concept means the releases should be just the right amount so that the client’s system is somewhat activated and challenged by them but never overwhelmed. When we work with “just the right amount” we are working at the edge of the client’s existing capacity and by working at the edge we can expand a client's nervous system capacity. This expanded capacity means a great tolerance for activation in the future – so that if something activating happens, they are less likely to be overwhelmed and more likely to be able to cope. And possibly even more importantly, we also work to expand the client’s capacity for the good stuff, for joy and vitality.

The big cathartic releases don’t work at the edge of a client’s capacity, the leap right over the capacity into unsustainable overwhelm and very often the client’s system will rebound right back into their old patterns again. Catharsis does not help the client’s system to grow it’s ability to tolerate life’s ups and downs.

Working instead with just the right amount, will grow capacity and truly release old holding patterns in a very sustainable manner.