What is NeuroAffective Touch™?
By: Lauren Brdecka, MA, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor & NeuroAffective Touch Practitioner
NeuroAffective Touch® (NATouch™) is a neurologically informed psychotherapy that uses somatic psychology, touch, and body-centered approaches as vital psychobiological interventions (NATouch, 2021). NATouch reaches domains of the person which cannot be reached by talk therapy alone. One of the reasons NATouch is so effective, especially for those who feel they have seen countless therapists with some or little help, or those who feel they can think their way through the therapeutic process with few emotional changes, is due to its “bottom-up” approach to treatment. A “bottom-up” approach to psychotherapy allows for the interventions being used to bypass the higher, reasoning brain and impact the client from the primitive part of the brain. For those who have experienced long-term, chronic, or early childhood traumas, impacting the mind-body from the “bottom-up” is often the only way to make lasting change.
NATouch can address issues that seem to have no words, only feelings - issues and experiences that words can’t seem to describe. This method moved beyond limitations of traditional talk therapy to impact core wounds, reaching nonverbal and preverbal states.
Some of the issues NATouch can address include:
- Abuse and neglect
- Addiction
- Anxiety
- Attachment struggles
- Bridge mind and body
- Depression
- Developmental deficits
- Emotion regulation and calming hypervigilance
- Engage dormant impulses
- Formation of neurological connections
- Grief
- PTSD and CPTSD
- Renegotiate traumas
- Stress and Chronic stress
- Supports alleviation of chronic pain and body aches
Further Reading and Resources:
Damasio, A. The feeling of what happens.
Dana, D. A. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. New York: W. W. Norton.
The Ethics of Touch: https://sohnen-moe.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ET3-table-of-contents-detail.pdf
Heller, L., & LaPierre, A. (2012). Healing developmental trauma: How early trauma affects self-regulation, self-image, and the capacity for relationship. North Atlantic Books.
Levine, P. (2005, 2008) Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body, (book/CD) Sounds True
NATouch (2021) Neuroaffective Touch. Retrieved from https://neuroaffectivetouch.com/
Stauffer, K.A. (2020). Emotional neglect and the adult in therapy: Lifelong consequences to a lack of attunement. London: W.W. Norton
Tantia, J. (Ed). (2021). The art and science of embodied research. London & New York: Routledge.
What is Neuroaffective Touch? https://neuroaffectivetouch.com/about/what-is-neuroaffective-touch/
